Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only revolutionized the way business is done globally, it has also created many challenges and opportunities for health and medical services providers.

Online Challenges For The Health And Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health industry 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 maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your business online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are now also finding that they need to assign a bigger part of their budget towards developing and maintaining a website that brings in prospects, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps to increase their presence online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other problem that medical or health businesses (and all other businesses) face with their websites, is that they have around 30 seconds to help users find what they need 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

Opportunities For The Medical And Health Profession In The Online Economy

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

In this guide, you will discover new opportunities to attract more visitors and improve your business results online.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your business online, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your medical-related business website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Clients And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow Your Business

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health & Medical Center Services Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for medical-related websites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All websites need a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Services And Products Description Page

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology diabetes, cosmetic surgery, neurology, renal, endoscopy, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, x-ray, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, colloidal silver therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, speech therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors 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, philanthropic donations, etc.

This page should also mention any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your services and set yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile

If you are looking for simple ways to grow your business online, then make it easier for your prospects to get to know you and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in medical-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 can include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s expertise, 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 staff members to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed tutorial on how to easily add an easy-to-maintain simple employee directory in your web site using free WordPress plugins, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within the practice. It could include training, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical or health 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 announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with case studies and testimonials also helps your medical-related website to provide visitors social proof.

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

We have created a comprehensive article about using client case studies and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should include:

• Business Name
• Location of consulting practice
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat

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

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin to deliver new targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive web traffic automatically to your site)

For more details:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Web Traffic Machine

Legal Information

It’s really important to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you provide services.

Depending on what services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key success factors for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Providing useful content with advice, information and tips will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

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

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• What are calories and how they play a role in weight loss
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• How to make smarter choices choices when eating in restaurants
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving 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 visitor engagement and UX.

Add RSS Feeds

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

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing content on your site 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, visit sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.

Here are some feeds containing useful information that you could add to your 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 feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, BMJ Medical Humanities, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, FDA drug shortages, product recalls, drugs, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Menopause, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Depression, Sexual Health, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Medical News 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. Medical Students/Training, Stroke, Blood/Hematology, Conferences, Parkinson’s Disease, Respiratory/Asthma, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “pharmacy rss feeds”, “asthma rss feeds”, “medical practice management rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your health or medical-related website’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide useful information and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and charts can also be great client instructional tools.

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

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

Add Other Tools

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

In part 2, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to build your health business web presence.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Build And Grow A Health Center Business Online – Part Two

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