Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

This article explains how to grow your medical or health-related business online and contains useful information on ways to improve the effectiveness of your medical or health-related web presence …

Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

A Practical Step-By-Step Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Medical-Related OnlineThe digital age has not only revolutionised the way business is done worldwide, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and great opportunities for health services providers.

Online Challenges For Health Practitioners

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to spending dollars advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to allocate a greater amount of your marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you gain a wider amount of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

Another challenge that medical or health organizations (and most other professions) face, is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching for or they will look 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 Businesses

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical-related practices that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think progressively about marketing their business better online.

This guide will help you uncover new opportunities to source new bookings and establish online credibility for your medical or health business.

Useful Information

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health or medical-related website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical or health business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your health website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what content works best, navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed step-by-step guide: Planning Your Web Site - A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Basic Pages

All business websites require several essential pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need to have and how to set up your health or medical website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

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

  • Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, pulmonology haematology, oncology, gerontology, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
  • Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
  • Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
  • Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
  • Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
  • Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, radiology and imaging, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
  • Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
  • Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
  • Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, functional medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
  • Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, 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 what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropic activities, etc.

It should also include any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above similar service providers.

List all of your industry awards accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for simple ideas to sell more products online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical or health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow individual staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an invaluable 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 team members to prospective new clients

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

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to add a simple and easy-to-manage list directory of employees to your website without coding skills, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the clinic. This page should include training offered, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical or health-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, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to are also providing social proof for your business.

Add a page with reviews from clients and case studies

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

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online. For more details: Discover How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Sales Boosting Client Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include some or all of the following:

  • Name
  • Physical address
  • Phone
  • Facsimile number
  • Contact email
  • Map
  • Website URL
  • Contact form
  • Name of person to contact
  • Social media links
  • Online chat feature (optional feature)

If you have multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like the latest news, new releases, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established health-related site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your company.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical website is very hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and blog.

Info

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that will help begin attracting targeted visitors to your web site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new traffic automatically to your website

(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more:

Legal Information Pages

It’s vitally important for health and medical services practitioners businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws and regulations wherever you provide services.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your medical-related website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

  • Contact Page
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms And Conditions 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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

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

For example, if you provide solutions that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can cover in your content include:

  • What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
  • How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
  • Incorporating exercise into your busy schedule
  • How to make smarter choices choices when eating out at any restaurant
  • Etc.

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

Idea

Remember to use relevant keywords in your content that 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 easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly 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. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, 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 content updates are in one place
  • your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
  • RSS feeds can be shared
  • RSS feeds allow for subscribing
  • A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
  • Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
  • There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
  • RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing great information on your website from other sites, 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 or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds you could consider adding to a medical-related site:

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “biotech industry rss feeds”, “swine flu rss feeds”, “statins rss feeds”, etc.

Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your website's UX.

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

Add Online Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide visitors with useful information and resources to complete steps. Checklists and forms can also be great educational tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists covering areas such as:

  • Booking appointments
  • Checklists for pre or post surgery
  • Health checklists for specific conditions
  • Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
  • Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
  • General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)
Provide Other Tools

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

In part two of this detailed article, we look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can also help improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

How To Build And Grow A Health Services Website Using WordPress

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to keep reading:

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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum