Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and great opportunities for health services practitioners.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having a website and searching for better ways to promote your practice online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical industry are now also finding that they will need to allocate a larger part of their budget to develop and maintain a website that brings in leads, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to create a wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web 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 over time and many areas may need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical services providers face online (and all other professions for that matter), is that your site has only around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will look 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 Practitioners In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to medical-related practices that can adapt to meet digital economy demands and think strategically when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new opportunities to source new clientele and establish stronger online credibility for your medical-related business.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Prospective Clients
• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow A Successful Business

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a medical or health site needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, read this detailed guide we have written: Planning A Web Site: A Useful Primer For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites need some basic web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services And Products Description Page

You need to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page can list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, pulmonology hematology, oral surgery, stroke, renal, infection control, ophtalmology elective surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, oral health, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, wellness, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, natural therapy, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, speech therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

Remember to also list any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical services and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online and get people to engage more on your site, then make it easier for visitors to get to know your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in medical or health terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your team members on their social networks.

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

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in WordPress with no coding skills required here: How To Easily Add An Employee Directory

Work With Us

List any job or career opportunities within the clinic. This page could include training, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your business, etc. You can include case studies of trainees who have worked their way up in your company and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical industry.

Include also 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of 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 web page with reviews from clients and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, see this article: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Awesome Client Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Interactive chat feature

If your business services multiple locations you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news and events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your organization.

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

Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic system that can instantly drive a stream of web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

It’s important to 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 no laws or regulations are being contravened in whichever location you service.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your health site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. For more details: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

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

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

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you could cover in your content include:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to calculate how many calories you consume each day
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• What salad dressings can derail your weight loss program (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical or health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

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

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing information on 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 visit sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are examples of feeds you could add to a health or medical-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, JAMA & Archives, BMJ Injury Prevention, Radiology, BMJ Evidence-Based Mental Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, FDA drug shortages, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, animal and veterinary news, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related news feeds 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. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Men’s health, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Eyesight, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cardiovascular/Cardiology, Immune System/Vaccines, Medical Insurance, Flu/Cold/SARS, Food Intolerance, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, Cancer/Oncology, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “eczema rss feeds”, “children’s health rss feeds”, “IBD rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Downloadable Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary steps done. Checklists and forms are great client instructional tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools you can add to your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we will be discussing a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can also help to improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To continue, click here:

• Your Health Practice Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes That Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic To Your Business Generation

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