Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals today face significant and increasingly difficult challenges brought about by the digital economy.

Challenges Medical Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to market your medical or health services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical or health industry are also finding that they will need to designate a larger amount of their budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that will attract new leads, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and help create a wider degree of reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website 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 some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical or health-related businesses face (as do all other businesses for that matter), is that they have an average of 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for 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 Medical And Health Services Practitioners In The Web Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical-related industry that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover opportunities to attract more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

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 business website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

This section covers how to improve your health website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

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

Improving Your Website Pages

All business websites need some essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to set up your medical-related website for best results.

Your Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that lists your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology haematology, maxillofacial surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, optometry elective surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, reproductive services, physiotherapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your services and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Team

Are you searching for ideas to grow your business online or increase user interaction on your site? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons so your visitors can 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 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 staff page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-manage list directory of employees or team members to a WordPress site using a free WP plugin here: Adding An Employee List Directory: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your business. This page would include training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical 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, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to establish social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Powerful Client Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

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

If you operate out of multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

You could also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as announcements, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your services.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is very hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used as both your website and your blog.

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin delivering a stream of targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Web Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important. This is not only important for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached wherever your business is located.

Depending on what services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your medical-related website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

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

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive online business economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competitors.

By committing to providing useful content with information, advice or tips, you will get your readers sharing your web pages with others and coming back for more content. This is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

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

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Comparing different diets, e.g. HCG diet, Raw Food diet, Nutrisystem diet (what these are, how they work, how effective they are)
• 10 tips that will help you avoid late night snacking (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And endless other content topics

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

Include the keywords and terms in your content that readers would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your site 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!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

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

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 updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to 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 for your website, search online for health-related government departments or industry bodies.

Here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Healthy aging, 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. BioMed Central, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery, American Chemical Society, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find feeds on fda-related news like FDA drug safety, food allergy reports, recalls, animal and veterinary news, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• 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 feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Cholesterol, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Digestion, Skin, etc.)
• Medical News Today – 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. Public Health, Immune System/Vaccines, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Hearing/Deafness, Diabetes, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “public health rss feeds”, “preventive medicine rss feeds”, “drug trials rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical or health website’s UX.)

Provide Online Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Checklists and medical forms can give them step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. Forms and checklists are also great instructional tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms and checklists covering topics such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Add Other Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click here to view Part Two:

• A Complete Step-By-Step Guide On How To Grow A Medical Services & Health-Related Business Online Successfully With WordPress – Part 2

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