Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals today face increasing challenges.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Now, more than ever, health and medical services providers must work hard to remain competitive and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your medical or health services services online.

As well as investing dollars advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., businesses in the medical industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be directed to develop and manage a website that drives new leads, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and creates wider marketing reach online.

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

Another challenge that health or medical-related organizations face (as do most professions for that matter), is that you have around thirty seconds to help users find what they need or they will find what they are looking for 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 The Medical Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to health or medical-related businesses that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy demands and think progressively when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

This detailed guide will help you uncover ways to attract and engage new visitors and improve your online results.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health or medical website, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health or medical business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Learn Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Understanding WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Essential Pages

All websites require some essential pages. Let’s discuss these.

Your Services And Products

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology blood disorders, cancer, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, bariatric surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, medical imaging, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, natural therapy, meditation, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

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

It’s important to mention any professional awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and to set yourself above the competition.

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

Your Staff

If you are looking for ways to sell more products or services online or get people to stay longer on your site, then help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust your business better.

People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in medical or health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow your team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your staff member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily add an easy-to-update directory of staff or team members to WordPress using a free WordPress plugin here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List To Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within the clinic. This page would include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the 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 announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides social proof.

(Add a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using testimonials and client reviews, see this article: Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

• Business Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile number
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business operates in different areas you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as news and events, new releases, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your medical organization.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin delivering a stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

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

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Drive More Website Visitors For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s vital to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help you stay 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 Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions 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
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

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

For example, if your business provides solutions that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could write about include the following:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure permanent weight loss
• Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
• Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Remember to use specific keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website 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 (known as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

RSS Feeds

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

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses will 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 kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable information on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are some examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that 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. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, 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 RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, The Psychiatrist, BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, The Journal of Physiology, The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), product recalls, vaccines, blood and biologics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (www.gov.uk) – 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) - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news 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. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Menopause, Migraine Headaches, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Vascular, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Body Aches, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Tropical Diseases, Medical Practice Management, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “surgery rss feeds”, “conferences rss feeds”, “ear, nose and throat rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical site’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and medical forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to perform necessary steps. They are great instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could include topics such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other applications could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this step-by-step article on ways to grow your medical business online.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Website – WordPress Plugins That Can Help Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic

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