Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health providers today face increasing challenges.

Challenges Health Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector 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 market your business online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be delegated towards developing and managing a website that drives prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase your marketing reach online.

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

Another problem that medical-related businesses (and most professions) face online, is that they have around 30 seconds to help visitors find what they need or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 The Health Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to medical or health-related businesses that can evolve to meet digital economy demands and who can think outside the box in terms of marketing their business services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn a number of ways to generate more web traffic and improve your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your medical or health-related business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see the articles below:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Prospective Buyers
• A Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Small Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Clinic Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your medical or health website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, see this detailed guide we have written: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

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

Products And Services Page

It’s essential to include a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology diabetes, reconstructive surgery, hyperbaric medicine, respiratory, weight loss surgery, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, x-ray, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, fertility services, speech language therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

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

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to mention any professional awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and to set yourself above the competition.

(List all of your professional awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Screenshot image source: squaremedical.com.au)

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products online or get people to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons so your visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to highlight your team member’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(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 add a list of employees in your site using a free plugin, go here: Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your company. This page should include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities promoted or sponsored by your organization, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the health 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides prospective clients with social proof online.

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

To learn more about using client case studies and reviews go here: All You Need To Know To Achieve Better Results Online With Awesome Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a functional contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should include:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Chat/Skype

If you have several locations you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as news and announcements, updates, educational information, informative posts, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered 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 be used as both your business website and business blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin driving an ongoing stream of new visitors to your business, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

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

You can learn more here:

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

Legal Information Pages

It’s really important to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products you provide, 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 Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s highly competitive online business economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By committing to providing useful content with great tips, advice and information, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more content. This is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if your business provides services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• How does fiber help you lose weight?
• Advice on ways to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• What processed foods can sabotage your weight loss goals (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

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

Include the keywords in your content that prospective clients will be searching to find you online.

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

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your user experience (known as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• A feed provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• 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.

You can find RSS feeds with useful content for your website by visiting sites of medical and health-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a medical-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, 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 directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Occupational Medicine, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like enforcement reports, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), recalls, tobacco news, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places 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. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Migraine Headaches, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Skin, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Immune System/Vaccines, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Conferences, Bones/Orthopedics, Women’s Health/Gynecology, Statins, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “pharma industry rss feeds”, “drug approvals rss feeds”, “oncology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)

Add Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary steps. They can also be great client educational tools.

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

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

Add Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools to add to your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this guide, we take a look at a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your website that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this comprehensive guide on ways to improve your medical or health web presence.

Click here to read Part Two:

• Tips For Medical And Health Services Practitioners – WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Traffic

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