Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals face many new challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business presence online.

Challenges Health And Medical Services Professionals Face Online

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 develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and figuring out smarter ways to market your services online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated towards the development and maintenance of a website that will drive prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to give them a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website may change in time and many areas may need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that medical services practitioners face with their websites (and other businesses for that matter), is that you have only about 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to health practices that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think outside the box about marketing their business better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways to generate more web traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your medical business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Center Site

Let’s start by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what content works best, ways to improve your site’s navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the guide we have written here: The Web Site Planning Process: A Basic Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All business websites require several essential web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to structure your medical-related website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology hematology, maxillofacial surgery, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory, infection control, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, hearing, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It should mention any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your services and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

If you are looking for inexpensive ways to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is make it easier for your visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. 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 very well-versed in medical terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. It should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your team member’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-maintain directory of employees or team members in your site using free WP plugins, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work For Us

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within the business. It would include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can also include information about career opportunities in the health-related industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. Adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also helps to provide potential clients with social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using client case studies and user reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Page

A functional contact page is absolutely vital.

It should include:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email address
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Interactive chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates out of multiple areas you should make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

You should also include links to an FAQ page, main pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing health-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your company.

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

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that can begin to deliver targeted visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can generate new traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Information

As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucially important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being broken wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your medical or health-related site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms 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 comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. You can learn more about this here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, committing to the practice of content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing great content with useful information, tips and advice will get your visitors sharing your web pages online with others and coming back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospects about using your products and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could cover in your content include:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure lifetime weight loss
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• And many other content topics

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

Remember to include keywords and terms in your articles that prospective clients would search 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 and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your 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!

Improving Visitor Engagement And 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 UX.

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

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

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of health-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. The Oncologist, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, Stem Cells, Neurology.org, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, pet health, vaccines, blood and biologics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find various 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 RSS 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. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Cold & Flu, Depression, Digestion, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Pulmonary System, Sexual Health/STDs, Autism, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “stroke rss feeds”, “physical therapy rss feeds”, “obesity rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your health-related website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete steps. Forms and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists, charts and forms (or links to these) covering a range of topics such as:

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

Unique Tools

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

In the next section, we will look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your site that improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to keep reading:

• How To Successfully Grow A Medical-Related Web Presence – Part 2

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