Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionised the way business is done around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for businesses offering medical or health services.

Online Challenges For Health Services Providers

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

As well as spending money advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to invest a bigger amount of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that drives new prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give you a wider amount of exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and many areas will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical or health organizations face, and all other businesses for that matter, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds or less to help users 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

Online Opportunities For Health Professionals

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical profession that can adapt to meet digital economy challenges and who can think progressively when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover ways and opportunities to generate more web traffic and create noticeable improvements in your business presence online.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Money
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Clinic Services Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your health-related website and get better results. We show you what pages a medical site needs, what type of content works best for health websites, ways of improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this guide: How To Plan Your Business Web Site - A Comprehensive Blueprint For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Products And Services Page

You need a page that describes your products and services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology haematology, maxillofacial surgery, continence management, renal, infection control, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, radiology and imaging, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, reproductive services, stomal therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to also list any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to set yourself above the competition.

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are searching for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products or services online and increase user interaction on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know you and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise, how they add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee description page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-update list directory of staff or team members to a WordPress site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities within your organization. It could include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include stories of graduates who have risen within your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the health industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

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

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using client testimonials and user reviews to improve your business results online, go here: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using More Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include:

• Business Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media links
• Live chat feature (optional)

If you have multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

You can also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as events, new releases, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing medical site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health site is hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your website and your blog.

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin delivering an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your website, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your site)

If you would like to know more about this here:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Drive More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Info Pages

It’s very important for health and medical services providers businesses to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding the following legal pages to your medical-related site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats and 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
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the practice of content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.

By providing great content with information, advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more content. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you could cover as content on your site:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to get support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• How to make smarter choices choices when eating at restaurants
• And many 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 medical or health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Remember to use specific keywords in your content that readers 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality 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 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’s 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 your visitor engagement and user experience.

RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

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

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing great content 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 RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds you could add to a health or medical site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, 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 RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nucleic Acids Research, ADA DiabetesCare , BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Journal of Cell Science, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news like enforcement reports, health fraud, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS 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 – 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, Eyesight, HIV, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT 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. Lung Cancer, Pain/Anesthetics, Radiology/Nuclear Medicine, Cholesterol, Food Intolerance, Dyslexia, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “schizophrenia rss feeds”, “food intolerance rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

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

Add Online Checklists

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Forms and checklists are also great client educational tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists, charts and forms (or links to these) covering a range of areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Add Online Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we will look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your site that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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

To continue, click this link:

• How To Build And Grow A Medical Services And Health Center Website – Part 2

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