Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health or medical professionals face many new challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business presence online.

Online Challenges For Health Providers

Now, more than ever, health and medical services practitioners must work hard to stand apart from the crowd and source new clients. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and learning better ways to market your business online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that they need to invest a more significant part of their marketing budget towards developing and maintaining a website that brings in prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps create wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change in time and some aspects will need to be updated often. This requires a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that medical or health organizations face (as most businesses do for that matter), is that you have only about thirty seconds or less to help visitors find what they are looking for or they will 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 Health Professionals

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for health or medical-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and establish online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your health business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Business Owners – A Complete Guide To Building A Successful Business Using WordPress

Ways To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best for health websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

Professional websites require some essential web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Description Of Products And Services

You need to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, nephrology blood disorders, cosmetic surgery, incontinence, renal, gastroenterology, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, x-ray, pap smears, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

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

Remember to also mention any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and position yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Staff

Are you searching for ideas to sell more products or services online? Then help prospective clients get to know your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in health or medical 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 include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow some of your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each employee’s qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff description page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add a simple and easy-to-manage list directory of employees or team members to your website using free plugins, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff Directory

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your organization. This page would include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information about upcoming career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Also include 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 you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you will also help to provide potential clients with social proof online for your business.

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

We have written a detailed article on using testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should include:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Chat/Skype

If your business services several areas you will want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You could also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like the latest announcements, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your medical company.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin attracting an ongoing stream of new visitors to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Attract More Web Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is extremely important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken in whatever location you do business.

Adding the legal pages below to your health website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• 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
• and others

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more, go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start publishing great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

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

For example, if your business provides products that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can cover in your web content include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, minerals, fats, vitamins)
• How to ask for support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. Low carb diet, Raw Food diet, Volumetrics diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, how effective they are)
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

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

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

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 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!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, other businesses will 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various 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 a number of benefits when it comes to providing great content on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, search online for medical or health-related government departments or key industry bodies.

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

• 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, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), ADA DiabetesCare , Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find feeds on fda-related news like FDA drug safety, food allergies, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, foods, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness and 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 individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Skin, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Stroke, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Neurology/Neuroscience, Endocrinology, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, 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. “acid reflux rss feeds”, “cosmetic medicine rss feeds”, “alzheimer’s rss feeds”, etc.

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

Add Checklists

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide useful step-by-step information and resources to complete steps. They can also be great client educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can cover topics 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, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Online 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. Calculators are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part two of this guide, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that can help improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click on this link to continue:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Growing Your Health And Medical Practice Website – Part 2

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