Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only revolutionised businesses worldwide, it has also created difficult challenges and opportunities for businesses in the health-related industry.

Challenges Medical Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out better ways to grow your medical or health services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are also finding that they need to delegate a larger part of their marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that can drive new clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and give their business a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change in time and some areas may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that health services practitioners face with their websites, as most other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds to give visitors what they are looking for or they will go away.

“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 The Health & Medical Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to medical-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think strategically about marketing themselves better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and establish online credibility for your health or medical business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health or medical-related business website or blog.

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow A Successful Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by going over some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical or health website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what content works best for medical or health-related websites, tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, visit this page: How To Plan Your Website - A Basic Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites need some essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Products And Services Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology endocrinology, oral surgery, neurology, respiratory, infection control, ophtalmology emergency surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, oral health, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, natural therapy, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, lymphedema therapy, speech therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, clinical information, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community contributions, etc.

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

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

Core Team

If you are searching for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products online, then help prospects get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each employee’s qualifications, 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 a ‘meet the team’ page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add a simple staff directory in WordPress without using code, refer to this tutorial: How To Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work For Us

List any job or career opportunities within your organization. It would include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the health or medical-related 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, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing social proof online.

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

If you want to learn more about using testimonials and user reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is essential.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Business Name
• Address of business
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Interactive chat

If your business operates in multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as events, updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an medical or health website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your clinic.

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

You may not be aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin driving a stream of web traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Drive More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Information

As a professional business, having a compliant website is crucial. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching local, regional and federal laws or regulations in whatever area or location you provide services.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. For more info, see this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

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

Provide useful content with tips and information that will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• What is fiber and how can it help you with weight loss?
• Is weight loss surgery right for you? (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use the same keywords in your content that your readers will be searching to find you 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 site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses will 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 in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS 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 the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable 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 useful RSS feeds just search online for medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, 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 well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. PhysiologicalReviews, Bionet RSS, TheLancet.com, Neurology.org, BMJ Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 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) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, product recalls, foods, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: 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.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Menopause, Cold & Flu, Depression, Senior Health, Skin, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Medical News 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. Eating Disorders, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Emergency Medicine, Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy, Dyslexia, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “vascular rss feeds”, “gastroenterology rss feeds”, “ear, nose and throat rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. They are also great client instructional tools.

You can provide a range of checklists and forms (or links to these) covering topics such as:

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

Unique Tools

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

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

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This is the end of section one of this guide on ways to improve your health or medical business presence online.

To continue, click this link:

• Grow Your Health Practice Website – Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic Using Plugins & Themes

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