Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionized business worldwide, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and opportunities for businesses offering medical services.

Online Challenges For Health Professionals

Now, more than ever, medical services practitioners must work harder to remain competitive and source new clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning smarter ways to market your services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline, businesses in the medical or health industry are now finding that they need to invest a greater amount of their budget towards the development and management of a website that can drive new leads, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and give them wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical or health organizations face online, and all other businesses for that matter, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds or less to help users find what they are searching for or they will leave the site and 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 And Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for medical practices that are willing to evolve to meet online challenges and can think progressively about marketing their business better online.

In this article, you will learn new opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your medical or health-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health or medical website.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Business
• Understanding WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by covering some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical or health website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best for health or medical websites, ways of improving your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: Planning Your Small Business Web Site - A Comprehensive Guide For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Web Pages

All websites require several essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services Description Page

You need a page that describes your products and services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery diabetes, oncology, incontinence, respiratory, gastroenterology, eye diseases day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, radiology and imaging, pap smears, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, meditation, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive services, stomal therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

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

This page should list any business awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your business and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Staff

If you are looking for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products or services online or get people to stay longer on your site, then help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline your employee’s qualifications, how their skills contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update list directory of employees to WordPress without coding skills, go here: Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your Site

Career Opportunities

List any job or career opportunities available within your clinic. This page could include training, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

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

(Add a web page with testimonials and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a comprehensive article on using testimonials, case studies and client reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

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

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Online Chat/Skype

If your business services different areas you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like events, updates, useful articles, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your clinic.

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that will help begin delivering a stream of targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

For more details, go here:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucial for professional businesses to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you practice.

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the willingness to deliver valuable content at no cost has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

You want to provide great content with tips or information that will get your readers sharing your web pages online with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if you provide products that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Dieting pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords in your content that prospective clients will search for.

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 you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for 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!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide valuable information, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing valuable content on your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are some examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, 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. Dermatology Times, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), CDC USA, BMJ Archives of Disease, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news like enforcement reports, food allergies, recalls, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications 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. Medications, Cancer, Cholesterol, Oral Health, Sexual Health, Heart, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Lymphology/Lymphedema, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Primary Care/General Practice, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Restless Legs Syndrome, 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. “fertility rss feeds”, “orthopedics rss feeds”, “psychiatry rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your website’s user experience.)

Add Charts & Checklists

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary steps. Charts and checklists are also great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are popular tools for your website. Others can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we take a look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can also help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view Part 2, click here:

• Grow Your Medical Practice Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes That Can Help Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic

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