Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services providers today face growing challenges.

Challenges Professional Medical Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical services providers must find smarter ways to stand apart from the crowd and find new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective website and searching for smarter ways to grow your health or medical services services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be delegated to develop and maintain a website that drives new clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to increase their marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that health practitioners face with their websites, as all other professions do for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds to provide visitors what they need 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 Digital Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health-related practices that can adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will discover new opportunities to attract and engage new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your medical-related website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your medical business website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Money
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Services & Health Practice Site

In this section we’ll 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 content works best for medical websites, ways of improving your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health or medical-related website, read this guide: How To Plan Your Business Web Site: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

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

Services Page

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology blood disorders, plastic surgery, incontinence, renal, gastroenterology, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, medical imaging, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, fertility services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should choose you.

About Us

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

Remember to list any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and to position yourself above your competitors.

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

Core Team

Are you searching for cost-effective ways to sell more products online or increase user interaction on your site? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know you, your team and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. 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. This page can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight each employee’s experience, 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 a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to create and add a simple staff directory to your website without coding skills here: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities Page

List any job or career opportunities available within your clinic. It would include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include information about additional career opportunities in the medical and health 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you will also help to provide social proof online for your business.

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

To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and user reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Improve Your Sales With Compelling Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live chat

If you have several locations you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, useful articles, opinions on current topics, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established medical website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical clinic.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health-related website is very hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your business website and business blog.

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin to attract targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Information

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services.

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

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

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s ultra-competitive global economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

By providing useful content with great information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• How to calculate how many calories you consume each day
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. Low carb diet, GI diet, Weight Watchers diet (what these are, how they work, are they effective)
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And many other content topics

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

Include keywords and terms in your content that readers will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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 Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (known as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide useful content, 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 in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your website 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 visit sites of medical-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds you could add to a medical-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 select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, 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. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, RadioGraphics, Neurology.org, The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related news like FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), pet health, animal and veterinary news, 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 - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Digestion, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Dentistry, Fibromyalgia, Dermatology, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Women’s Health/Gynecology, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “ADD rss feeds”, “transplants rss feeds”, “restless legs syndrome rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Charts and checklists can give them useful information and resources to perform necessary steps. They are also great client educational tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable checklists, charts and forms (or links to these) covering topics 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, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Unique Tools

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

In part two, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view the rest of this article, click this link:

• How To Successfully Grow A Medical Practice Website With WordPress – Part Two

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