Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for medical providers.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as spending money advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., businesses in the medical industry are also finding that they need to designate a greater share of their marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that will bring in clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help give them wider exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and some aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical and health services professionals (and most businesses) face online, is that your site has only about 30 seconds to help visitors find what they need or they will go 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 Health And Medical Services Practitioners In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical-related profession that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think progressively about marketing their business better online.

In this article, you will learn about new opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your website, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your health or medical website.

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Customers
• Using WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

This section looks at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best for medical or health websites, suggestions for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

If you need help with website planning, check out the article we have written here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites require a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to structure your medical-related website for best results.

Services Description Page

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology hematology, maxillofacial surgery, aged care, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, x-ray, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, speech therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, mobility, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to also mention any health or medical-related awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and set yourself above the competition.

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

Staff

If you are looking for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is help prospects get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical or health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow your team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your staff member’s qualifications, 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. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add an easy-to-manage list of employees or team members to your website using free plugins, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A Simple Staff List For Your WordPress Site

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your clinic. It could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include information about upcoming 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 this page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also provides social proof online.

(Add a web page with reviews from clients and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

For a detailed article about using testimonials and reviews improve your business online, go here: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Effective User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include the following information:

• Business Name
• Location
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media web addresses
• Chat feature (optional)

If your business operates in multiple locations you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

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

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog can be 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 like news and announcements, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your services.

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic system that can instantly attract targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Generate More Web Visitors For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Information Pages

As a professional business, having a compliant website is very important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever you provide services.

Depending on what services you provide, 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 threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• 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 comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s ultra-competitive online economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By committing to providing useful content with great advice, information or tips, you will get your visitors to share your web pages online with others and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could cover in your content include:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• The role portion control plays in helping you you lose weight
• Hypnosis and weight loss
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords in your content that prospective clients will search for.

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 that will add value to 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 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your user experience (known 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 – Content Syndication

An RSS feed provides many 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 having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with useful content just search online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a health-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Quality and Safety in Health Care, BMJ, TheLancet.com, Journal of Cell Science, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, food allergies, product recalls, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Chronic Pain, Oral Health, Digestion, Skin, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Caregivers/Homecare, Radiology/Nuclear Medicine, Aid/Disasters, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Medical Innovation, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

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

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful information and resources to perform a task. Forms and checklists are also great educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Adding Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications could include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your medical site using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this comprehensive guide on ways to grow your health business presence online.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• Grow Your Medical Center Services Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic

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