Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical and Health professionals today face significant challenges thanks to the online economy.

Challenges Medical Services Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out smarter ways to market your services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the health industry are now also finding that they need to assign a greater amount of their budget towards developing and maintaining a website that drives new prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps give them wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website may change over time and some aspects will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health or medical-related organizations face (as most other businesses do for that matter), is that they have around 30 seconds to give users the information 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 Services Professionals In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical or health practices that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and can think progressively about marketing their business better online.

In this detailed guide, you will discover opportunities to increase traffic and establish online credibility for your health or medical-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your health website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), go here:

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business
• The Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Practice Site

This section covers how to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, check out the article we have written here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites require some essential pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Services And Products

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, hyperbaric medicine, respiratory, gastroenterology, optometry elective surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, radiology, pap smears, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, natural therapy, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, othopedics, reproductive endocrinology, optical services, inherited diseases, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

It should include any medical or health-related awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your services and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Team Profile

If you are searching for ways to grow your business online or get people to stay longer on your site, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. This page can also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your person’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory in your website here: Adding An Employee List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Work With Us

List any job opportunities available within your company. It would include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You can include case studies of graduates who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the health 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, join your newsletter, 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 past clients and case studies, you are also helping to provide potential clients with social proof online.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and user reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Conversions With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide the following information about your clinic:

• Name Of Your Business
• Address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Chat (optional)

If you operate out of several locations you should make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking form, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related-Related Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news and announcements, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical practice.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that can begin delivering targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Grow Your Traffic For Your Business

Legal Info Pages

It’s really important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being contravened in whichever area you service.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you 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 Page
• Privacy Policy
• 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
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Site

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

Providing useful content with great advice or tips will get your visitors sharing your information online with others and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to figure out how many calories you burn each day
• How you eat your food is just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• How to avoid late night snacking (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• And many other content topics

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

Use the same keywords and terms in your content that your readers would search to find you 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 or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your website.

If you provide valuable information, other businesses will 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
• Feeds can be shared
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, 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 just visit sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s 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 leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, Journal of Biological Chemistry, BMJ Injury Prevention, American Chemical Society, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food allergy reports, pet health, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Migraine Headaches, Diabetes, Exercise & Fitness, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Stroke, Blood/Hematology, Menopause, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Respiratory/Asthma, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “caregivers rss feeds”, “drug approvals rss feeds”, “IBD rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and charts are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to perform a task. Charts and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.

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

• 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
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators are useful tools to add to your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins you can use in your website that improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to improve your health-related web presence.

To keep reading, click here:

• A Step-By-Step Guide On How To Grow Your Medical Services And Health Center Business Online – Part 2

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