Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical services professionals today face growing challenges.

Challenges Medical Services Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as spending dollars advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the medical or health industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated to develop and maintain a website that brings in leads, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps give them wider reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health and medical services professionals face with their websites, as all other professions do for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they need or they will go 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 Services

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to medical or health practices that are willing to evolve to meet online economy challenges and think progressively about marketing their business services better online.

In this article, you will learn about new ways to attract new visitors and improve your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health business website.

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Customers
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Health Website

In this section we will show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages a health-related site needs, what type of content works best for medical or health sites, suggestions for improving your site’s navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed step-by-step guide: The Web Site Planning Process: A Basic Primer For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites need several essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need a page that lists your products and services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology haematology, reconstructive surgery, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, infection control, eye diseases emergency surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, oral health, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, reproductive endocrinology, optical services, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to list any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your business and set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Meet The Team

If you are searching for inexpensive ways to sell more products or services online and get people to engage more on your site, then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. 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 medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow individual team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your person’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-update directory of employees in your website without coding skills here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment Page

List any job or career opportunities within the organization. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include case studies of trainees who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical and health 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 updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you will also help to provide social proof online for your business.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article on using client testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: All You Need To Know To Achieve Better Results Online With Meaningful Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Physical address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Chat feature (optional)

If you have multiple locations you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like news and announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your company.

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will help begin attracting web traffic to your site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

You can learn more here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is really important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your medical or health site will help keep you out of legal hot water 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 Links Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. For more details: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive global economy, being generous with information has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

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

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

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, fats, minerals, vitamins)
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• What processed foods can ruin your weight loss goals (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

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

Include keywords and terminology in your articles that readers will be searching for 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you 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 (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your health or medical business.

If you provide valuable content, 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 feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable 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 searching online for medical-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some examples of RSS feeds you could add to a medical site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also choose 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 directory of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, American Cancer Society, Current Psychiatry, American Institute of Biological Sciences, 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 topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), pet health, foods, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Men’s health, Cold & Flu, Diabetes, Sexual Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Abortion, Seniors/Aging, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Neurology/Neuroscience, Endocrinology, Tropical Diseases, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “colorectal cancer rss feeds”, “medical devices rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Charts and checklists can provide visitors with useful instructions and resources to complete steps. Charts and checklists can also be great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could address areas such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your users. Calculators are useful tools to add to your website. Other applications could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click here to continue:

• A Complete Guide To Growing Your Health-Related Presence Online Successfully – Part 2

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