Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed business globally, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and great opportunities for businesses offering medical services.

Online Challenges For The Health Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and searching for better ways to grow your medical or health services online.

In addition to spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other health or medical businesses, you will need to invest a larger portion of your budget towards developing and managing a website that can bring in clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase your marketing exposure online.

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

Another challenge that medical or health organizations face (as most other professions do for that matter), is that your site has around 30 seconds to provide users 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 Medical & Health Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health practices that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover a number of ways to generate traffic and improve your business online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your medical business website or blog.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Learn How To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health Clinic Site

This section will show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best for health websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed guide we have written: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All business websites need several essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Products And Services Page

It’s essential to have a page that lists your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics haematology, cosmetic surgery, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, endoscopy, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, oral health, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, meditation, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive services, optical services, neurosciences, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community projects, etc.

Remember to also include any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Staff

Are you looking for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your visitors to get to know your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each team member’s qualifications, how their skills contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a team profile page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an updatable simple team members directory to WordPress using a free plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Career Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities within the clinic. This page can include training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include stories of trainees who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and 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 contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to provide social proof for your business.

(Add a page to your site with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a comprehensive article about using testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online here: Achieve Better Results Online Using Knockout User Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is vitally important.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Business Name
• Address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Chat (optional feature)

If you operate in multiple locations you should make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

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

Add A Medical-Related Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content like news and events, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an medical or health site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your company.

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

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin to attract web traffic to your website, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Attracting More Web Traffic For Your Business Automatically

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is crucial. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• 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
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s ultra-competitive global economy, the ability to deliver valuable content to visitors at no cost has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses selling similar products or providing similar services.

By providing useful content with great information, advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your information with others online and come back for more content. Publishing content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if your business provides solutions that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could publish content about include the following:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• 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 informative articles that will help your your readers understand your medical or health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use the same keywords and terms in your articles that your readers will be searching for online.

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 show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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 completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’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 UX.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

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

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
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to 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 loads of useful content for your website, search online for medical-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a medical site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), Human Molecular Genetics, Neurology India, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, food allergies, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, cosmetics, 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 - Find various 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 feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Cold & Flu, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Sleep, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Abortion, Stroke, Sexual Health/STDs, Swine Flu, Bones/Orthopedics, Allergy, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “drug resistance rss feeds”, “plastic surgery rss feeds”, “MRI rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)

Provide Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful information and resources to complete necessary tasks. They are also great client educational tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could address areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other tools can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress plugins you can use in your site that can also help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to access the rest of this guide:

• The Complete Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Health-Related Web Presence Successfully – Part Two

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