Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical services practitioners today face significant and increasingly difficult challenges created by the digital economy.

Challenges Professional Medical Services Practitioners Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and figuring out smarter ways to grow your business online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to allocate a larger portion of your budget to develop and maintain a website that drives new prospects, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps you create wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that medical or health-related organizations face online, as do most professions for that matter, is that you have only about 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will look 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 Businesses In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for health practices that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy challenges and think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will learn about new opportunities to source more client bookings and create significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your medical website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Customers
• WordPress For Small Business Owners – An Online Guide To Growing A Business Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips To Improve Your Medical Services And Health-Related Site

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages a medical-related website needs, what content works best for health or medical-related websites, ways to improve your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, read this article: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites require some basic pages. Let’s go over these.

Services And Products Page

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology hematology, cosmetic surgery, hyperbaric medicine, renal, urology, eye diseases day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, oral health, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, speech language therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, community 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.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to also mention any professional awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Team

Are you searching for ways to sell more products or services online? Then something you can do, is help visitors get to know you and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each staff member’s expertise and qualifications, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff description page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to create and add a list of employees to your site without touching code here: Plugin Tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your business. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have worked their way up in your organization and information about new career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

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

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies 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 establish social proof online.

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

We have written extensively about using client case studies and client reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Profit-Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

It should provide the following information about your company:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Online Chat/Skype (optional)

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

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, useful pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health-Related Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as news, updates, training information, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an medical site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your website and your blog.

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic system that can begin driving new visitors to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

If you would like to learn more about this here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into An Automated Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information

It’s essential to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your 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 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
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. For more info, see this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s ultra-competitive online business economy, content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Providing great content with information, advice or tips will get your visitors to share your web pages online with others and come back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about your business and services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• What calories really are and how they play a role in weight loss
• Incorporating exercise into your busy schedule
• How to curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And many other content topics

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

Remember to use keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your website using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide many benefits for your medical or health-related business.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing information on your site from other sites, 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 relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a health-related 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 individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Mental 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 various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. The Oncologist, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, American Chemical Society, BMJ Evidence-Based Mental Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. consumer health information, health fraud, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, animal and veterinary news, 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 - Get 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. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, High Blood Pressure, 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. Schizophrenia, Immune System/Vaccines, Health Insurance, Irritable-Bowel Syndrome, Food Intolerance, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “health insurance rss feeds”, “aid rss feeds”, “wearable technology rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Checklists and medical forms can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete steps. Checklists and charts are great instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of topics such as:

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

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, or 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 improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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

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

• Your Health & Medical Center Services Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Web Traffic

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