Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the medical or health-related industry.

Online Challenges For The Health Profession

Now, more than ever, health practices must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive and source new clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your health or medical services services online.

As well as investing money marketing offline, businesses in the health or medical industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned to develop and maintain a website that can bring in prospects, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase their reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and 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 having a well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical-related businesses face with their websites (as do most other professions for that matter), is that they have around thirty seconds to help visitors find what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical or health-related sector that can adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think strategically when it comes to marketing their business better online.

The guide below will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to generate new clients and establish online credibility for your health business.

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

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

This section covers ways to improve your medical-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Web Pages

All websites require several essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Your Services

It’s essential to include a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page can include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology haematology, oncology, gerontology, renal, urology, optometry day surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, veneers, crowns and bridges, orthodontics, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, x-ray, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, wellness, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, fertility services, rehabilitation, neurosciences, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, community health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

Remember to also include any professional awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and position yourself above the competition.

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

Staff

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products online and increase user interaction on your site? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. This page should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight each team member’s expertise, why they are an 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 team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain list of staff or team members to your WordPress site using a free plugin, go here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory

We’re Hiring

List any career opportunities available within your company. It could include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social activities promoted or sponsored by your organization, etc. You can include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical or health-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 the page, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also establishes social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using client case studies and user reviews improve your business online here: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions Using Profit-Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is vitally important.

It should provide the following information:

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

If your business operates from several locations you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

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

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like news and events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an health site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to create more exposure for your clinic.

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

You may not have been told about this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that will help begin attracting new targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive web traffic automatically to your site)

For more details:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Website Visitors For Your Business Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s extremely important to make sure 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 and federal laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your health website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms 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.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, content marketing has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

By providing great content with tips, advice or information, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages with others and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

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

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, how to identify yours)
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. Paleo diet, Raw Food diet, Volumetrics diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, how effective they are)
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• And endless other content topics

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

Include keywords and terms in your articles that readers will 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 site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites 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
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, 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 for your website, visit sites of health or medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

Here are some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, 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. PhysiologicalReviews, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, Neurology India, Medscape, Respiratory Research, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Migraine Headaches, Diabetes, Digestion, Women’s Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Vascular, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Pancreatic Cancer, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Mental Health, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “stroke rss feeds”, “back pain rss feeds”, “statins rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical website’s UX.)

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a task. Checklists and forms can also be great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover topics such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Provide Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we look at a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To continue, click this link:

• How To Build And Grow A Medical Practice Services Business Online – Part Two

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