Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals today face significant and increasingly difficult challenges created by the online economy.

Online Challenges For Medical Services Providers

Now, more than ever, health and medical services providers must find smarter ways to stand out from their competition and source new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning smarter ways to promote your services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the medical or health-related industry are also finding that they will need to designate a bigger share of their marketing budget to develop and manage a website that brings in prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to create a wider exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change in time and some areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that medical-related organizations face with their websites, and other professions for that matter, is that they have around thirty seconds or less to give visitors what they need 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 And Health Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for medical or health-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think strategically in terms of marketing themselves better online.

In this article, you will discover new ways and opportunities to source more client bookings and improve your business online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health or medical-related website.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, read this article: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

All websites require some basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Your Services

You need to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, orthopedics haematology, oral surgery, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory, weight loss surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, oral health, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, meditation, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive services, speech language therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

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

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It’s important to also list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Team

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products online and get visitors to interact more on your site? Then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health or medical terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight your person’s qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update simple staff directory to your website using a free plugin, refer to this tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee Directory To Your Site

Work For Us

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your clinic. It should include training, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You should also include information about additional career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a web page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also establishes social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews improve your business online here: Improve Your Conversions With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical address
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media links
• Live chat (optional feature)

If your business operates in several locations you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

You can also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content like news and events, new releases, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established medical site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical business.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can help attract targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

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

For more details:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Website Visitors Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s very important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Adding the legal pages below to your website 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 threats and legal inconveniences:

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

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Content

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

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

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you can publish content about include the following:

• What to do before starting any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• The role portion control plays in helping you your weight loss efforts
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords in your content that prospective clients will be searching to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach 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 presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

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

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Allows users to subscribe
• It provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers 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 providing great 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 RSS feeds with useful content just search online for health-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a health 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 select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Quality and Safety in Health Care, PsychiatryOnline Journals, BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, BMJ Archives of Disease, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, recalls, 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 feeds on health-related 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 RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – 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. Alzheimer’s Disease, Men’s health, Chronic Pain, Diabetes, Senior Health, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Caregivers/Homecare, Medical Insurance, Preventive Medicine, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Biology/Biochemistry, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “cardiology rss feeds”, “midwifery rss feeds”, “alzheimer’s rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Provide Online Checklists & Charts

Checklists and charts are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great educational tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists and forms covering a range of subjects such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to users. Calculators 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 number of online tools you can use in your medical or health website using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this article on ways to grow your medical or health business web presence.

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

• Grow Your Health Center Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation

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