Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business around the world, it has also created growing challenges and opportunities for health or medical-related businesses.

Online Challenges For Health And Medical Services Professionals

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

As well as investing dollars marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to designate a more significant share of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that will drive clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help give your business wider exposure online.

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

One other challenge that medical providers (and most other businesses) face online, is that they have only about 30 seconds or less to help users find what they are looking for 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

Opportunities For Medical Providers In The Web Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to medical businesses that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think outside the box when it comes to marketing their business better online.

The guide below will help you uncover opportunities to attract more potential clients and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your medical website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, go here: The Web Site Planning Process - A Cost-Saving Blueprint For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Products And Services

You need a page that explains your services or products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology haematology, maxillofacial surgery, incontinence, respiratory, infection control, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, audiology, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, colloidal silver therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, speech therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

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 should include any medical-related awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your services and set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Staff Page

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online? Then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow selected staff members on their social pages.

In 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 staff member’s qualifications, 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 page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add a simple employee directory to your web site without messing around with code, go here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Include also 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

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

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

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide some or all of the following information about your consulting practice:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat feature

If your business services multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

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

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like announcements, updates, useful articles, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your medical business.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic system that can help begin attracting web traffic to your business, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Generate More Website Traffic For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Information

It’s really important to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

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

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key business differentiators.

Provide great content with information, advice and tips that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How small efforts in portion control can help achieve weight loss results
• Dieting pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• What salad dressings can derail your weight loss program (and healthier choices)
• And many other content topics

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

Include keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients would search 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful information, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

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

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

There are also benefits to providing content 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 by visiting sites of health and medical-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a health or medical 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 specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, 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 leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Applied Physiology, Human Molecular Genetics, RadioGraphics, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, BMJ Evidence-Based Mental Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food allergies, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, foods, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find various feeds on health-related news 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. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Exercise & Fitness, Heart, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. MRSA/Drug Resistance, Immune System/Vaccines, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Neurology/Neuroscience, Bones/Orthopedics, Breast Cancer, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “migraine rss feeds”, “cholesterol rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

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

Add Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to perform a task. Charts and checklists can also be great client educational tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

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

In the next section, we take a look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this comprehensive article on ways to grow your medical or health business web presence.

To view the rest of this article, click this link:

• Online Business Tips For Health Professionals – WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Generating More Traffic

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