Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical providers today face increasingly difficult challenges thanks to the web economy.

Online Challenges For The Health & Medical Profession

Now, more than ever, medical professionals must work harder and find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective website and searching for smarter ways to market your business online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical industry are now finding that they will need to designate a larger portion of their budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts new leads, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give their business a wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change over time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other problem that health and medical services practitioners (and all other businesses) face, is that they have only about thirty seconds or less to give visitors 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

Online Opportunities For Health-Related Businesses Online

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the medical or health-related profession that can adapt to meet online demands and can think strategically in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn a number of ways to attract new visitors and improve your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your medical web presence, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health or medical website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Growing Your Successful Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best, navigation structure, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, see this detailed step-by-step guide: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need and how to structure your website for best results.

Products And Services Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, pulmonology hematology, oral surgery, neurology, renal, endoscopy, eye diseases elective surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, audiology, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, natural therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, fertility services, stomal therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to 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 contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

This page should also list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your business and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Team

Are you looking for cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online and increase user interaction on your site? Then make it easier for your visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual staff members on their social networks.

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

(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to easily add a simple and easy-to-manage list of staff members in your web site without touching code, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities

List any job or career opportunities available within the business. It would include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical-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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your medical business to provide visitors social proof online.

(Add a web page with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using client testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: How To Create Better Results Online With Sales Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Live chat

If you have different areas you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as events, product releases, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that can help begin to deliver web traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

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

You can learn more here:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Driving More Web Visitors For Your Business Automatically

Legal Information Pages

It’s crucially important for medical practitioners businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Adding the following legal pages to your health or medical site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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 and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. To learn more, go here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips On How To 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 competing businesses.

You want to provide useful content with great tips and information that will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• How to figure out how many calories you burn each day
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• A guide to making the smarter choices choices when eating in restaurants
• And endless other content topics

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

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your content that readers will search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, 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 content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to 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 medical and health-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a medical or health-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, 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 list of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, BMJ Medical Humanities, American Chemical Society, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food safety, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, radiological health, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes 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 feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Cold & Flu, Depression, Prevention & Wellness, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cardiovascular/Cardiology, Acid Reflux/GERD, Eczema/Psoriasis, Pancreatic Cancer, Endocrinology, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “HPV vaccine rss feeds”, “medical devices rss feeds”, “statins rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide step-by-step information and resources to complete a task. Charts and checklists are also great client educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, 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.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to users. Calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue, click this link:

• Grow Your Medical Services And Health-Related Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes That Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation

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