Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed the way business is done worldwide, it has also created growing challenges and opportunities for medical and health services providers.

Online Challenges For The Medical And Health Profession

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 your business serves, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other health-related businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be directed to develop and manage a website that can bring in leads, engage visitors, 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 great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website will change over time and many aspects will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that medical or health-related organizations face with their websites, as most other professions do for that matter, is that your site has only about thirty seconds to give visitors what they are searching for or they will leave your site.

“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 Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to medical-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think progressively in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will learn new ways to attract new visitors and improve your business results online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System to power your medical or health-related website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, go here:

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• Learning WordPress – The Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Clinic Site

Let’s start by going over some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what content you need, suggestions for improving navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Cost-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

All websites need some basic pages. Let’s go over these.

Description Of Services

You need a page that describes your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, rehabilitation medicine, renal, bariatric surgery, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, radiology, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community events, etc.

Remember to also include any professional awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your business and to position yourself above other competitors.

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

Staff Page

If you are looking for ideas to sell more products online, then make it easier for prospects to get to know you and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not 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 specialized areas do. This page can include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

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

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

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-update simple staff directory in your site, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within the clinic. It could include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health industry.

Also include 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you will also help to are also providing social proof online for your business.

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

If you want to learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Meaningful Client Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical address
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Live chat feature

If your business services several locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like news and events, updates, training information, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin to deliver web traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Traffic For Your Business Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Information

As a professional business, ensuring that you have a compliant website is crucially important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being contravened in whatever area you service.

Depending on the services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your medical website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, 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 Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the ability to deliver valuable content to visitors at no cost has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By providing useful content with tips, information or advice, you will get your readers sharing your information with others online and coming back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

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

• What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• Is weight loss surgery right for you? (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
• Tips for developing an exercise regime you can enjoy and will stick with
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthier diet plan
• Etc.

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.

Use keywords in your content that your readers would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

You can find RSS feeds with useful content for your website by visiting sites of medical and health-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Here are some examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• 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 choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, 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 list of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, BMJ, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get feeds on fda-related topics like consumer health information, health fraud, product recalls, drugs, 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 many feeds on health-related news and topics 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 RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Sexual Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Acid Reflux/GERD, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Endocrinology, Cleft Palate, Genetics, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “vascular rss feeds”, “addiction rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. They can give them step-by-step information and resources to complete a task. They can also be great client educational tools.

You can provide a range of checklists and forms (or links to these) covering topics such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

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

In the next section, we will be discussing a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your site that can improve search engine optimization, increase 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 Practice Business Online – Part 2

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