Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed business globally, it has also created difficult challenges and opportunities for the medical-related industry.

Challenges Health Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry 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 web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better market your practice online.

In addition to spending money advertising offline, businesses in the health industry are now also finding that they need to designate a larger portion of their marketing budget to developing and managing a website that can attract leads, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help to give them wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change in time and many areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that medical-related businesses face online, as do most businesses for that matter, is that your site has only about 30 seconds to provide users what they need or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 Medical And Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to health or medical businesses that can evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about ways and opportunities to find new business and build more online credibility for your health-related business.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, useful tips for improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical or health-related website, read this detailed guide we have written: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All business websites need several essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your health or medical website for best results.

Description Of Services

You need a page that describes your services and products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, continence management, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, holistic medicine, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, 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 why they should choose you.

Who We Are

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

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

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online? Then help prospective clients get to know you, your team 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 staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff members on their social pages.

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

(Add a team profile page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple employee directory to your site using free plugins, go here: How To Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Work For Us

List any career opportunities available within your business. It can include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted or encouraged by your organization, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your organization and information about additional career opportunities in the medical or health industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients also provides prospective clients with social proof.

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

If you want to learn more using testimonials, case studies and user reviews to grow your business online, go here: How To Create Better Results Online With Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name
• Location
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat (optional feature)

If your business operates in several areas you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful 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 like announcements, updates, training articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical services.

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that can help drive targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Grow Your Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Information Pages

It’s really important for health services providers organizations to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

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

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

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s ultra-competitive digital economy, the sooner you start to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

You will want to provide useful content with great information, tips and advice that will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the topics you can write about include the following:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to calculate how many calories you burn each day
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. HCG diet, South Beach diet, Nutrisystem diet (what these are, how they work, are they effective)
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthier diet plan
• And many other content topics

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

Remember to use keywords and terms in your articles that your readers will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your 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 user experience.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, 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 feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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, visit sites of medical or health-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), Obesity, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food safety, pet health, foods, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Cancer, Migraine Headaches, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Eyesight, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Dentistry, ADHD/ADD, Flu/Cold/SARS, Men’s Health, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Tuberculosis, 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. “gout rss feeds”, “quit smoking rss feeds”, “restless legs syndrome rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your health site’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can give them useful instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. They are great instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could address topics such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general 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.)

Provide Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your website that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to grow your medical or health-related business web presence.

To view Part Two, click this link:

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

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