Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health or medical professionals face a number of challenges in the online economy, especially when it comes to growing their business online.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Providers 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 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 market your services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to assign a more significant part of your marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that attracts prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks 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 be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that health-related organizations (and most other professions) face online, is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what they are searching for or they will go away.

“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 & Medical Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to health or medical-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and who can think strategically about marketing their services better online.

In this article, you will discover ways to source more clients and improve your online results.

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

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business
• WordPress For Small Business – The Complete Guide To Growing A Small Business With A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Center Services Site

In this section we will show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a medical-related website needs, what content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All websites require several essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Products And Services Page

You need a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology hematology, cancer, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, medical imaging, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, natural therapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, speech therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

It’s important to mention any health or medical-related awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above your competitors.

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

Staff

If you are searching for ways to sell more products or services online and get people to engage more with your site, then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. 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 specialized areas mean. It can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected staff members on their social networks.

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

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily add an easy-to-maintain list of employees in your web site without touching code here: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the business. It can include training, benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health-related 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, subscribe to your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also provides visitors social proof online.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and client reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: Achieve Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is crucial.

It should provide:

• Company Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat feature (optional)

If your business operates from multiple locations you should make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using content like news and events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your medical business.

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can help begin driving targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive web traffic automatically to your website)

For more info, see this article:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Information

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vital. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws and regulations in whichever area or location you do business.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health-related site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

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

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

By committing to providing great content with useful tips, information and advice, you will get your readers to share your information and come back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• What is fiber and how can it help you with weight loss?
• How to figure out how many calories you burn each day
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health or medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Remember to use keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients will search 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several 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 content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great information on your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by searching online for relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some useful RSS feeds you could add to a health or medical-related site:

• 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 RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (American Association for Cancer Research), ADA DiabetesCare , Neurology India, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, tainted products, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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 - Find many feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.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. Medications, Men’s health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Depression, Eyesight, Travel Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Pulmonary System, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Hearing/Deafness, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Cleft Palate, 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. “arthritis rss feeds”, “diet rss feeds”, “drug trials rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Charts and checklists can give them useful information and resources to get necessary tasks done. They can also be great instructional tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part 2 of this guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to grow your health business online.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Center Website – Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins And Themes

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