Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical & Health professionals today face significant and increasingly difficult challenges created by the digital economy.

Challenges Health & Medical Firms Face Online

Today, more than ever, medical or health businesses must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive and generate new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., 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 budget need to be delegated to developing and maintaining a website that brings in prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you create wider exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change over time and some aspects may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that medical or health businesses face with their websites, as other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to provide users with what they are looking for or they will look 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 & Health Professionals

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

The guide below will help you uncover opportunities to attract new visitors and establish online credibility for your medical or health business.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Business
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Small Business

Ways To Improve Your Health Center Website

Let’s start by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this detailed step-by-step guide: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need some basic web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology hematology, reconstructive surgery, continence management, renal, endoscopy, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, hearing, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, functional medicine, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, fertility services, optical services, inherited diseases, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community services, etc.

It’s important to include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your services and set yourself above your competitors.

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

Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online, then make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your employee’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

For a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a simple staff directory in a WordPress site, go here: Adding A Staff List Directory: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within the organization. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health-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 the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you are also helping to are also providing prospective clients with social proof online for your business.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using More Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is crucial.

It should provide visitors with the following:

• Company Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Live chat

If your business services multiple areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

You can also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic system that will help begin delivering a stream of targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

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

If you would like to learn more about this here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Generate More Website Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

It’s very important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached wherever you practice.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms 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 site. To learn more, go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s ultra-competitive global business economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Providing great content with useful information, tips or advice will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to calculate how many calories you consume each day
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. Low carb diet, South Beach diet, Nutrisystem diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, how effective they are)
• 10 tips that will help you avoid late night snacking (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• Etc.

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

Include keywords in your articles that your prospective clients will search to find you 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 you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

Improving your 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 user experience.

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your site.

If you provide content that adds value to others, 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 content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing great content on 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 useful content just visit sites of health or medical-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• 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 choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Pregnancy, 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. The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), American Association of Neurological Surgeons, BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, Toxicological Sciences, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information, food safety, recalls, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Chronic Pain, Diet & Weight Management, Digestion, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Medical Students/Training, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, Eczema/Psoriasis, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Diabetes, Tropical Diseases, Statins, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “abortion rss feeds”, “SARS rss feeds”, “liver disease rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide step-by-step information and resources to complete a task. They are great client instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• 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.)

Provide Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to grow your health or medical-related business online.

To continue, click here:

• The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Health Practice Online – Part 2

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