Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health & medical professionals today face a growing number of new challenges created by the web economy.

Challenges Medical Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, health and medical services practitioners must find smarter ways to remain competitive and source new clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for smarter ways to promote your business online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned to develop and maintain a website that will attract new clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase their marketing reach 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, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that health businesses (and all other professions) face with their websites, is that your site has only around thirty seconds to give visitors the information they are looking 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 Providers

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the medical-related industry that are willing to evolve to meet online demands and who can think strategically in terms of marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover new opportunities to generate traffic and create noticeable improvements in your business presence online.

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

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

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Business Online

Tips To Improve Your Medical Site

This section looks at ways to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, go here: The Website Planning Process Explained - A Cost-Saving Primer For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need several basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Description Page

You need to include a page that explains your products and services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology diabetes, oncology, gerontology, renal, weight loss surgery, ophtalmology elective surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, radiology, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, fertility services, speech language therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community projects, etc.

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

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

Core Team

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online or get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospects get to know your business better.

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

In this page, make sure to outline each employee’s experience, 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 staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an updatable simple team members directory in your website with no coding skills required here: How To Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. It should include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have worked their way up in your company and information about new career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you will also help to provide social proof online.

(Add a page to your site with client reviews and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects With Powerful Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

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

• Name Of Your Business
• Your address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat

If you have different locations you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You should also include links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as the latest news, updates, educational articles, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established medical or health site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your medical practice.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin delivering web traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

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

Legal Information

It’s really important to make sure 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 you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Adding the legal pages below to your health or medical site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• 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
• etc.

To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By providing great content with advice, information or tips, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more content. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if you provide services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, vitamins, minerals, fats)
• How to calculate how many calories you burn each day
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And many other content topics

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

Use keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

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

If you provide valuable content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits 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 many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of health-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds you could add to a medical site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), BMJ Medical Humanities, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, American Institute of Biological Sciences, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food safety reports, pet health, foods, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - 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 major news publications 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 feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Menopause, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Eyesight, Heart, 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. Schizophrenia, Headache/Migraine, Depression, Autism, Bones/Orthopedics, Breast Cancer, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “lymphedema rss feeds”, “deafness rss feeds”, “medical practice management rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health or medical site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and medical forms are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide users with useful information and resources to perform a task. Forms and checklists are great instructional tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Unique Tools

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

In part two of this detailed guide, we take a look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click here to continue:

• Your Medical Services And Health-Related Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic To Your Website Generation With WordPress Plugins

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