Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical professionals face many new challenges in the digital economy, especially when it comes to growing their business presence online.

Challenges Professional Health Services Providers 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 maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health or medical businesses, you will need to allocate a bigger amount of your budget to develop and maintain a website that brings in prospects, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps give your business wider reach online.

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

Another problem that medical or health-related businesses face, as do most professions for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds to give visitors what they are searching for or they will go away.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical sector that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover ways to generate more traffic and improve your online results.

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

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

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Customers
• Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business Online

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your health-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

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

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need several basic pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, neurosurgery endocrinology, cancer, geriatric medicine, respiratory, urology, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, oral health, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive services, occupational therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

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

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

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

Staff

Are you searching for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to grow your business online? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know you and your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not that well-versed in medical or health terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each team 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 team profile page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily add an easy-to-update list directory of employees or team members to your site with no coding skills required, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site: Plugin Tutorial

Work For Us

List any job or career opportunities within the practice. It could include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the health industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also establishes social proof online.

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

We have created a comprehensive article about using testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more info, see this article: Convert More Visitors Into Prospects Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with the following:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat (optional)

If your business operates in different locations you should make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

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

Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news and events, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin driving a stream of new visitors to your website, simply by adding new content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

For more details, go here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your Website Into An Automated Web Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

Having a compliant website is crucial. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever your practice is located.

Adding 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 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 Links Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Web Content

In today’s ultra-competitive global business economy, the sooner you begin to publish good content on your site, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Provide great content with useful advice, information and tips that will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• How to get support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• How to make right choices when eating in restaurants
• And many other content topics

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

Use keywords and terminology in your content that readers will search 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 that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality 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 completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Experience

Improving user experience (generally referred to 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.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide valuable information, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website, visit sites of health or medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your 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 individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), ADA (American Diabetes Association), Neurology India, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food safety, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many 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 in places 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 choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Oral Health, Senior Health, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – 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, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Sexual Health/STDs, Pancreatic Cancer, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Dyslexia, Clinical Trials/Drug Trials, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “eating disorders rss feeds”, “swine flu rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Online Forms

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Charts and checklists can give them step-by-step information and resources to perform necessary steps. They are also great instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists can address topics such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Provide Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools 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 useful tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we take a look at a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view Part 2, click this link:

• A Practical Guide On How To Grow Your Health Center Website – Part Two

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