Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionised businesses worldwide, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the medical or health sector.

Challenges Health And Medical Services Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical and health services professionals must find smarter ways to stand out from their competition and source new clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your practice online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy medical businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated towards developing and maintaining a website that will bring new clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase your presence online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change over time and some areas will need to be updated often. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that health or medical-related businesses face with their websites, as other professions do for that matter, is that they have only around 30 seconds to help visitors find the information they are searching for 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

Opportunities For Medical And Health Services Practitioners In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical-related sector that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and can think progressively about marketing their business services better online.

This detailed guide will help you uncover opportunities to generate web traffic and establish online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical-related business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, go here:

• Discover How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Potential Buyers And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Small Business With WordPress

Ways To Improve Your Medical Center Site

Let’s start by reviewing the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a health or medical website needs, what type of content works best for medical or health-related sites, your navigation structure, etc.

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

Essential Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to set up your health or medical website for best results.

Your Services

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, nephrology diabetes, plastic surgery, incontinence, renal, infection control, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, optical services, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and why they should choose you.

About Us Page

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

Remember to also include any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you looking for simple ideas to sell more products online and get visitors to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight your employee’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 source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in your web site using a free WP plugin, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Career Opportunities

List any job or career opportunities available within your practice. It can include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have risen within your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical industry.

Maintain 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 updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you will also help to establish social proof online for your business.

(Add a page with case studies and testimonials. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. For more info, see this article: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Knockout Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Location
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature

If you operate from several areas you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, product releases, training articles, opinions and discussions, educational videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can begin attracting an ongoing stream of new visitors to your website, simply by adding content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive web traffic automatically to your website)

If you are interested in learning more about this here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your medical or health website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• 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
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s highly competitive global economy, content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing useful content with information, tips and advice will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could cover in your web content include:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure permanent weight loss
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• A guide to making the smarter choices choices when eating out at any restaurant
• Etc.

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

Include the keywords and terminology 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 teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your 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 Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, 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 in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable information on your site from other websites, 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 relevant government departments or industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of useful RSS feeds you could add to a health-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, 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 leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, BMJ, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, BMJ Tobacco Control, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, food safety, product recalls, drugs, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Eyesight, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Schizophrenia, Fertility, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Irritable-Bowel Syndrome, COPD, Nutrition/Diet, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “ovarian cancer rss feeds”, “sports medicine rss feeds”, “MRI rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and charts are great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could include topics such as:

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

Adding Online Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we look at a number of online tools you can use in your medical site using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click on this link to read the rest of this article:

• The Complete Guide On How To Successfully Grow A Medical-Related Website – Part Two

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