Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals face a number of challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful presence online.

Challenges Medical Services Practitioners Face Online

Today, more than ever, health and medical services providers must find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to spending money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the health industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives new prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and creates wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change in time and some aspects may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical businesses face with their websites, as do most other businesses for that matter, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds or less to provide users what they need or they will leave your site and go elsewhere.

“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 Providers

As well as facing many challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to health or medical-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet online economy challenges and who can think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn a number of ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your medical-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical or health-related business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• Learning WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Practice Website

Let’s start by going over some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your medical or health website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best for medical or health sites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the article we have written here: A Comprehensive Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Pages

All websites require several basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to set up your website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

You need a page that lists your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology blood disorders, oncology, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, infection control, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, medical imaging, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, rehabilitation, inherited diseases, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, clinical information, medical transport, 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 these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community projects, etc.

It should also mention any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your business and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for quicker and easier ways to grow your business online or get people to stay longer on your site, then help your prospects get to know you, your team and your organization better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow some of your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to easily add a simple and easy-to-manage list of staff or team members to WordPress without editing code, go here: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. This page should include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You can include information about new career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps to provide social proof.

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

We have created a detailed article about using testimonials and reviews to grow your business online here: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Sales Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information about your center:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your address
• Phone number
• Facsimile number
• Email
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business services different areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like news and announcements, new releases, training information, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that will deliver new targeted traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your site)

For more details, go here:

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), 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 Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your website: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By providing great content with useful information, advice or tips, you will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. This is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to set realistic, but challenging weight loss goals
• How to develop an exercise routine you can enjoy and will stick with
• How to curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And many other content topics

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

Use keywords in your content that readers will search for online.

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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of 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 ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide valuable content, other businesses may 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 in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some feeds you could consider adding to a medical website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog 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. Body image, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, BMJ, Journal of Cell Biology, Journal of Cell Science, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, 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 feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food safety reports, pet health, foods, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get many 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. 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. Allergies, Men’s health, Cold & Flu, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Prevention & Wellness, Women’s Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Acid Reflux/GERD, Sexual Health/STDs, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Bones/Orthopedics, Respiratory/Asthma, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “melanoma rss feeds”, “drug approvals rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Downloadable Charts & Checklists

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can address areas such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Other Tools

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

In part two of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical or health-related website 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 one.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• How To Grow Your Medical Practice Web Presence Successfully – Part 2

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