Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals face many new challenges in today’s web economy, especially when it comes to growing a business online.

Online Challenges For Health Practitioners

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning smarter ways to grow your business online.

In addition to investing money marketing offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be delegated towards the development and management of a website that brings new clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps create a wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and your website layout 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 many aspects will need to be updated frequently. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical practitioners face online (as do other professions for that matter), is that they have an average of thirty seconds or less to give users what they are searching for or they will leave the site.

“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 In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the health sector that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and think progressively when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn new ways to generate new business and establish online credibility for your medical or health-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your medical business website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Business Using A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Practice Site

Let’s start by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content works best for health or medical-related sites, ways to improve your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical website, go here: How To Plan Your Business Web Site - A Basic Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites require a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to set up your medical website for best results.

Description Of Services

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery endocrinology, cancer, incontinence, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, reproductive services, stomal therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, 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 the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to also list any industry awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Meet The Team

Are you looking for cost-effective ideas to grow your business online? Then help visitors get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each team member’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills and knowledge contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-update simple team directory in your website with no coding skills required, see this tutorial: Tutorial: How To Add An Employee Directory

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your company. This page should include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include information about additional career opportunities in the health 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, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also helps your medical or health-related business to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: Achieve Better Results Online With Awesome User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat (optional feature)

If your business operates out of several locations you should make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

You can also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as news, product releases, useful articles, informative posts, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an health website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your medical clinic.

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

You probably don’t know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin attracting a stream of web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

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

For more info, see this article:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being breached in whichever area or location you provide services.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. To learn more, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competitors.

Providing useful content with information, advice and tips will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about your services.

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

• Overweight vs. Obese – what are the differences?
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure lifetime weight loss
• How you eat your food is just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
• Etc.

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

Remember to use the same keywords and terms in your content that readers will be searching to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

Improving user experience (known as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide useful content, other sites 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 and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits 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.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, 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. BioMed Central, BMJ, RadioGraphics, Occupational Medicine, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), product recalls, drugs, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places 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 choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Colorectal Cancer, Headache/Migraine, Medical Insurance, Neurology/Neuroscience, Men’s Health, Breast Cancer, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ADHD rss feeds”, “medical innovation rss feeds”, “weight loss rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Forms and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists can cover areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your medical or health website that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your health-related business presence online.

To continue reading, click here:

• A Practical Guide On How To Grow A Health & Medical Center Business Online – Part 2

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