Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical & Health professionals face many challenges in today’s web economy, especially in terms of growing a business presence online.

Challenges Health Practitioners Face Online

Today, 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 and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to market your services online.

In addition to spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be directed to develop and manage a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps you gain a wider amount of exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and some aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that medical organizations (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that you have only about 30 seconds or less to provide visitors with what they are looking for or they will leave and 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 Health And Medical Services Practitioners In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to medical businesses that can evolve to meet online economy challenges and who can think outside the box in terms of marketing their business services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new opportunities to attract new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your health or medical business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical or health website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Clients
• Using WordPress To Grow Your Small Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Services & Health Practice Website

In this section we will show you ways to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best for medical-related sites, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, go here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s review these.

Products And Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery endocrinology, plastic surgery, geriatric medicine, renal, colon/rectal surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, yoga, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, stomal therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

Remember to also include any industry awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Team

Are you searching for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products or services online and get people to interact more with your site? Then make it easier for your prospects to get to know your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each person’s experience, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily add an updatable simple team directory to a WordPress site using a free plugin here: Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To WordPress

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your practice. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical or health industry.

Include also 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 your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also establishes social proof.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

For a detailed article about using testimonials and client reviews get better results online, go here: Discover How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Powerful User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name
• Physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates from several locations you want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

You could also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered 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 giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve both as your business website and business blog.

Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can attract targeted visitors to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s crucially important to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you do business.

Depending on the services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your health site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• 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 comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Learn more here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to publish content on your site, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

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

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you can cover in your content include:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• How to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• How to make smarter choices choices when eating out at any restaurant
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical or health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your content that your readers would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips 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 business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view 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 site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website, search online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that 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 search by departments and select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. BioMed Central, Bionet RSS, European Heart Journal, Current Psychiatry, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food allergies, recalls, foods, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many 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 places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Menopause, Migraine Headaches, Diet & Weight Management, Eyesight, HIV, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Pulmonary System, Lymphology/Lymphedema, Body Aches, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Dyslexia, Genetics, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ADHD rss feeds”, “mental health rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can give them useful information and resources to complete steps. Checklists and charts are also great educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are great tools to add to your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed article, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your medical-related site that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to keep reading:

• Online Business Tips For Medical And Health Services Providers – WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic To Your Business Generation

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