Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business globally, it has also created a number of challenges and opportunities for businesses in the health-related industry.

Online Challenges For Health Professionals

Today, more than ever, health or medical practices must find smarter ways to stand apart from the crowd and source new clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning smarter ways to grow your business online.

As well as spending dollars advertising offline, businesses in the health-related industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated towards developing and maintaining a website that drives new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and increases their marketing exposure online.

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

One other problem that health businesses face online, as do most other professions for that matter, is that they have only about thirty seconds to provide visitors with 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 Health Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health industry that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think progressively when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

This guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract and engage more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health-related website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, go here:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Buyers
• Learning WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what content works best for health or medical-related sites, ways to improve your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: The Website Planning Process - A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

All websites need several basic web pages. Let’s review these.

Products And Services Description Page

You need to include a page that explains your services or products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, pulmonology endocrinology, cancer, geriatric medicine, respiratory, gastroenterology, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, audiology, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, medical genetics, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to also mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

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

Potential clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in medical or health-related terms your bio descriptions 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 so your prospective clients can follow selected staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each employee’s qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-update list of employees or team members to WordPress without editing code here: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

We’re Hiring

List any job opportunities available within the organization. It should include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Maintain 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 updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also provides potential clients with social proof online.

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

We have created a detailed article on using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Improve Your Conversions Using Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is vitally important.

It should include:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If your business services several locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You should also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like announcements, updates, useful articles, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your clinic.

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that will begin delivering targeted visitors to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

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

If you would like to know more here:

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws and regulations in whichever location you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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 Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Provide great content with useful information, advice or tips that will get your visitors to share your web pages with others online and come back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Hypnosis and weight loss
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• And many other content topics

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

Remember to use relevant keywords and terminology in your articles 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 actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful 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 To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

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

If you provide valuable information, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing content on your site 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 by searching online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds containing useful information that you could add to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, PsychiatryOnline Journals, The Journal of Immunology, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like FDA drug safety, food safety reports, product recalls, radiological health, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – 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. Medications, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Senior Health, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Caregivers/Homecare, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Nursing/Midwifery, Dyslexia, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “hematology rss feeds”, “deafness rss feeds”, “erectile dysfunction rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. They can give them useful information and resources to perform a task. Checklists and charts are also great educational tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

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

In part 2, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your medical-related site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this guide on ways to build your health business presence online.

To keep reading, click here:

• How To Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Business Online Successfully – Part Two

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