Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed businesses worldwide, it has also created many challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the health or medical-related industry.

Online Challenges For Medical & Health Businesses

Now, more than ever, medical and health services professionals must work hard to remain competitive and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to invest a more significant share of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that can attract leads, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change in time and some aspects will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that medical services practitioners (and most businesses) face with their websites, is that you have only about 30 seconds to help visitors find the information 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 Medical Services Providers

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for medical or health-related practices that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think strategically in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This article will help you uncover a number of ways to attract new client bookings and establish online credibility for your health or medical-related business.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Growing A Successful Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Center Services Site

This section explains ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best, suggestions for improving layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, read this guide: How To Plan Your Website - A Cost-Saving Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

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

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, your page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery endocrinology, maxillofacial surgery, neurology, respiratory, gastroenterology, eye diseases operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, radiology, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, colloidal silver therapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, speech language therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do 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, philanthropy, etc.

Remember to also include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online or get people to engage more with your site? Then help visitors get to know, like and trust your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in medical or health terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline 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 team profile page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain directory of employees or team members in your WordPress site with no coding skills required, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your business. This page should include training, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. It should include stories of trainees who have risen within your organization and information about additional career opportunities in the medical or 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 the page, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a web page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also helps to provide social proof.

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

We have written a comprehensive article on using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: Achieve Better Results Online Using Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us

A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide some or all of the following information about your clinic:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Online Chat/Skype

If your business operates in several areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news and events, product releases, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic system that will begin delivering targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucial to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever your business is located.

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. For more details, go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Providing useful content with great information, advice and tips will get your visitors to share your web pages online with others and come back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

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

• Being overweight vs. being obese – what are the differences?
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Weight loss pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• Apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. 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 site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your medical-related business.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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 for your website, visit sites of health-related government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of RSS feeds you could add to a 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 select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, 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 well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, The Journal of Physiology, American Institute of Biological Sciences, 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 – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like criminal investigations, food allergy reports, pet health, animal and veterinary news, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Mental Health, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Digestion, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Immune System/Vaccines, Blood/Hematology, Emergency Medicine, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Nutrition/Diet, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “pharma industry rss feeds”, “leukemia rss feeds”, “obesity rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Downloadable Checklists & Charts

Checklists and charts are a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary steps done. They are also great instructional tools.

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

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

Adding Online Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to users. Calculators, for example are popular tools for your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can also help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To view Part Two, click here:

• How To Successfully Grow A Health Center Business Online Using WordPress – Part Two

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