Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for health services professionals and financial service providers.

Challenges Professional Health Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, health or medical practices must find smarter ways to remain competitive and source new clientele. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out better ways to promote your business online.

As well as spending money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be allocated to developing and maintaining a website that drives prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you create wider exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and some aspects may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that medical-related organizations face online, as do other professions for that matter, is that you have an average of thirty seconds or less to provide users what they are looking 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 Services Practitioners

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical or health-related industry that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

This article will help you uncover a number of ways to attract new clients and see significant improvements in your business online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your business online, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System to power your medical-related website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• Discover How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Business
• WordPress In Business – The Beginner’s Guide To Growing Your Small Business Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Center Website

This section explains ways to improve your medical website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what content works best, useful tips for improving your navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, go here: Planning Your Small Business Website - A Basic Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

All websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery hematology, cancer, continence management, renal, gastroenterology, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, colloidal silver therapy, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, reproductive services, optical services, neurosciences, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

Remember to mention any medical-related awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to grow your business online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospects get to know you and your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health or medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight your person’s expertise, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-maintain simple employee directory to your website without editing code here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee Directory For Your WordPress Site

Work With Us

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within your organization. It could include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health 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, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to provide visitors social proof online.

(Add a web page with reviews from clients and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you want to learn more using testimonials, case studies and client reviews to improve your business results online, go here: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Online chat feature (optional feature)

If your business services multiple areas you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like news and events, updates, useful articles, opinions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your organization.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can attract targeted visitors to your website, simply by adding new content to your website on a regular basis.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Get More Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information Pages

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

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global business economy, the sooner you begin publishing content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

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

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can cover in your content include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• Advice on ways to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• How to develop an exercise regime you can enjoy and will stick with
• How to curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And many other content topics

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

Include keywords and terms in your content that readers will search for online.

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

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Allows for subscribing
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of medical and health-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), RadioGraphics, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, BMJ Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food allergies, tainted products, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes 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 choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Eyesight, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cardiovascular/Cardiology, Caregivers/Homecare, Compliance, Hearing/Deafness, Bones/Orthopedics, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “stress rss feeds”, “autism rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Add Checklists And Forms

Checklists and educational charts are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. They are great instructional tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Adding Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are great tools you can add to your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we discuss a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

***

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

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Website – Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins & Themes

***

***