Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services professionals today face increasing challenges.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Practitioners Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as spending dollars advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to assign a larger part of your budget to develop and maintain a website that brings in clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give you a wider amount of exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that health or medical organizations face (and most professions for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to give visitors what they are looking 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

Online Opportunities For Medical Practitioners

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for health-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet digital challenges and can think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover opportunities to generate more traffic and see noticeable improvements in your health or medical-related business presence online.

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

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

• Discover How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Potential Clients
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Business Online Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by reviewing some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content works best for health or medical websites, ways of improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, go here: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Pages

All websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Your Services And Products

It’s essential to have a page that lists your services and products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery diabetes, reconstructive surgery, stroke, renal, colon/rectal surgery, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, holistic medicine, yoga, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, clinical information, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

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

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

Core Team

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to grow your business online, then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know you and your business better.

Prospects need 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 won’t be very well-versed in medical or health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow your staff members on their social pages.

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

(Add a page that introduces your team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add an updatable list directory of employees in your site using free plugins, refer to this tutorial: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff Directory

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your company. This page could include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can include case studies of graduates who have risen within your company 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, subscribe to your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

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

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you would like to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online, go here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a functional contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should include:

• Company Name
• Your physical address
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates out of multiple locations you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

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

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content like announcements, product releases, educational information, informative posts, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your medical business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is very hard to manage or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and your blog.

You may not know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help deliver web traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

If you are interested in learning more about this here:

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important for professional companies to have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

Adding the legal pages below to your health or medical-related site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• 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 site here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s highly competitive global economy, the sooner you start publishing good content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

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

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to figure out how many calories you burn each day
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• Smartphone apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords in your content that your prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your 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 Visitor Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your website.

If you provide useful content, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed some feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to your 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 select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, 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 list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nucleic Acids Research, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, TheLancet.com, Toxicological Sciences, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 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
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, FDA drug shortages, tainted products, radiological health, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and 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 choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Men’s health, Neurology, Oral Health, Senior Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured 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. Public Health, Stroke, Depression, Veterinary, Transplants/Organ Donations, Biology/Biochemistry, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “anxiety rss feeds”, “heart disease rss feeds”, “premature ejaculation rss feeds”, etc.

(Adding RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical or health-related website’s UX.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide useful step-by-step information and resources to perform steps. Charts and checklists can also be great client educational tools.

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

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

Adding Online Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools you can add to your website. Other applications can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we take a look at a number of online tools you can add to your health or medical website using WordPress plugins that improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow A Medical Services & Health-Related Website – Part 2

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