Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionised business worldwide, it has also created new challenges and opportunities for businesses in the health or medical-related industry.

Online Challenges For Medical Businesses

Now, more than ever, medical practitioners must work harder to stand out from the crowd and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your medical services online.

In addition to investing money marketing offline, businesses in the health or medical industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be allocated towards developing and managing a website that attracts leads, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps them gain a wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy in place.

One other challenge that health and medical services practitioners (and most professions) face with their websites, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to help visitors find what 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

Opportunities For Medical & Health Businesses

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical-related profession that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think progressively when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn new opportunities to attract new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your health-related business.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Business
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Services & Health Clinic Website

Let’s start by going over the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages a medical or health site needs, what type of content works best, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical or health website, see this article: The Web Site Planning Process - A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

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

Products And Services Page

You need a page that lists your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page can include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery haematology, cancer, geriatric medicine, renal, infection control, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, reiki, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, podiatry, reproductive services, occupational therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

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

This page should also include any medical-related awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Our Team

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online? Then make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your staff member’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value 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 create and add a list directory of staff members in your web site using free plugins, see this step-by-step tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory In WordPress: Plugin Tutorial

Recruitment

List any career opportunities within your organization. It would include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You can include case studies of trainees who have worked their way up in your business and information about additional career opportunities in the health-related 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, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to will also be providing visitors social proof.

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

To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and user reviews go here: How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects Using Captivating User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is essential.

It should provide:

• Business Name
• Location of consulting practice
• Phone
• Facsimile number
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business operates out of several locations you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, useful pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like announcements, updates, educational articles, opinions and discussions, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical business.

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

Something not many businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin to deliver targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Increase Your Web Visitors For Your Business

Legal Info Pages

It’s extremely important for health services providers companies to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws and regulations in whatever area you do business.

Adding the legal pages below to your health-related site 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 and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. For more details: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s highly competitive online economy, content marketing has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses.

Providing great content with advice, information and tips will get your visitors to share your information online and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How small efforts in portion control can help your weight loss efforts
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords and terms in your content that your readers will search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show 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 presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A 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 several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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 just visit sites of relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

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

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. Journal of Applied Physiology, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), RadioGraphics, Occupational Medicine, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like criminal investigations press releases, FDA drug shortages, product recalls, drugs, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Men’s health, Cholesterol, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Digestion, Sleep, 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. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Pain/Anesthetics, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Sleep/Sleep Disorders/Insomnia, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “radiology rss feeds”, “nutrition rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and educational charts are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a task. Charts and checklists are also great educational tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could address subjects such as:

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

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are great tools you can add to your website. Others can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your website that can also help to improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to improve your health or medical-related web presence.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• Your Health Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Driving More Visitors

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