Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed businesses around the world, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and opportunities for medical-related businesses.

Online Challenges For Health & Medical Practitioners

Now, more than ever, medical services practitioners must work hard to remain competitive and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your business online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the health industry are now also finding that they need to invest a larger amount of their budget to develop and maintain a website that can drive clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and create a wider amount of reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and some aspects may need to be updated frequently. This requires a sound website and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that medical services professionals face online, as most other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has around thirty seconds to help users find the information they are looking 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

Online Opportunities For Medical-Related Businesses Online

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to health businesses that are willing to evolve to meet digital demands and can think outside the box about improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn opportunities to source new business and establish stronger online credibility for your medical or health business.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

• Discover Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• WordPress And Small Business – An Online Guide To Growing Your Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips To Improve Your Medical Services & Health-Related Site

Let’s start by going over the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content works best for medical-related websites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, go here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All websites require several basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Your Services And Products

You need a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery haematology, maxillofacial surgery, gerontology, rheumatology, infection control, ophtalmology elective surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, x-ray, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, functional medicine, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, speech language therapy, 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 what these services do and why they should choose you.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It’s important to also include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your business and position yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you searching for ways to sell more products online and increase user interaction with your site? Then make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health terms your bio descriptions 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 that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected team members on their social networks.

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

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

For a detailed tutorial about how to add an updatable list of staff or team members in your website using a free plugin, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Recruitment

List any job opportunities available within the company. This page can include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include information about additional career opportunities in the medical 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using case studies, testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more details: Learn How To Improve Your Sales With Standout Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

It should include the following information:

• Company Name
• Street address of clinic
• Phone
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Interactive chat feature

If you operate from several areas you should make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like news and events, updates, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your business.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can help begin driving targeted visitors to your business, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

You can learn more about this here:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Website Traffic Automatically

Legal Information Pages

It’s crucially important to ensure they 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 broken wherever you provide services.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions 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 site. For more info, see this article: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to publish good content on your site, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

By providing useful content with tips, information or advice, you will get your readers sharing your information and coming back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

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

• Being overweight vs. being obese – what are the differences?
• The role portion control plays in helping you you lose weight
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords and terminology in your content that prospective clients will search to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide useful content, other sites 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways your readers can 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 a number of benefits when it comes 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.

You can find RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for medical-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to your 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 select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Fitness and nutrition, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 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 feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food allergy reports, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – 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, Asthma, Cold & Flu, Pregnancy, Senior Health, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Surgery, Preventive Medicine, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Breast Cancer, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “compliance rss feeds”, “transplants rss feeds”, “erectile dysfunction rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical or health website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can provide users with useful information and resources to complete necessary tasks. Charts and checklists are also great instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could include topics such as:

• Checklists and forms for 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 exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, for example are popular tools for your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed article, we discuss a number of online tools you can add to your medical-related site using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click here to read Part 2:

• The Complete Guide On How To Grow Your Medical And Health Clinic Business Online Successfully – Part 2

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