Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the medical or health-related industry.

Challenges Medical And Health Professionals Face Online

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 an active presence online. This includes having a website and searching for better ways to market your business online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to designate a greater portion of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that will bring in clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website 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 frequently updated. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical services practitioners face with their websites (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that they have an average of thirty seconds to give users the information they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 & Medical Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for health practices that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will discover new opportunities to increase web traffic and see noticeable improvements in your online results.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see these articles:

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Customers
• The Complete Guide To Growing Your Business With WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Health Practice Site

We’ll start first by reviewing the basic stuff. 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 works best for medical-related websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, see this article: A Comprehensive Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Basic Pages

Professional websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to structure your website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

You need a page that explains your services and products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology diabetes, plastic surgery, aged care, respiratory, gastroenterology, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, functional medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, 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 the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

It’s important to list any medical or health-related awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Our Team

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online, then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each team member’s expertise, how they add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a team profile page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-update simple employee directory to WordPress using free WP plugins, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment

List any job or career opportunities within the clinic. This page should include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include information about upcoming career opportunities in the 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, join your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you are also helping to will also be establishing social proof online.

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

For a detailed article about using testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online, go here: Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using Engaging Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a functional contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should provide:

• Company Name
• Address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat

If your business services different locations you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like news and events, new releases, educational information, informative posts, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that will help begin to deliver targeted visitors to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Get More Traffic For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you provide services.

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 legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms 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 website. For more details, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive global business economy, content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.

You want to provide useful content with tips and information that will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more content. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, success rates)
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• Etc.

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

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that your readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for 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 completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

If you provide information 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 content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• A feed provides links to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for health and medical-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few feeds you could add to a health or medical-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, 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 RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), American Cancer Society, 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 - Find many health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like consumer health information updates, food allergies, pet health, drugs, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places 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 RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Migraine Headaches, Oral Health, Senior Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Depression, Swine Flu, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Epilepsy, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “anaesthetics rss feeds”, “respiratory rss feeds”, “personal monitoring rss feeds”, etc.

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

Provide Online Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful information and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Checklists and forms are also great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools to add to your website. Others would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we take a look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can also help improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your health web presence.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• How To Successfully Grow A Health And Medical Clinic Services Website With WordPress – Part 2

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