Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed the way business is done around the world, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for the health profession.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, medical-related businesses must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and find new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning smarter ways to grow your practice online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to delegate a greater share of your budget to develop and manage a website that brings in prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you gain a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that health or medical organizations face online (and other professions for that matter), is that your site has only about 30 seconds to help visitors find the information they need or they will leave and 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

Opportunities For Health Businesses In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health-related industry that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn new ways to attract new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your medical-related business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your medical or health-related business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), go here:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Money
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Small Business With WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Medical Clinic Site

This section explains how to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results. We show you what pages a health-related site needs, what type of content works best, ways of improving layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health or medical website, go here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All business websites require several essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Description Page

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery hematology, oncology, incontinence, respiratory, urology, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, radiology, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, functional medicine, yoga, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should choose you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

Remember to list any professional awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to grow your business online or increase user interaction with your site, then help your prospective clients get to know your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an updatable list of staff members to your website without messing around with code, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. It could include type of training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and new 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to provide social proof for your business.

(Add a web page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and reviews improve your business online. To learn more about this go here: How To Create Better Results Online With Standout Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following information about your center:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile number
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat (optional)

If your business services different locations you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, useful pages, booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as news, updates, educational articles, informative posts, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established medical or health site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your medical company.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical-related website is very hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and business blog.

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

If you would like to learn more about this here:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Website Traffic For Your Business Automatically

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important for professional businesses to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your medical or health-related site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site. To learn more, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.

You want to provide great content with useful information, advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your web pages with others online and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the topics you can cover in your web content include:

• Being overweight vs. being obese – what are the differences?
• What are calories and how understanding them helps in weight loss
• How to develop a better eating and exercise plan
• Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include the keywords and terms in your articles that readers will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving user experience (known as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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 online
• Allows users to subscribe
• It provides links to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing content 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 RSS feeds with useful content for your website by visiting sites of health-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of feeds you could add to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Quality and Safety in Health Care, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), The Journal of Immunology, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food allergies, recalls, foods, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pregnancy, Sexual Health, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News 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. Schizophrenia, Dentistry, Medical Insurance, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Nutrition/Diet, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “pregnancy rss feeds”, “nursing rss feeds”, “restless legs syndrome rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Forms and checklists are great client instructional tools.

You can provide a range of checklists and forms (or links to these) covering areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we take a look at a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to improve your medical business web presence.

Click here to continue:

• How To Grow A Medical & Health Center Web Presence – Part Two

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