Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed businesses globally, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and great opportunities for health businesses.

Challenges Health And Medical Firms Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also develop an active web presence. This includes having an effective website and learning smarter ways to grow your health services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the health or medical industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be delegated towards developing and managing a website that attracts clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to increase their marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change in time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that health services providers (and most other professions) face online, is that your site has only around 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what they are searching for 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 Health And Medical Services Professionals In The Online Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to medical or health practices that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and can think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover new opportunities to drive more traffic and create significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your health or medical-related website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health business website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Center Website

Let’s start by reviewing the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages your site needs, what type of content works best, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, read this detailed guide: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of basic pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, nephrology endocrinology, maxillofacial surgery, gerontology, respiratory, colon/rectal surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, x-ray, gynaecology, MRI scanning, 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, couples, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, reiki, meditation, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, reproductive services, rehabilitation, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, community health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community projects, etc.

Remember to list any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and to set yourself above the competition.

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

Our Team

If you are searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online or get people to stay longer on your site, then help prospective clients get to know you 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 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 your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each team 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 page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed tutorial about how to create and add a directory of staff members to your site without coding skills, go here: How To Create A Simple Staff Directory For Your WordPress Site

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. It can include training offered, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical industry.

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

Testimonials And Case Studies

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

(Add a web page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you would like to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online, go here: Achieve Better Results Online Using Highly Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should include:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Interactive chat

If your business operates from multiple locations you should make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

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

Add A Health Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news, product releases, useful articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your medical practice.

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can begin attracting targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

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

If you would like to learn more here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Web Visitors Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s vital for health and medical services professionals businesses to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws and regulations in whatever area you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, 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 Links Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more about this go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, the sooner you begin publishing great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competitors.

You will want to provide great content with information, tips and advice that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

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

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, minerals)
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• Vitamins and minerals that aid in weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include keywords and terminology in your articles that 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 or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

Improving website user experience (known as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your business.

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

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
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits 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 RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for medical-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of feeds you could add 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 select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, Nutrition Journal, American Cancer Society, Occupational Medicine, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, 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
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, health fraud, product recalls, cosmetics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. 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 news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Prevention & Wellness, Hearing, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Stem Cell Research, Vascular, Medical Insurance, Conferences, COPD, Biology/Biochemistry, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “medicaid rss feeds”, “respiratory rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

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

Provide Forms And Checklists

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. They can also be great client instructional tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• 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, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Other Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can also help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To view Part 2, click this link:

• Your Health Website – WordPress Plugins That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors

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