Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

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

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and searching for better ways to promote your practice online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., businesses in the medical or health industry are also finding that they will need to designate a more significant part of their budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives new clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps increase their reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and many areas will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health and medical services practitioners face online (as most other professions do for that matter), is that they have around 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching for or they will leave your site.

“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 Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the medical industry that can adapt to meet online challenges and who can think outside the box about marketing themselves better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways to source new potential clients and see significant improvements in your medical or health business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Potential Customers And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow A Successful Small Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section will show you ways to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what content works best for health or medical websites, useful tips for improving your navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All business websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Services And Products Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery hematology, oncology, hyperbaric medicine, rheumatology, endoscopy, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, x-ray, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, colloidal silver therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, reproductive services, speech language therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It’s important to include any business awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Staff

Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to grow your business online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each team 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 an employee description page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-maintain list directory of employees in WordPress without coding skills, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work With Us

List any job or career opportunities within the company. It should include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can also include case studies of graduates who have worked their way up in your organization and information about new career opportunities in the medical or health-related industry.

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

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also helps to provide social proof.

(Add a page to your site with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials and user reviews here: Convert More Visitors Into Prospects With Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is vitally important.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Name
• Street address of premises
• Phone number
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Live chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates from multiple locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as news, updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin delivering a stream of targeted visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

For more details:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Website Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

It’s important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws and regulations wherever you provide services.

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Web Content

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

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

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, minerals, vitamins, fats)
• What calories really are and how they play a role in weight loss
• How to develop a better eating and exercise regime
• What processed foods can sabotage your diet (and healthier choices)
• And many other content topics

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

Remember to use relevant keywords in your content that your prospective clients would search 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help 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.

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

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

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses may 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
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for health-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few RSS feeds you could add to a medical-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, BMJ Heart, TheLancet.com, Toxicological Sciences, 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 - Find many RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related news like FDA drug safety, food safety reports, product recalls, tobacco news, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find 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 RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Oral Health, Sexual Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Stem Cell Research, Pulmonary System, Blood/Hematology, Aid/Disasters, Back Pain, Allergy, Erectile Dysfunction/Premature Ejaculation, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “lung cancer rss feeds”, “orthopedics rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are also great educational tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists covering a range of areas 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, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators are useful tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your health-related site that can also help to improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue, click here:

• Grow Your Medical Center Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation

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