Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created new challenges and opportunities for medical practitioners.

Challenges Medical Services Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical services providers must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and obtain new clients. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning better ways to market your business online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are now finding that they need to delegate a greater part of their marketing budget to developing and managing a website that attracts prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and gives them wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and some areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another challenge that medical-related organizations face online, as most other professions do for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they need 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 Health Businesses In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the health-related sector that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

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

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your health or medical business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical or health-related business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health & Medical Practice Services Site

This section covers ways to improve your health website and get better results online. We show you what pages a medical site needs, what content works best for medical or health-related websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, go here: Planning Your Business Website - A Basic Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Web Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Services And Products

You need a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can include services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, orthopedics hematology, oncology, geriatric medicine, renal, urology, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, hearing, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, lymphedema therapy, speech therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

Remember to include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and set yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Team

Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online and get visitors to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospects get to know your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in medical or 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 do. It should include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual staff 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 your employee’s expertise, 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 staff description page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update simple employee directory to a WordPress site using a free plugin, see this step-by-step tutorial: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add A Staff List Directory

Career Opportunities

List any job opportunities within your business. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include case studies of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information about career opportunities in the medical or health 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 you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you will also help to provide potential clients with social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. To learn more about this go here: Create Better Results Online With Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Location
• Telephone
• Facsimile number
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media URLs
• Online chat

If you operate from different areas you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as events, updates, useful articles, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an medical website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical services.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin attracting an ongoing stream of web traffic to your website, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your site)

To learn more about this go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vital for medical providers organizations to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations in whatever location you provide services.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential 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 and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

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

By providing great content with useful information, advice or tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can write about include the following:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to get support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• 7 tips that will help you avoid late night snacking (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use the same keywords and terms in your articles that your readers would search for.

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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide useful information, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed 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
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website 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 search online for medical-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), The Journal of Immunology, BMJ Tobacco Control, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related news and topics like consumer health information, health fraud, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, cosmetics, 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 - Get many feeds on health-related 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. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Cancer, Migraine Headaches, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT 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. Public Health, Lupus, Eczema/Psoriasis, Neurology/Neuroscience, Parkinson’s Disease, Allergy, 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 areas, e.g. “viruses rss feeds”, “medical malpractice rss feeds”, “premature ejaculation rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Checklists

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Checklists and medical forms can provide visitors with step-by-step information and resources to complete tasks. Charts and checklists are great educational tools.

You can provide forms and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of 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, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

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

In part 2 of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your health or medical-related site that can help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click here to continue reading:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow Your Medical Center Online – Part Two

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