Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionized the way business is done around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for medical or health businesses.

Online Challenges For Health & Medical Businesses

Today, more than ever, medical services providers must find smarter ways to remain competitive and source new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out better ways to promote your health services online.

In addition to spending dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that attracts new clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps give their business a wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change in time and some aspects will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical organizations face with their websites (as do most businesses for that matter), is that you have around thirty seconds or less to provide 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 Health And Medical Professionals

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical profession that are willing to evolve to meet online economy challenges and who can think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

This detailed guide will help you uncover new opportunities to attract more clients and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

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

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Prospective Customers
• An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we will show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, read this guide: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Pages

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

Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, orthopedics diabetes, reconstructive surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, rheumatology, gastroenterology, ophtalmology day surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, oral health, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, holistic medicine, meditation, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, reproductive endocrinology, stomal therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community projects, etc.

Remember to also mention any professional awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and to position yourself above your competitors.

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

Staff

If you are searching for cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online or increase user interaction with your site, then help prospects get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each employee’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an 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. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to your website using free plugins, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee Directory For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities

List any job or career opportunities within the practice. It could include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or sponsored by your business, etc. It should include case studies of recruits who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the health and medical 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

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

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

If you want to learn more about using client testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Engaging Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information about your consulting practice:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media links
• Live chat feature (optional)

If your business services several areas you should make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog

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

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to create more exposure for your company.

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

Something few people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can attract web traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your website)

For more info, see this article:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Web Visitors Automatically

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws or regulations wherever you do business.

Adding the legal pages below to your site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. For more details, go here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to engage in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

By providing great content with useful advice, information or tips, you will get your readers to share your information and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the areas you could cover in your content include:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• How to set realistic, but challenging weight loss goals
• Hypnosis and weight loss
• Apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers understand your health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use the same keywords and terminology in your content that prospective clients will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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 To Improve User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

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

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

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable information on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

For example, here are some examples of feeds you could add 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 search by departments and choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Violence against women, 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, BMJ, Stem Cells, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, health fraud, pet health, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: 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.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Mental Health, Chronic Pain, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Pulmonary System, Eczema/Psoriasis, Swine Flu, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Allergy, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “viruses rss feeds”, “SARS rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your health or medical website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and charts can provide useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Checklists and forms are great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Provide Online Tools

Providing unique online 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 some of the most popular tools for your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that can improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• How To Build And Grow A Medical Services And Health-Related Website Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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