Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed the way business is done worldwide, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for health professionals.

Online Challenges For Health Services Professionals

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry 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 digital presence. This includes having a website and searching for better ways to grow your business online.

As well as investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned to develop and maintain a website that will drive clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help give you a wider amount of marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change over time and many aspects will need to be updated often. This requires having a sound website and content management strategy.

Another problem that health or medical businesses face with their websites (as other professions do for that matter), is that your site has only about thirty seconds to give users what they need or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 And Medical Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical-related profession that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways to attract and engage more visitors and see significant improvements in your health or medical business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical-related website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• Learn Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health Clinic Website

Let’s start by covering some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your health-related website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a health site needs, what type of content works best for health-related sites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this article we have written: The Website Planning Process: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All business websites require several basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Services Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, orthopedics endocrinology, oncology, gerontology, renal, urology, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, hearing, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, food 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, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, reproductive services, rehabilitation, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, 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 why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to also list any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Meet Our Team

If you are searching for quicker and easier ideas to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site, then help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It can include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your person’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 team profile page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add a simple staff directory to your web site with no coding skills required here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities within your practice. This page could include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You should also include stories of recruits who have risen within your company and 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 & Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with case studies and client reviews also helps to provide social proof.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and user reviews go here: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide:

• Name Of Your Business
• Location of clinic
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Chat feature

If your business operates in different locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ page, main pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like news and announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to create more exposure for your services.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can help begin to drive web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

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

For more details:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Generate More Website Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Pages

Having a compliant website is extremely important. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws or regulations wherever you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and 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
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice, information and tips, you will get your visitors to share your information with others online and come back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• How to get support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Remember to use relevant keywords and terms in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for online.

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

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (known as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS feed provides many benefits for your business.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to a health or medical-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 search by departments and select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), RadioGraphics, Journal of Cell Science, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, food allergies, pet health, cosmetics, 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 - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics 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 RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.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. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Eyesight, Travel Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Seniors/Aging, Surgery, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Primary Care/General Practice, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, 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. “ebola rss feeds”, “prostate cancer rss feeds”, “obesity rss feeds”, etc.

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Provide Downloadable Forms And Checklists

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Charts and checklists are great client educational tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could address subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools to add to your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical-related site that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click here to view Part Two:

• The Ultimate Guide To Successfully Growing A Medical Clinic Business Online – Part 2

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