Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created many challenges and great opportunities for businesses offering medical or health services.

Challenges Professional Health And Medical Services Practitioners Face Online

Today, more than ever, health businesses must work harder to remain competitive and find new clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning better ways to grow your practice online.

As well as spending money advertising offline, businesses in the medical industry are also finding that they need to delegate a larger part of their marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that will drive new prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to create wider reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that medical-related businesses face with their websites (as all other professions do for that matter), is that they have around 30 seconds to give users what they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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 many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for medical businesses that can evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and can think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.

The article below will help you uncover new opportunities to attract more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your medical-related business online, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your health or medical business website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Small Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by reviewing the basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages a health or medical-related website needs, what content works best for health-related sites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

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

Improve Your Web Pages

All websites require some essential pages. Let’s go over these.

Products And Services Page

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and products. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose and throat, pulmonology hematology, maxillofacial surgery, aged care, renal, bariatric surgery, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, radiology, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, colloidal silver therapy, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, speech therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to 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 your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

This page should include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your services and set yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online, then help your prospects get to know, like and trust 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 staff. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow some of your team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each staff member’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add a simple and easy-to-manage list of staff members to your website using a free plugin, go here: Adding A Staff List Directory: Plugin Tutorial

Work For Us

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within your organization. This page could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include information about additional career opportunities in the medical or health-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 the page, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online. For more info, see this article: Create Better Results Online Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Online chat feature (optional)

If your business operates out of multiple areas you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You should also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like news and announcements, new releases, training information, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established health site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your medical company.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin to attract web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

As a professional health or medical services practitioner, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws and regulations in whatever area you do business.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• 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.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

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

By providing useful content with great information, tips or advice, you will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about your business and services.

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• Easy portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Hypnosis and weight loss
• 3 tips that will help you curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• Etc.

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

Include keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will search for.

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

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 loads of useful content just visit sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.

Here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could add to a medical or 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 search by departments and choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, food allergies, product recalls, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.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, Menopause, Chronic Pain, Depression, Eyesight, Travel Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Abortion, Fertility, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Conferences, Endocrinology, Epilepsy, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “melanoma rss feeds”, “children’s health rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your health-related website’s UX.)

Provide Online Charts And Checklists

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with useful information and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and forms are also great instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of areas 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, oral hygiene program, cosmetic 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 ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical-related site that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to continue:

• Online Business Tips For Medical Practitioners – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Generating More Web Traffic

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