Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionized businesses around the world, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the medical industry.

Challenges Health And Medical Services Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical services providers must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and find new clients. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community you serve, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and searching for smarter ways to grow your services online.

As well as investing dollars marketing offline, businesses in the medical or health industry are now finding that they need to assign a larger amount of their marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to create wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and some aspects will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health or medical-related organizations face with their websites, and most other businesses for that matter, is that your site has only around 30 seconds to give visitors the information they are looking 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

Online Opportunities For Health And Medical Professionals

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical or health profession that are willing to adapt to meet online demands and who can think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

In this guide, you will discover ways to attract and engage more visitors and see significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health or medical website.

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

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Potential Clients And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Small Business Online Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, go here: How To Plan Your Small Business Website: A Practical Blueprint For Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

Professional websites need some essential web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services And Products Page

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, orthopedics endocrinology, maxillofacial surgery, aged care, rheumatology, infection control, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, oral health, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, occupational therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

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

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical donations, etc.

Remember to include any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above the competition.

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

Your Staff

Are you looking for inexpensive ways to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to create and add a list directory of employees in your WordPress site with no coding skills required here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. This page would include training offered, benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and 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, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also helps your medical or health website to establish social proof.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a detailed article on using testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Knockout Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a functional contact page is crucial.

It should include some or all of the following information about your clinic:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat (optional feature)

If your business operates in several areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as the latest announcements, updates, educational articles, informative posts, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical-related website is very hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and blog.

You may not know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin to deliver new visitors to your website, simply by adding content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Information Pages

As a professional health or medical services practitioner, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is essential. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened in whichever region you service.

Depending on the services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your medical or health website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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 detailed article on adding legal pages to your site here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

Provide great content with information, advice or tips that will get your visitors to share your web pages online with others and come back for more. Using content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the areas you could cover in your content include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (carbs, proteins, vitamins, minerals, fats)
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure sustainable weight loss
• Incorporating exercise into your weight loss program
• How to avoid late night snacking (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords in your content that readers will be searching to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your site 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!

Improving User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide valuable information, other sites 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
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content by visiting sites of health and medical-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some 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 search by departments and choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), ADA (American Diabetes Association), RadioGraphics, Occupational Medicine, 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 (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like criminal investigations, food allergy reports, recalls, tobacco news, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diet & Weight Management, Senior Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Fertility, Health Insurance, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Bones/Orthopedics, Mental Health, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “stress rss feeds”, “veterinary rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and explanatory charts are a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. They can also be great client instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of topics such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

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

In the next section of this guide, we take a look at a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can also help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this guide on ways to build your health or medical-related business online.

Click on this link to continue:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Medical Services & Health-Related Website Using WordPress – Part 2

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