Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only revolutionised business worldwide, it has also created significant challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the health or medical sector.

Challenges Professional Medical Practitioners Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your medical or health services services online.

In addition to investing dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy medical businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned towards the development and management of a website that will bring in prospects, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and give you a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, 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 your website will change in time and many aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

One other challenge that health businesses face (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that they have around thirty seconds to give users what they need or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 And Health Businesses

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health industry that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

The article below will help you uncover new opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and see significant improvements in your business online.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business
• A Complete Guide To Building A Successful Business With WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your health or medical website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed guide: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites require some basic pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to structure your health website for best results.

Your Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could include services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, nephrology hematology, cancer, gerontology, renal, infection control, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, medical imaging, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, functional medicine, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropic programs, etc.

Remember to also list any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

Are you searching for simple ideas to sell more products or services online or get people to stay longer on your site? Then help your visitors get to know your organization better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page 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 their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow some of your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight your staff member’s qualifications, how their skills 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 page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add a simple and easy-to-manage directory of employees in your WordPress site, go here: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. This page would include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your business and information about additional career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using client testimonials and reviews, see this article: Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using More Effective User Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is essential.

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

• Business Name
• Street address of premises
• Telephone
• Facsimile number
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

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

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

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like announcements, updates, training information, informative posts, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing health or medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your medical business.

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

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that will help attract new targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s extremely important for health providers businesses to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional or federal laws or regulations in whatever area you provide services.

Adding the following legal pages to your health or medical-related site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), 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
• etc.

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with information has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

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

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you can cover in your web content include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (carbs, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals)
• Tips for developing portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Tips for developing an exercise plan you can enjoy and will stick with
• Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Remember to include keywords in your articles 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

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

If you provide information that adds value to others, 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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.

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

Below we have listed examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to a health or medical-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 individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), ADA DiabetesCare , Neurology India, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, 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 feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information, FDA drug shortages, recalls, foods, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find various health-related news 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 feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Senior Health, Heart, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. MRSA/Drug Resistance, Headache/Migraine, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Veterinary, Endocrinology, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Psychology/Psychiatry, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “melanoma rss feeds”, “cold rss feeds”, “oncology rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your site’s UX.)

Provide Online Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary steps performed. Forms and checklists can also be great educational tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could cover topics such as:

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

Add Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to users. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools you can add to your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we will look at a several WordPress plugins you can add to your site that improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this comprehensive article on ways to improve your health or medical-related business web presence.

Click on this link to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Center Services Website – Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic With WordPress Plugins And Themes

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