Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical or Health professionals today face significant challenges created by the web economy.

Challenges Medical Services Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved 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 market your services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to assign a larger amount of your marketing budget to developing and managing a website that brings in leads, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps increase your marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and many aspects will need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other problem that health providers face online (as do other professions for that matter), is that they have only around thirty seconds or less to help users find the information they need or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to medical or health practices that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy challenges and can think progressively when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways to drive more web traffic and build more online credibility for your medical-related business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your health-related business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow A Successful Small Business Online

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Center Website

This section explains how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best for health or medical sites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, go here: Planning Your Small Business Website: A Comprehensive Primer For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

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

Description Of Services

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, pulmonology blood disorders, cancer, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, urology, ophtalmology day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, functional medicine, yoga, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical activities, etc.

Remember to also list any medical-related awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your business and to set yourself above the competition.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products or services online or increase user interaction with your site? Then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to highlight your person’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills add value 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 staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an updatable simple team members directory to your web site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Job Opportunities

List any job or career opportunities within your clinic. This page should include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your business, etc. You should also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or medical-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, subscribe to your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

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

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

We have written extensively on using client testimonials and user reviews to grow your business online. For more info, see this article: All You Need To Know To Achieve Better Results Online With Awesome User Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide the following information about your consulting practice:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Live chat feature

If your business operates in multiple locations you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like news, updates, educational articles, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin to drive targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

It’s vitally important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you practice.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your health or medical website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. For more details: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve Your Content

In today’s ultra-competitive global economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Provide useful content with information, tips and advice that will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

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

• What is fiber and how can it help you with weight loss?
• The role portion control plays in helping you achieve weight loss results
• Weight loss pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• 3 tips that will help you avoid late night snacking (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• And endless other content topics

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

Use keywords in your articles that your prospective clients would 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 web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your website.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides several ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by visiting sites of medical-related government departments and key industry bodies.

For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you could add to a medical site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. PhysiologicalReviews, BMJ, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Neuropsychopharmacology, 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 RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, food safety reports, product recalls, tobacco news, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Neurology, Diet & Weight Management, Exercise & Fitness, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Bipolar, Stroke, Lymphology/Lymphedema, Preventive Medicine, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Women’s Health/Gynecology, Medical Practice Management, 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. “psoriasis rss feeds”, “men’s health rss feeds”, “dementia rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s UX.)

Provide Downloadable Checklists

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and medical forms can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to perform steps. Checklists and forms are also great instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists can include topics such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we look at a number of online tools you can use in your health or medical site using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this guide on ways to improve your medical business online.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Website – How To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic With Plugins And Themes

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