Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only revolutionized the way business is done globally, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for health services providers.

Online Challenges For The Health Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active web presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your health or medical services services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the health industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated to develop and maintain a website that will attract new prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase their marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other problem that medical services professionals face online, and other professions for that matter, is that they have only about thirty seconds to help users find the information they need or they will 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

Opportunities For Health Services Professionals

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical-related industry that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy demands and can think strategically when it comes to marketing their services better online.

In this article, you will learn about new ways to generate traffic and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your business online, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your health business website.

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

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Money
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Center Website

This section will show you how to improve your medical website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: The Web Site Planning Process Explained: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All websites require a number of essential pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to structure your website for best results.

Services And Products

It’s essential to include a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, nephrology haematology, maxillofacial surgery, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, endoscopy, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, hearing, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, functional medicine, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, neurosciences, prosthetics, mobility, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

This page should also include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your business and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Team

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products or services online or get people to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It should include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each person’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add a list of staff members to your WordPress site using free plugins, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site: Step-By-Step Tutorial

We’re Hiring

List any job opportunities within your business. This page should include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical industry.

Maintain 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 contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you will also help to provide prospective clients with social proof online for your business.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online here: Learn How To Improve Your Sales With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us

A clean contact page is essential.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Chat/Skype

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

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

Add A Medical Or Health-Related Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as news and announcements, product releases, educational articles, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your medical company.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your business website and business blog.

You may not be aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that will begin driving a stream of web traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your site)

If you would like to know more about this here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Increase Your Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s very important to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken in whatever area or location you do business.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your medical-related site will help keep you 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 Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive online business economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

By committing to providing great content with useful information, tips or advice, you will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, how to identify yours)
• The role portion control plays in helping you your weight loss efforts
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• Vitamins and minerals that aid in weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• And many other content topics

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

Include keywords and terminology in your articles that your 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 actionable information and practical tips that will teach 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 presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

Improving your user experience (known as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

If you provide useful content, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

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

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable content on 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 just visit sites of relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds you could consider adding to a health-related 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 select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Violence against women, 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. PhysiologicalReviews, BMJ, Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery, BMJ Archives of Disease, 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 - Get various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, health fraud, product recalls, cosmetics, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Get many feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Prevention & Wellness, Skin, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eating Disorders, Arthritis/Rheumatology, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Hearing/Deafness, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Sports Medicine/Fitness, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “radiology rss feeds”, “gastroenterology rss feeds”, “IBD rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your medical-related site’s user experience.)

Add Downloadable Checklists

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. They can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Checklists and charts are great educational tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could cover areas such as:

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

Other Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools to add to your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed guide, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your health or medical-related website using WordPress plugins that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to improve your medical web presence.

To view Part Two, click this link:

• Grow Your Health Clinic Website – WordPress Plugins That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors

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