Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business worldwide, it has also created difficult challenges and great opportunities for medical-related businesses.

Challenges Medical Services Providers 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 more involved in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having a website and searching for smarter ways to market your services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be directed towards developing and maintaining a website that brings in prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you create wider exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and many areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another problem that health and medical services practitioners face with their websites, as do other businesses for that matter, is that you have an average of thirty seconds to help visitors find 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

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to health-related practices that are willing to evolve to meet online economy demands and think outside the box about marketing their business better online.

The guide below will help you uncover a number of ways to find more potential clients and see noticeable improvements in your business online.

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 to power your health or medical business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see the articles below:

• Learn Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Business
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Health Center Site

Let’s start by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your site needs, what type of content works best for medical or health-related websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  should have and how to set up your website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

It’s essential to have a page that lists your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology hematology, oral surgery, aged care, renal, weight loss surgery, eye diseases operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, radiology and imaging, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, speech therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, sleep therapy, 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 these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community activities, etc.

This page should list any medical or health-related awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Team

If you are looking for simple ways to sell more products online, then something you can do, is help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It can also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your team members on their social networks.

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

(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain list of employees to your web site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities Page

List any job or career opportunities available within your company. This page would include training, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted or sponsored by your business, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

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

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

To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Meaningful Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should include the following information about your business:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat feature

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

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health or medical-related site 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 business website and your blog.

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that will begin to drive web traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more:

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

Legal Information Pages

It’s very important to ensure they 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 no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever you practice.

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

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. For more details, go here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Providing great content with useful information, tips and advice will get your visitors sharing your information with others online and coming back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How small efforts in portion control can help your weight loss efforts
• Tips for developing a better eating and exercise plan
• What salad dressings can ruin your diet (and healthier choices)
• And many other content topics

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

Use keywords and terms in your articles that your readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show you 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 strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, 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
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just search online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a health-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. ACS Publications, Neuroanatomy, American Cancer Society, BMJ Archives of Disease, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, health fraud, pet health, cosmetics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various 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 feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.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. Allergies, Men’s health, Neurology, Diabetes, Exercise & Fitness, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Immune System/Vaccines, Pregnancy/Obstetrics, Hearing/Deafness, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Sports Medicine/Fitness, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “hospice care rss feeds”, “endocrinology rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform steps. Charts and checklists can also be great instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists can include areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

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

In the next section of this guide, we will be discussing a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your website that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To view Part Two, click here:

• Your Health Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Visitors With WordPress Plugins

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