Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical practitioners today face a number of challenges.

Online Challenges For Health Businesses

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 your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and searching for smarter ways to promote your practice online.

As well as spending dollars marketing offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now finding that they need to delegate a greater amount of their budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives new prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps give their business a wider marketing exposure online.

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

One other problem that health professionals (and other businesses) face with their websites, is that you have an average of 30 seconds to give visitors the information they need 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

Opportunities For Medical Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for medical or health practices that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think outside the box about improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new ways to generate web traffic and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your medical or health-related website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Discover How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Business
• WordPress For Small Business – An Online Guide To Growing Your Successful Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

This section will show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content works best for medical websites, your layout and navigation, etc.

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

Essential Web Pages

All business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s review these.

Your Services And Products

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, pulmonology endocrinology, plastic surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, respiratory, colon/rectal surgery, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, restorations, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellbeing, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, reproductive endocrinology, stomal therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, 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 what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It should mention any industry awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and to position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ways to sell more products or services online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know you and your business better.

People need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight each employee’s qualifications, how their skills add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff description page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to create and add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff members to your site using free WP plugins, see this tutorial: How To Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities

List any job opportunities available within your practice. This page could include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. It should include information about career opportunities in the 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 the page, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

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

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

To learn more about using testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions With Awesome Client Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is vitally important.

It should provide the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile number
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business operates in different areas you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news, updates, training information, discussions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin attracting a stream of targeted visitors to your web site, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Generate More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Information

It’s really important for professional businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being broken wherever your practice is located.

Adding the following legal pages to your health website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• 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
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global business economy, the ability to deliver valuable content free of charge has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

Providing great content with useful information, tips or advice will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, vitamins, minerals, fats)
• Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• Smartphone apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your health or medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include keywords and terminology in your content that readers will be searching for 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 that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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!

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving your user experience (known 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.

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide useful content, other businesses 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 in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the 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 valuable 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 many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for medical and health-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some feeds you could add 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 select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, European Heart Journal, BMJ Journal of Clinical Pathology, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get RSS feeds on fda-related topics like criminal investigations, FDA drug shortages, tainted products, tobacco news, 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 - Find various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Cold & Flu, Depression, Senior Health, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Seniors/Aging, Sexual Health/STDs, Sleep/Sleep Disorders/Insomnia, COPD, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “aging rss feeds”, “gynecology rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and medical forms can provide users with useful instructions and resources to perform a task. Checklists and charts are great instructional tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this detailed article, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of part one.

To view Part 2, click here:

• Grow Your Medical & Health Clinic Services Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins

***

***