Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health practitioners today face difficult challenges thanks to the digital economy.

Online Challenges For Health Practitioners

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your practice online.

As well as spending money advertising offline, businesses in the health or medical-related industry are also finding that they will need to allocate a greater share of their marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that can drive prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help to give them a wider degree of marketing 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 will change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires a sound web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical businesses face (as do most other businesses for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they are searching for 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 Health Services Professionals In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health industry that can adapt to meet online economy demands and can think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn a number of ways to attract more client bookings and see noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your health or medical business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• Discover How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow Your Small Business Online

Ways To Improve Your Medical Practice Site

This section looks at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best, ways to improve your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed guide we have written: The Website Planning Process: A Cost-Saving Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

All websites require some basic pages. Let’s review these.

Products And Services

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, pulmonology blood disorders, oncology, hyperbaric medicine, renal, infection control, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, oral health, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, colloidal silver therapy, meditation, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It should include any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is help prospective clients get to know you, your team and your business better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to highlight your staff member’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills and knowledge contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-update list of employees or team members to your website using a free WP plugin, go here: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your company. This page would include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a web page with client reviews and case studies also helps your medical site to establish social proof online.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials from past clients. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using testimonials and client reviews get better results online, go here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Highly Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should include:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your physical address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates from multiple areas you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You should also include a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health-Related Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content like events, new releases, useful information, informative posts, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an health-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing 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.

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin driving targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you practice.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• 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 about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive global economy, the sooner you start to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

You will want to provide great content with useful tips or information that will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your services.

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

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure permanent weight loss
• Dieting pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• A guide to making the right choices when eating out at any restaurant
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• 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 visit sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed some RSS feeds you could add to your site:

• 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 choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, Bionet RSS, TheLancet.com, American Chemical Society, The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), product recalls, radiological health, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Oral Health, Prevention & Wellness, Skin, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Bipolar, Pulmonary System, Surgery, Neurology/Neuroscience, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Epilepsy, Clinical Trials/Drug Trials, 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. “hospice care rss feeds”, “gastrointestinal rss feeds”, “weight loss rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)

Provide Downloadable Checklists

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete steps. They can also be great client instructional tools.

You can provide a range of forms, charts and checklists covering topics such as:

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

Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools for your website. Other tools could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can help to improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this step-by-step guide on ways to build your medical-related business presence online.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• How To Grow Your Medical And Health Center Services Business Online Successfully With WordPress – Part 2

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