Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Medical professionals today face difficult challenges brought about by the web economy.
Online Challenges For Health Professionals
Now, more than ever, businesses in the health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your medical services online.
As well as investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical-related industry are now finding that they need to delegate a bigger part of their marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that can drive prospects, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help give them wider reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your website 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 frequently. This requires implementing well-planned website and content management strategy.
One other challenge that medical or health-related businesses face online (as most other professions do for that matter), is that your site has only around 30 seconds or less to give users what 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
Online Opportunities For Health Professionals
As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical businesses that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.
In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways to drive more web traffic and create significant improvements in your business presence online.
As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your medical or health-related business website or blog.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see these articles:
- Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
- How To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Blog
Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Services & Health Center Site
We’ll start first by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content works best for health or medical websites, useful tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners
Your Web Pages
Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your should have and how to set up your website for best results.
Services
It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services like:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology blood disorders, plastic surgery, stroke, respiratory, urology, optometry palliative care, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
- Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, radiology, pap smears, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
- Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
- Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive services, speech language therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.
List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.
Who We Are
The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.
This page should mention any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your services and to set yourself above similar service providers.
(List all of your awards accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc. in your About page. Image source: squaremedical.com.au)
Our Team
If you are looking for inexpensive ideas to grow your business online and get people to engage more on your site, then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust your organization better.
Prospective clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected staff members on their social pages.
In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each team member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)
If you need help how to add an updatable simple team members directory in your site with no coding skills required, see this tutorial: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory For Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code
Job Opportunities
List any job opportunities available within the clinic. This page could include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include case studies of trainees who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health and medical industry.
Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies
Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also provides potential clients with social proof.
(Add a page to your site with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online. For more details: How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Sales Boosting Testimonials
Contact Us
Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.
Your contact page should include some or all of the following:
- Company Name
- Your address
- Telephone
- Facsimile
- Contact email address
- Map
- Website address
- Contact form
- Name of person to contact
- Links to social media profiles
- Online chat feature
If your business operates out of multiple areas you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.
Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Blog
A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as the latest announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your company.
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 serve both as your business website and your blog.
Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic system that will help attract a stream of new targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding new content to your website on a regular basis.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)
Go here to learn more about this:
Legal Info Pages
Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws or regulations wherever you practice.
Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your medical-related website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- 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. Go here to learn more: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Improving Your Web Content
In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.
By providing useful content with tips, advice and information, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages with others online and coming back for more content. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your services.
For example, if your business provides services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can write content about include:
- What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
- Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
- Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
- How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
- Etc.
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.
Use the same keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients would search to find you 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 you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for 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 100% FREE!
Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving your site’s 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 visitor engagement and UX.
Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds
RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.
If you provide valuable information, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.
Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other websites using RSS feeds, include:
- All of your updates are kept in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- Feeds allow for subscribing
- It provides links back to your site
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to providing content on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
To find RSS feeds with useful content just visit sites of health or medical-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.
Here are some RSS feeds you could consider adding to a medical-related site:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, BMJ Tobacco Control, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, 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
- FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like FDA drug safety, health fraud, recalls, tobacco news, 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 - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and 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 choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Eyesight, Hearing, etc.)
- MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Medical Insurance, Veterinary, Transplants/Organ Donations, Tropical Diseases, Tuberculosis, etc.)
You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “fertility rss feeds”, “sleep disorders rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.
(RSS feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)
Provide Downloadable Forms
Checklists and medical forms are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Charts and checklists are great client educational tools.
Checklists, charts and medical forms could address topics such as:
- Booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and exercise program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)
Add Online Tools
Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.
In the next section of this guide, we take a look at a number of WordPress plugins you can add to your website that can also help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.
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