Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical professionals today are facing increasing challenges created by the online economy.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, health or medical-related practices must work hard and find smarter ways to stand apart from their competition and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your practice online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to assign a larger portion of your marketing budget to developing and maintaining a website that drives prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give your business a wider amount of reach online.

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

One other problem that medical-related businesses (and all other businesses) face online, is that they have around 30 seconds to give visitors what they are looking 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 Medical And Health Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for medical or health practices that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think progressively in terms of marketing their business better online.

In this guide, you will learn opportunities to attract more visitors and establish online credibility for your medical-related business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health or medical-related website or blog.

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Money
• WordPress And Small Business – The Beginner’s Guide To Building A Successful Small Business Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section explains how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best, tips for improving navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed guide we have written: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Useful Blueprint For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites need several basic pages. Let’s review the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Products And Services Page

You need a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology diabetes, plastic surgery, gerontology, renal, weight loss surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, natural therapy, meditation, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, occupational therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, mobility, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community contributions, etc.

It’s important to also mention any business awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and position yourself above the competition.

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

Team

If you are searching for ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors 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 staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health or medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should include social buttons so your visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

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

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-manage directory of staff members to your website using free WordPress plugins here: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. This page should include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your business, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the health-related industry.

Maintain 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a web page with testimonials and case studies also provides prospective clients with social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews here: Create Better Results Online Using Standout User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should provide:

• Company Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who 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 links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to create more exposure for your company.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin to drive targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can generate new visitors automatically to your site)

For more info, see this article:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Attract More Web Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s really important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever you practice.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your health or medical website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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 detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. If you would like to know more here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, being generous with information has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

By providing great content with tips and information, you will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• How to identify the bad habits you need to correct to ensure sustainable weight loss
• Incorporating exercise into your busy schedule
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Include the keywords and terminology in your content that readers will search to find you online.

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 website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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!

Improving Visitor Experience

Improving website 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 your visitor engagement and user experience.

Use RSS Feeds

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

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

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links 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. users can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content by visiting sites of relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Here are some examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to a medical or 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 also choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Pregnancy, 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, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, drugs, 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) - Get many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – 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, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pregnancy, Senior Health, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. MRSA/Drug Resistance, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Sexual Health/STDs, Dermatology, Endocrinology, Breast Cancer, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “abortion rss feeds”, “insomnia rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Charts and checklists are great client educational tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Provide Unique Tools

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

In part two of this detailed article, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins you can use in your health or medical website that can also help improve search engine optimization, 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 improve your health web presence.

To keep reading, click here:

• Your Medical Clinic Services Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic Using Plugins & Themes

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