Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical and Health professionals today face a growing number of challenges.

Online Challenges For Health Practitioners

Now, more than ever, health or medical businesses must work harder to stand apart from the crowd and obtain new clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing dollars marketing offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now finding that they need to delegate a more significant part of their budget to develop and manage a website that will drive prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to give their business wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change over time and many aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that medical and health services providers face, as other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has only around 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what they need 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

Opportunities For Medical & Health Businesses In The Online Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the medical sector that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will learn ways and opportunities to generate traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business
• How To Grow Your Small Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health Site

Let’s start by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your medical or health website and get better results. We show you what pages your site needs, what type of content works best for health sites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

Professional websites need some basic pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Your Services And Products

You need to include a page that lists your services and products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology haematology, reconstructive surgery, gerontology, renal, infection control, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, oral health, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, speech therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, clinical information, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community activities, etc.

It’s important to also list any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your business and to position yourself above your competitors.

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

Our Team

Are you searching for ways to sell more products or services online and get visitors to interact more on your site? Then help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected staff members on their social networks.

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

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add an easy-to-manage list directory of employees or team members in your web site without touching code here: How To Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Recruitment

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. This page should include training offered, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information about career opportunities in the health or medical industry.

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

Testimonials & Case Studies

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

(Add a page with case studies and testimonials. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article on using testimonials, case studies and user reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions With Captivating User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Street address of premises
• Phone number
• Fax
• Email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Online chat

If your business operates out of several locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like news and announcements, new releases, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical practice.

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

Something not many businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can instantly attract a stream of web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Web Visitors Automatically

Legal Information Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is very important. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being broken wherever your business is located.

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

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

Go here if you would like to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with useful tips, advice and information will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you could write about include the following:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

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

Include keywords in your articles that your prospective clients will search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide useful information, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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

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

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

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some feeds you could add to your website:

• 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 feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, 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 feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Rheumatology, JAMA & Archives, BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, American Chemical Society, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, tainted products, 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) - Get many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Asthma, Neurology, Diabetes, Exercise & Fitness, Women’s Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Stem Cell Research, Headache/Migraine, Compliance, Preventive Medicine, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Medical Innovation, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “abortion rss feeds”, “irritable-bowel syndrome rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Adding Online Checklists

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and medical forms can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Charts and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could include areas such as:

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

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other applications can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part 2 of this guide, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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

Click on this link to continue reading:

• The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Health Center Website – Part 2

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