Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals today face an increasing number of challenges created by the web economy.

Online Challenges For Medical Services Professionals

Today, more than ever, medical services professionals must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and generate new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your health or medical services services online.

In addition to spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that will drive new leads, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help to give your business a wider amount of marketing reach online.

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

One other problem that medical or health organizations (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that your site has only about thirty seconds to provide visitors with what they are looking for 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 Health Professionals

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical sector that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and think outside the box when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to drive more web traffic and build more online credibility for your health or medical-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your medical-related business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Prospective Clients And What To Do About It
• Learn How To Grow Your Business With A WordPress Site

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best for medical or health sites, suggestions for improving your site’s navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, visit this page: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Your Products And Services

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology blood disorders, cancer, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, gastroenterology, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, radiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, natural therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive services, stomal therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

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

Remember to also list any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your services and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Core Team

Are you looking for simple ideas to sell more products or services online? Then help your visitors get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health or medical-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each team member’s expertise, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team directory to your site using free WP plugins, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities Page

List any job or career opportunities available within your practice. This page would include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include case studies of recruits who have risen within your business and information about new career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Also include 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 announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients also helps to provide social proof.

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

To learn more about using client case studies and reviews, see this article: Create Better Results Online Using Knockout Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your address
• Phone number
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Interactive chat feature (optional feature)

If you operate from multiple locations you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as news and announcements, updates, educational information, discussions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing health site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your medical organization.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can deliver targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Information Pages

It’s crucially important for professional organizations to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your business is located.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your medical or health website will help keep you 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/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here for a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to publish content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your readers sharing your information online with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about using your products and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could cover in your content include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Dieting pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• Vitamins and minerals that aid in weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your medical or health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients 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 that will show you 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 business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other sites 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing content 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 for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Here are some RSS feeds you could consider adding to your 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 individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Fitness and nutrition, Heart health and stroke, 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 RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, Human Molecular Genetics, American Cancer Society, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products marked as dietary supplements, animal and veterinary news, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get many RSS 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 in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.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, Arthritis, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Prevention & Wellness, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eating Disorders, Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP, Sexual Health/STDs, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Heart Disease, 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 subjects, e.g. “HPV vaccine rss feeds”, “autism rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful information and resources to perform necessary steps. Checklists and forms are great client educational tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Other Tools

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

In part two of this guide, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your website that can help improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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

Click here to access the rest of this guide:

• A Complete Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Medical And Health Center Services Web Presence Using WordPress – Part 2

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