Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
The digital age has not only revolutionised business around the world, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and great opportunities for medical or health businesses.
Challenges Medical Services Face Online
Now, more than ever, medical services providers must find smarter ways to stand out from their competition and find new clientele. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and figuring out better ways to promote your business online.
In addition to spending money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete with other health or medical businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives leads, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps increase your marketing reach online.
This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy.
One other challenge that medical providers face, as other businesses do for that matter, is that they have only around 30 seconds or less to provide users what they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.
“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
Online Opportunities For Medical And Health Services Providers
As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health or medical businesses that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think progressively in terms of marketing their business better online.
In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about new opportunities to source more clients and improve your online results.
As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your medical website or blog.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:
- Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
- Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business Online
Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Practice Website
We’ll start first by reviewing the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need any help with website planning, go here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners
Your Website Pages
Professional business websites need several essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your need to have and how to structure your medical-related website for best results.
Services
You need to include a page that describes your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can list services such as:
- Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology diabetes, cancer, stroke, respiratory, infection control, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, audiology, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellbeing, social work services
- Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, reproductive services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.
Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. 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 should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.
Remember to also list any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and position yourself above the competition.
(List all of your business awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Screenshot image source: squaremedical.com.au)
Team
If you are looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for your visitors to get to know you, your team and your organization better.
Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in medical or health-related terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should include social buttons that will allow your visitors to 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 your person’s 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 page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
If you need help how to create and add a directory of staff or team members in your site, refer to this tutorial: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory
Work With Us
This is a listing of job opportunities within your organization. It could include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include case studies of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and 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 the page, subscribe to your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.
Case Studies
Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing social proof online for your business.
(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials from past clients. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and user reviews to improve your business results online. For more details: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Effective User Testimonials
Contact Us Page
Having a clean contact page is essential.
Your contact page should include:
- Business Name
- Location
- Phone
- Facsimile
- Email address
- Google Map
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media URLs
- Online Chat/Skype (optional)
If your business operates in different areas you should make this clear when showing your address and contact info.
Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Health-Related Blog
A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, new releases, useful articles, discussions on current topics, videos, media presentations, etc.
If you already have an existing health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your medical 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 be used both as your website and blog.
Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can begin to drive web traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new visitors automatically to your website)
Go here to learn more about this:
Legal Information Pages
Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you provide services.
Adding some or all of 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 legal threats or inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health/Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. To learn more about this go here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site
In today’s globally competitive economy, content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.
By providing useful content with information, advice or tips, you will get your visitors sharing it 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 weight management services, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:
- Potential health issues caused by being overweight
- Is weight loss surgery right for you? (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
- Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
- Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
- Etc.
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Use keywords and terms in your content that readers will 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your 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 Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
Content Syndication – RSS Feeds
Using RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.
If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.
Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other websites using RSS feeds, include:
- All of your content updates are kept in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Can be shared
- Allows users to subscribe
- A feed provides links back to your content
- RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits to providing information on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by visiting sites of health-related government departments or industry bodies.
Here are a few useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a health or medical-related 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, Heart health and stroke, 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 feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, Human Molecular Genetics, Obesity, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Neuropsychopharmacology, 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 – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information, health fraud, pet health, foods, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
- MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Eyesight, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
- Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Stroke, Fibromyalgia, Aid/Disasters, Food Intolerance, Mental Health, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)
You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “vaccines rss feeds”, “myeloma rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.
(RSS feeds can help to improve your medical-related site’s user experience.)
Provide Forms & Checklists
Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide useful step-by-step information and resources to complete necessary steps. They are great instructional tools.
Checklists, charts and medical forms can address subjects such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)
Other Tools
Providing unique tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are great tools you can add to your website. Other tools could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.
In the next section of this detailed article, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part 1.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now