Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services providers face a number of challenges in today’s online economy, especially in terms of growing a successful presence online.

Challenges Health Businesses Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to promote your practice online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated towards developing and managing a website that can attract prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase your reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

Another problem that health practitioners face, as most professions do for that matter, is that they have only about 30 seconds to give users 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 Health Services

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health-related industry that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think strategically in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about a number of ways to generate traffic and establish stronger 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 (CMS) to power your health or medical-related business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see the articles below:

• Learn How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Prospective Buyers
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Business Online

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Services & Health-Related Site

In this section we will show you how to improve your health or medical website and get better results online. We show you what pages your site needs, what type of content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need help with website planning, check out the article we have written here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

Professional business websites require some basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to structure your health or medical website for best results.

Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, orthopedics endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, gastroenterology, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, 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 services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, x-ray, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, holistic medicine, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, 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 direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to also mention any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and position yourself above the competition.

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is help your prospective clients get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline 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.

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a simple and easy-to-update list of employees or team members in WordPress using a free plugin here: Plugin Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your business. This page can include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can also include case studies of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information about career opportunities in the health industry.

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

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what type of services you offer. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also establishes social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online. For more details: How To Create Better Results Online Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A clean contact page is crucial.

It should provide:

• Company Name
• Address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live chat (optional)

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

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like news, new releases, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an medical or health website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing 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.

Very few people know that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will attract targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

For more details, go here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Attract More Website Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s essential to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your medical or health-related site will help keep you 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 Us
• Privacy Policy
• 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

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

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

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

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

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the areas you could publish content about include the following:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Incorporating exercise into your weight loss program
• Smartphone apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And endless other content topics

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

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (known as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just visit sites of medical or health-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a medical 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 choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, 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 Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, BMJ Heart, TheLancet.com, Occupational Medicine, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), product recalls, tobacco news, 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 - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS 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 select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diabetes, Sexual Health, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Acid Reflux/GERD, Melanoma/Skin Cancer, Swine Flu, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Respiratory/Asthma, Medical Practice Management, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “mesothelioma rss feeds”, “SARS rss feeds”, “premature ejaculation rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical site’s UX.)

Provide Checklists

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and charts are also great client instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover topics such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Provide Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are useful tools to add to your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this guide, we look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To keep reading, click here:

• Grow Your Health Practice Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Visitors

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