Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals today face increasingly difficult challenges created by the web economy.

Challenges Professional Health Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical or health-related practices must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your business online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are now also finding that they will need to designate a bigger portion of their marketing budget to develop and manage a website that brings in prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps give their business wider reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change in time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical or health organizations face online, as do all other businesses for that matter, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds to provide users with what they are looking for or they will go away.

“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 Health & Medical Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the health profession that can evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and think outside the box about improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways and opportunities to generate traffic and see noticeable improvements in your health or medical-related business presence online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your medical business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your medical-related business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Learn Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Buyers
• A Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Small Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Health Practice Site

Let’s start by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, visit this page: A Cost-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Essential Pages

All business websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  need and how to structure your website for best results.

Description Of Services

It’s essential to have a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology haematology, cosmetic surgery, continence management, rheumatology, bariatric surgery, ophtalmology elective surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, hearing, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, natural therapy, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, medical genetics, prosthetics, mobility, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

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 contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

It’s important to also list any professional awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Meet The Team

If you are looking for cost-effective ideas to grow your business online, then make it easier for your visitors to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health or medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. This page should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline your employee’s expertise and 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 source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add an updatable list of staff or team members in your website using a free WordPress plugin here: How To Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within the organization. It can include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include stories of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the health industry.

Include also 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 announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

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

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

To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online, go here: Improve Your Conversions Using Captivating Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

A clean contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should include the following information about your business:

• Name Of Your Business
• Address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype

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

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

Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like events, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can help deliver web traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your website)

For more details, go here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Traffic For Your Business Automatically With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is extremely important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever you provide services.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• 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. Learn more about this here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s highly competitive online business economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing useful content with great information and tips will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to get support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Recovering after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthy diet plan
• Etc.

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

Remember to include the same keywords in your content that your prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable content 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 for your website, search online for health or medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

Here are examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to your website:

• 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 specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Fitness and nutrition, 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 well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, Neuroanatomy, American Cancer Society, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, BMJ Evidence-Based Mental Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, health fraud, product 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 - Get many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Cholesterol, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Sexual Health, Travel Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Headache/Migraine, Pregnancy/Obstetrics, Hearing/Deafness, Heart Disease, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “bacteria rss feeds”, “quit smoking rss feeds”, “hepatitis rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your health or medical-related site’s UX.)

Add Checklists

Checklists and educational charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary steps. Checklists and forms are great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

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

In part two of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical website that can improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this guide on ways to improve your medical or health business web presence.

Click here to read the rest of this guide:

• Online Business Tips For Health Professionals – How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic With Plugins

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