Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical and health services practitioners today face significant challenges.

Online Challenges For Medical Services Providers

Today, more than ever, health and medical services practitioners must work hard to remain competitive and source new clients. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your health services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed to developing and managing a website that attracts prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you create wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and some areas may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

One other difficult challenge that medical businesses face with their websites (as do most professions for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to provide visitors with what they are searching for or they will go away.

“Websites have evolved into central information hubs where service information is still present but enhanced with web portals, hyperlinks to state and federal sites, and a variety of free tools.”

Michael Alter, http://www.accountingweb.com/technology/accounting-software/tips-for-improving-your-website

Opportunities For Medical And Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for medical-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet digital challenges and can think outside the box about improving their online business marketing skills.

This article will help you uncover opportunities to attract new visitors and create significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health or medical-related business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Business – An Online Guide To Growing A Small Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by going over some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, ways of improving your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

All business websites require several essential pages. Let’s review these.

Description Of Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery endocrinology, plastic surgery, continence management, rheumatology, urology, eye diseases emergency surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, hearing, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, wellness, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, natural therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, fertility services, speech therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

Remember to also mention any health-related awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and set yourself above other competitors.

(List all of your industry awards certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Screenshot source: squaremedical.com.au)

Meet Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker and easier ideas to grow your business online? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your employee’s experience, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an updatable simple team members directory to your web site with no coding skills required, see this tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within the business. It would include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. You can also include case studies of graduates who have risen within your organization and information about career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your medical site to provide social proof online.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a comprehensive article on using testimonials and reviews improve your business online here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Interactive chat feature

If your business services multiple areas you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like the latest announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing health site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your medical services.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your business website and your blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin to attract targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive new traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s crucial to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws and regulations wherever your practice is located.

Depending on what services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more about this: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, committing to the practice of content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.

By committing to providing great content with advice, information or tips, you will get your readers sharing your web pages online and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide solutions that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• Easy portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Tips for developing an exercise regimen you can enjoy and will stick with
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthier diet plan
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include the keywords and terminology in your articles that readers would search to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide useful information, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides links to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by searching online for relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, RadioGraphics, Radiology, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. consumer health information, food allergy reports, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, vaccines, blood and biologics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (www.gov.uk) – Latest news: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health.atom
• The Department Of Health (Australian Government): http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/xml/rssLatestNews.xml
• Department Of Public Health (Australia – State Level): e.g. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Neurology, Depression, Prevention & Wellness, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cardiovascular/Cardiology, Dentistry, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Cholesterol, Transplants/Organ Donations, Cleft Palate, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “nuclear medicine rss feeds”, “heart disease rss feeds”, “wearable technology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Add Checklists

Checklists and explanatory charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to get necessary steps performed. Checklists and charts are great client educational tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists, charts and forms (or links to these) covering a range of subjects such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other applications would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your health website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue, click this link:

• Your Health Website – Improving SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins

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