Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals face many new challenges in today’s online economy, especially when it comes to growing their business online.

Challenges Health Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to grow your business online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned towards developing and managing a website that drives prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give them wider 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 even more importantly, the needs of your website may change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical or health-related organizations face online, as most professions do for that matter, is that your site has only about 30 seconds or less to provide visitors with what they are searching for or they will look 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 Medical And Health Services Professionals In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to medical businesses that can evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think outside the box in terms of marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about opportunities to attract new visitors and improve your online results.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Customers
• WordPress In Business – An Online Guide To Growing A Successful Small Business With A WordPress Blog

Tips To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by going over some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best for medical sites, tips for improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this detailed step-by-step guide: A Basic Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

Professional business websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to set up your medical website for best results.

Services Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery blood disorders, plastic surgery, rehabilitation medicine, renal, gastroenterology, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, x-ray, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, lymphedema therapy, speech therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, mobility, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It should mention any business awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your business and set yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for inexpensive ways to sell more products online or get prospects to interact more with your site? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know you and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your team members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your staff member’s qualifications, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to easily add an easy-to-maintain list directory of employees in a WordPress site using a free WP plugin, go here: How To Add An Employee Directory

Career Opportunities

List any job or career opportunities available within your business. This page can include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include case studies of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information about additional career opportunities in the medical 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 announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a web page with case studies and testimonials from past clients also helps to establish social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using client case studies and reviews to improve your business results online here: Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Profit-Boosting Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide the following information:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile number
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat

If you operate in different areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical-Related Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as announcements, new releases, training articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical organization.

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin delivering targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into A Web Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

Having a compliant website is really important. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding the following legal pages to your health or medical-related website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• 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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving Your Content

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

Providing useful content with tips or information will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more content. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

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

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• How to get support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• How to develop an exercise regime you can enjoy and will stick with
• What processed foods can derail your weight loss program (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords in your articles that prospective clients will search to find you online.

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 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 website using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some useful RSS feeds you could add to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, 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 directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, Nutrition Journal, Obesity, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information, food safety, tainted products, drugs, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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 - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Men’s health, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Exercise & Fitness, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Medical Students/Training, Pulmonary System, Blood/Hematology, Preventive Medicine, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Breast Cancer, Alzheimer’s/Dementia, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “depression rss feeds”, “lymphoma rss feeds”, “huntingtons disease rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your medical-related website’s UX.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great client instructional tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical-related website that can help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this comprehensive article on ways to grow your medical or health business web presence.

To continue, click here:

• A Practical Guide To Growing Your Medical And Health Services Website With WordPress – Part Two

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