Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Health services providers today face significant challenges.
Online Challenges For The Medical Profession
Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out smarter ways to promote your practice online.
As well as spending money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that can attract leads, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase their marketing exposure online.
This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.
Another difficult challenge that health or medical organizations (and other professions) face online, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds to give users the information they are searching for or they will leave your 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 The Medical Profession In The Web Economy
As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical or health-related profession that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.
In this detailed guide, you will learn ways to source new potential clients and notice significant improvements in your online results.
As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your medical or health-related business website.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:
- How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Money
- WordPress For Small Business – A Beginner’s Guide To Building A Successful Business Using A WordPress Blog
Useful Tips For Improving Your Website
In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your health or medical website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content you need, suggestions for improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, check out the guide we have written here: Planning Your Web Site - A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners
Essential Web Pages
Professional business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.
Services And Products Description Page
It’s essential to have a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services such as:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery diabetes, cancer, incontinence, renal, endoscopy, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
- Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
- Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, hearing, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, wellness, social development services
- Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, colloidal silver therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, rehabilitation, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.
Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.
Who We Are
This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.
It’s important to also include any industry awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your services and to position yourself above similar service providers.
(List all of your awards accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc. in the About page. Screenshot source: squaremedical.com.au)
Meet The Team
If you are searching for quicker and easier ways to grow your business online, then help prospects 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 people. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your team members on their social networks.
On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your staff member’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add a staff description page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)
If you need help how to add a simple employee directory in WordPress using free WordPress plugins, refer to this tutorial: How To Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site
We’re Hiring
List any job opportunities within the company. This page could include type of training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information about additional career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.
Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.
Case Studies
Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies, you are also helping to establish social proof online.
(Add a page with reviews from clients and case studies. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)
To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and user reviews to improve your business results online, go here: Create Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting Testimonials
Contact Us Page
Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.
It should provide visitors with some or all of the following information about your clinic:
- Name
- Your address
- Telephone
- Facsimile
- Contact email address
- Map and directions
- Website address
- Contact form
- Request for more information – contact details
- Links to social media profiles
- Interactive chat (optional)
If you operate in multiple locations you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.
Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Blog Section
A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as news and announcements, updates, educational articles, discussions on current topics, videos, media presentations, etc.
If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your company.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is very hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your business website and your blog.
Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can begin delivering a stream of web traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.
(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)
You can learn more here:
Legal Info Pages
It’s vitally important to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws and regulations wherever you provide services.
Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your medical or health-related site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health/Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
How To Improve The Content On Your Site
In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Providing great content with useful information, advice and tips will get your visitors sharing your information with others online and coming back for more. Content marketing is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.
For example, if your business provides services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could write about include the following:
- Overweight vs. Obese – what are the differences?
- How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
- Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
- How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
- Etc.
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health or medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Use the same keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients would search 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 that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Improving User Experience
Improving user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.
Content Syndication – RSS Feeds
RSS feeds provide many benefits for your site.
If you provide useful information, other businesses may 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
- your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- RSS feeds can be shared
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- It provides links back to your content
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the 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 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 search online for medical or health-related government departments or respected industry bodies.
Below we have listed a few useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a medical or health-related 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 specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, 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 feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Get feeds on fda-related topics like FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get many health-related news feeds 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 feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
- MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Women’s Health, etc.)
- Medical News Today – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Ovarian Cancer, Pain/Anesthetics, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Hearing/Deafness, Nursing/Midwifery, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Erectile Dysfunction/Premature Ejaculation, etc.)
You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “homecare rss feeds”, “AIDS rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.
(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health-related website’s UX.)
Add Online Checklists & Charts
Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are great client instructional tools.
Forms, charts and checklists could address subjects such as:
- Booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists and charts for specific systems
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
- General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)
Unique Tools
Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your users. Calculators are great tools to add to your website. Others can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.
In the next section, we look at a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your medical site that can also help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.
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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to grow your medical-related web presence.
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