Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Medical or Health professionals face many challenges in the digital economy, especially when it comes to growing a presence online.
Challenges Health Services Providers Face Online
Today, more than ever, medical services practitioners must find smarter ways to stand apart from the crowd and generate new clients. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your business online.
In addition to spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to designate a bigger part of your marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that can bring new prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help you create wider exposure online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-developed website and content management strategy.
Another challenge that health organizations face online (as most professions do for that matter), is that your site has only about thirty seconds or less to provide users with what they are looking for or they will go elsewhere.
“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
Online Opportunities For Medical Services Practitioners
As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to medical or health practices that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and think strategically about marketing their services better online.
This comprehensive article will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to source more client accounts and establish online credibility for your health-related business.
As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your health or medical web presence, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health or medical-related business website or blog.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:
- Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
- How To Grow Your Business Using WordPress
Ways To Improve Your Website
This section covers how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages a health or medical site needs, what content you need, tips for improving your layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need additional information about website planning, see this article: Planning Your Web Site - A Cost-Saving Primer For Business Owners
Your Web Pages
All websites require several basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your need to have and how to set up your health or medical-related website for best results.
Services And Products Page
It’s essential to include a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page can include services such as:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, pulmonology endocrinology, oncology, hyperbaric medicine, rheumatology, bariatric surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, oral health, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, wellness, social development services
- Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, holistic medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
- Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, stomal therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.
List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.
About Us
This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community events, etc.
Remember to also list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your business and position yourself above similar service providers.
(List all of your awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in the About Us page. Screenshot image source: squaremedical.com.au)
Meet The Team
If you are looking for ways to sell more products or services online, then help your prospects get to know you, your team and your organization better.
You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.
In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s expertise, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add an employee page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)
To learn more about how to add a simple and easy-to-update simple team members directory to WordPress using free WP plugins, see this tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills
Career Opportunities Page
This is a listing of job opportunities within the company. This page would include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include case studies of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information about additional career opportunities in the medical industry.
Maintain a positions available section in this 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
Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you are also helping to establish social proof online.
(Add a page with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
If you want to learn more using case studies, testimonials and reviews to grow your business online, go here: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions With Effective User Testimonials
Contact Us
Having a functional contact page is absolutely vital.
Your contact page should provide:
- Name Of Your Business
- Location of clinic
- Telephone
- Facsimile number
- Contact email
- Map
- Website address
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media URLs
- Chat/Skype
If you operate from several areas you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.
You should also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Add A Health Or Medical Blog
A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like announcements, product releases, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an existing health or medical website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your clinic.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is very hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and your blog.
Very few businesses know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin driving an ongoing stream of new targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)
Go here to learn more:
Legal Info Pages
It’s vital to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being contravened wherever you do business.
Depending on the services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your health or medical site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- 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 detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website
Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website
In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.
You will want to provide great content with useful information, advice and tips that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your services.
For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you could write content about include:
- What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
- How to figure out how many calories you burn each day
- How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
- Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
- And many other content topics
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Use the same keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching to find you online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving your site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.
Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds
RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.
If you provide useful content, other sites will want to syndicate your content.
Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:
- All of your updates are in one place
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Can be shared
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- A feed provides links to your content
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great information on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
You can find many useful RSS feeds by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.
Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a health or medical-related website:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can search by departments and choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, European Heart Journal, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, drugs, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- UK Department Of Health (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 - Find many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
- MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Migraine Headaches, Oral Health, Digestion, Heart, etc.)
- Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Acid Reflux/GERD, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Flu/Cold/SARS, Endocrinology, Cleft Palate, Cancer/Oncology, etc.)
You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “ADD rss feeds”, “neuroscience rss feeds”, “premature ejaculation rss feeds”, etc.
(RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)
Adding Checklists
Adding checklists and charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete necessary tasks. They are great client instructional tools.
Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover areas such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for pre or post treatment
- Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
- General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)
Unique Tools
Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.
In the next section, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your health or medical website using WordPress plugins that improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part 1.
Click on this link to view Part 2:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)