Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical & Health professionals face many challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing their business online.

Challenges Medical Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical professionals must work hard to stand apart from the crowd and find new clientele. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical or health industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that attracts prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps create a wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health services professionals face online, as most other professions do for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds to give users what they need or they will leave and go 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 Health Practitioners In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health sector that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think progressively about marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about new ways and opportunities to drive more traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your medical or health-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your health or medical-related business website or blog.

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Prospective Buyers And What To Do About It
• Mastering WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the article we have written here: Planning Your Business Website - A Cost-Saving Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Description Of Products And Services

You need a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose and throat, orthopedics endocrinology, plastic surgery, incontinence, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, optometry emergency surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental implants, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, hearing, pap smears, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, reproductive services, stomal therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, mobility, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

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

Remember to include any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your business and to position yourself above your competitors.

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

Team

If you are searching for simple ideas to sell more products or services online, then make it easier for your visitors to get to know, like and trust 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 employees. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical-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 should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff members on their social networks.

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

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

To learn more about how to easily add an easy-to-update list directory of employees in your site using free WordPress plugins, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your practice. It can include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or sponsored by your organization, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have worked their way up in your company and information about new career opportunities in the medical or health-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews 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 establish social proof.

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

If you want to learn more using testimonials and client reviews improve your business online, go here: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is absolutely vital.

It should include some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Name Of Your Business
• Location of consulting practice
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype

If you operate out of several locations you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like announcements, new releases, training articles, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an health or medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your organization.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin driving targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create A Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

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

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

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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global business economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

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

For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the areas you could write about include the following:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• What calories really are and how understanding them aids in weight loss
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

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

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients will be searching to find you 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 you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

Improving your 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 your visitor engagement and user experience.

Add RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view 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 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 loads of useful content just search online for medical-related government departments and industry bodies.

For example, 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. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), CDC USA, The Journal of Physiology, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, health fraud, tainted products, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.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. Alzheimer’s Disease, Menopause, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Senior Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eating Disorders, Pulmonary System, Fibromyalgia, Autism, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Biology/Biochemistry, Erectile Dysfunction/Premature Ejaculation, etc.)

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

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)

Adding Charts And Checklists

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Forms and checklists are great educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To continue reading, click here:

• Your Health And Medical Services Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins And Themes

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