Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionized businesses around the world, it has also created growing challenges and great opportunities for the medical or health-related profession.

Online Challenges For Medical And Health Businesses

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better market your business online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to compete with other health or medical-related businesses, you will need to delegate a more significant portion of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that will drive new prospects, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and increase your presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health or medical-related organizations (and most other businesses) face with their websites, is that your site has around thirty seconds or less to provide users what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Services Professionals In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical-related industry that are willing to adapt to meet digital demands and think outside the box when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will discover new ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health or medical-related business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• Learn How To Grow Your Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Practice Site

In this section we will start with the basics and show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for health-related websites, useful tips for improving your site’s navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: How To Plan Your Website: A Basic Primer For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Description Of Products And Services

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology diabetes, plastic surgery, continence management, rheumatology, gastroenterology, optometry emergency surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, restorations, implants, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, natural therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, clinical information, medical equipment, etc.

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

Who We Are

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

It should also include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile

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

People need 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 mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

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

(Add a team profile page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an updatable list of employees in your site without coding skills, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your practice. It should include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health industry.

Also include a positions available section in your 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 And Case Studies

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions With Highly Effective User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should provide some or all of the following information about your practice:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your address
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Live chat (optional)

If your business services multiple locations you want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as news and announcements, updates, educational articles, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your medical business.

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will begin attracting web traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

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

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s extremely important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you provide services.

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

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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive online business economy, the willingness to deliver valuable content free of charge has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

Providing great content with useful information, tips or advice will get your visitors to share your information online with others and come back for more content. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

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

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (carbs, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals)
• How to set realistic, but challenging weight loss goals
• Comparing different diets, e.g. Paleo diet, GI diet, Weight Watchers diet (what these are, how they work, how effective they are)
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers understand your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include the keywords in your content that readers will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving website 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

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide information 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, visit sites of health or medical-related government departments and industry bodies.

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

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, 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 various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Neurophysiology, JAMA & Archives, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, BMJ Tobacco Control, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, health fraud, tainted products, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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) - Get many RSS feeds on health-related topics 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. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.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. Alzheimer’s Disease, Menopause, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Sexual Health, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Urology/Nephrology, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Compliance, Sleep/Sleep Disorders/Insomnia, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “ALS rss feeds”, “orthopedics rss feeds”, “personal monitoring rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your medical-related site’s user experience.)

Adding Online Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Charts and checklists are great client instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of subjects such as:

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

Adding Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools to add to your website. Other tools can include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two of this guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this step-by-step article on ways to improve your health or medical-related web presence.

Click here to continue reading:

• A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing A Health Center Services Website With WordPress – Part 2

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