Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

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

Challenges Health Professionals 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 maintain a strong presence in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective website and searching for smarter ways to market your health or medical services services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health or medical businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be assigned towards the development and maintenance of a website that will drive new clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase your reach online.

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

Another challenge that health or medical organizations face, as most professions do for that matter, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds to give visitors the information they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing many challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the health-related industry that are willing to adapt to meet digital challenges and can think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about new opportunities to drive more web traffic and create significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical business website or blog.

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

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Business – An Online Guide To Growing Your Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Medical Services And Health Clinic Site

In this section we will start with the basics and show you ways to improve your medical or health website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a health or medical site needs, what type of content works best for medical sites, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, visit this page: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to set up your website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

It’s essential to have a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can include services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, incontinence, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, hydrotherapy, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, fertility services, optical services, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

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

This page should also mention any business awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Team

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products online, then something you can do, is help your visitors get to know you and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. A 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 familiar with health or medical terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each staff member’s expertise and 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 staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add a simple staff directory to WordPress without touching code, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your organization. This page should include training offered, benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your business, etc. You should also include information about new career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include 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 you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what type of services you offer. Adding a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also helps to provide potential clients with social proof.

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

We have written a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews get better results online. You can learn more about this here: Discover How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is vitally important.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live chat (optional)

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

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news, updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your services.

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin to attract new visitors to your site, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vital. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being broken wherever you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• 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.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. For more details: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

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

For example, if your business provides products that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, how to identify yours)
• Tips for developing portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• How to curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers understand your medical or health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use the same keywords and terms in your articles that 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your 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 Engagement And User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your 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.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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 useful RSS feeds just search online for medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

Here are some feeds you could add 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 also choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, BMJ Medical Humanities, BMJ Journal of Clinical Pathology, BMJ Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, food safety reports, product recalls, tobacco news, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness & 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 select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Prevention & Wellness, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Seniors/Aging, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Veterinary, Nursing/Midwifery, Cleft Palate, Medical Practice Management, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ebola rss feeds”, “menopause rss feeds”, “ear, nose and throat rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can provide users with step-by-step information and resources to get necessary steps performed. They are great client educational tools.

You can provide forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools to add to your website. Others can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to build your medical web presence.

To view Part 2, click here:

• A Practical Guide On How To Successfully Grow Your Medical & Health Services Web Presence With WordPress – Part Two

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