Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed business globally, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for medical and health services providers and financial service providers.

Challenges Professional Health Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective website and figuring out smarter ways to market your business online.

As well as spending dollars advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy medical or health-related businesses, you will need to assign a bigger portion of your budget towards the development and management of a website that brings in prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and gives you a wider amount of marketing exposure online.

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

Another challenge that health organizations face with their websites (as other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has only about 30 seconds or less to help visitors find the information they need or they will find what they are looking for 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 Practitioners

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

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover ways to attract more client bookings and establish online credibility for your 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-related website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• Discover How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Potential Customers And What To Do About It
• WordPress And Small Business – An Online Guide To Growing Your Small Business With A WordPress Blog

How To Improve Your Website

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

If you need specific help with website planning, read this detailed guide: Planning Your Business Website: A Comprehensive Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to set up your medical or health-related website for best results.

Description Of services And Products

You need a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology hematology, reconstructive surgery, aged care, respiratory, weight loss surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, hearing, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, functional medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, optical services, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, community health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to 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 choose you.

About Us

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It’s important to include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your business and position yourself above the competition.

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

Your Team

Are you looking for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products online and increase user interaction with your site? Then help your prospective clients get to know you and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. 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 specialties mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each team member’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add an easy-to-maintain list directory of employees or team members in WordPress with no coding skills required here: Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities within your organization. It could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include stories of graduates who have risen within your business and information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include 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.

Case Studies

Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies, you will also help to are also providing visitors social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using client testimonials and user reviews to improve your business results online here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Standout User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A clean contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Business Name
• Physical address
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Online chat feature (optional feature)

If you operate out of several locations you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical-Related Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like announcements, updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your company.

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that will deliver a stream of targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create An Automated Web Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vital to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• 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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve Your Content

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

Providing useful content with tips, information and advice will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

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

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to set realistic, but challenging weight loss goals
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terminology 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. 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) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.

Use RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide useful content, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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
• Feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable content 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 many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for health and medical-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are some useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• 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 RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. PhysiologicalReviews, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, Radiology, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related news and topics like consumer health information updates, food safety reports, tainted products, drugs, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health) – 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 many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Digestion, HIV, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Public Health, Seniors/Aging, Compliance, Cholesterol, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Breast Cancer, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “stress rss feeds”, “AIDS rss feeds”, “weight loss rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical site’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide visitors with step-by-step information and resources to complete necessary steps. Forms and checklists are great instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists and forms (or links to these) covering a range of subjects 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, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to users. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we look at a number of online tools you can use in your medical-related site using WordPress plugins that can also help improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to grow your health business presence online.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• A Practical Guide On How To Successfully Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Business Online – Part 2

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