Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health providers today face many new challenges brought about by the digital economy.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Face Online

Today, more than ever, medical or health businesses must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clients. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your health services online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the health or medical-related industry are now finding that they need to allocate a bigger share of their marketing budget to developing and managing a website that will attract clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and give their business a wider degree of marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change in time and many aspects will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical or health organizations (and other professions) face, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching 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 Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health sector that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will discover a number of ways to generate traffic and improve your business online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your health business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Potential Buyers And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Business Using A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips To Improve Your Health Center Site

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

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed step-by-step guide: The Web Site Planning Process: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

It’s essential to have a page that lists your products and services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology blood disorders, oral surgery, hyperbaric medicine, respiratory, bariatric surgery, ophtalmology day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

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

It’s important to mention any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Team

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online? Then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

People need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow individual team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each person’s experience, 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 an employee description page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to add a simple and easy-to-update simple employee directory in your web site without using code here: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the organization. It could include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Maintain a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also establishes social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and user reviews get better results online here: Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely vital.

It should include:

• Company Name
• Address of business
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype (optional)

If your business operates in several areas you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact info.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like events, new releases, useful information, opinions and discussions, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin delivering a stream of targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s very important for health services practitioners organizations to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your health-related site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions 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 site. You can learn more about this here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, committing to the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

By providing great content with advice, information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if you provide solutions that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• What are calories and how understanding them helps in weight loss
• Comparing different diets, e.g. Atkins diet, South Beach diet, Weight Watchers diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, are they effective)
• How to curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• Etc.

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

Remember to include 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for 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 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (known as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Adding RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

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

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

• All of your 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
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, 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 health or medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

For example, here are some feeds you could add to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog 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. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. Nucleic Acids Research, Human Molecular Genetics, RadioGraphics, Neurology.org, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, 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 topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food allergy reports, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, cosmetics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news 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.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Arthritis, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Sexual Health, HIV, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP, Eczema/Psoriasis, Autism, Endocrinology, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “lung cancer rss feeds”, “asthma rss feeds”, “restless legs syndrome rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical-related website’s user experience.)

Provide Online Charts & Checklists

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Forms and checklists are great educational 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 surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Online Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed article, we will be discussing a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your health or medical-related website that can improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this article on ways to improve your medical-related business online.

To view the rest of this article, click this link:

• Your Medical Services And Health Practice Website – WordPress Plugins That Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Visitors To Your Site

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