Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals today face growing challenges.

Challenges Medical Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, health and medical services professionals must work hard to stand apart from their competition and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning smarter ways to promote your services online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are also finding that they will need to allocate a larger amount of their marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that drives prospects, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps to create a wider exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and many areas will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that medical services providers face online, as most other professions do for that matter, is that you have only about thirty seconds to provide users what they need or they will find what they are looking for 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

Online Opportunities For Health And Medical Services Providers

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to health-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet digital demands and think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to generate web traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your medical or health-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• Discover How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• The Complete Guide To Building A Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Ways To Improve Your Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best for medical sites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this guide: A Basic Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require several basic pages. Let’s go over these.

Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology haematology, plastic surgery, incontinence, respiratory, infection control, eye diseases emergency surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, hearing, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, holistic medicine, meditation, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

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

About Us

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

Remember to include any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are looking for inexpensive ways to sell more products online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want prospects 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 mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline each person’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills add value 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 sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add a simple and easy-to-maintain list directory of staff or team members in WordPress using a free plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within the company. This page should include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include case studies of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical and 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 this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients also helps your health or medical website to establish social proof.

(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online here: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media links
• Online chat

If your business operates in different areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news, updates, useful articles, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your practice.

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin to attract web traffic to your site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s important for professional companies to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms 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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, committing to the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

You will want to provide useful content with great information, tips and advice that will get your visitors sharing your information with others and coming back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the topics you can cover in your content include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• What calories really are and how understanding them aids in weight loss
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. Paleo diet, GI diet, Nutrisystem diet (what these are, how they work, are they effective)
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terms 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides many benefits for your business.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• 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 aggregators
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing information on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just search online for relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few 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 search by departments and choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Neurophysiology, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, BMJ Medical Humanities, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, food allergies, tainted products, cosmetics, 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 - Find various feeds on health-related news and topics 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. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Men’s health, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Senior Health, Heart, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Ebola, Eczema/Psoriasis, Flu/Cold/SARS, Bones/Orthopedics, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “pulmonary system rss feeds”, “dermatology rss feeds”, “erectile dysfunction rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your site’s user experience.)

Provide Checklists

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide users with step-by-step information and resources to complete steps. Forms and checklists are also great educational tools.

You can provide checklists and forms covering a range of areas such as:

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

Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two of this detailed article, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this step-by-step guide on ways to improve your medical or health-related business online.

To view Part 2, click this link:

• How To Grow A Health Center Services Online – Part 2

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