Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

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

Online Challenges For Health Services Practitioners

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning better ways to promote your practice online.

In addition to spending money marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to invest a greater part of your marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and increases your marketing exposure 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 will change in time and some aspects will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other problem that health or medical-related businesses face with their websites, and all other professions for that matter, is that they have only about 30 seconds or less to help users find the information they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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 & Medical Related Businesses In The Digital Realm

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

In this guide, you will learn new ways and opportunities to attract new visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your health or medical business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Business Online With A WordPress Site

Ways To Improve Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your medical or health website and get better results. We show you what pages a health-related site needs, what type of content works best for health-related websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, go here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites require some basic pages. Let’s review these.

Products And Services Description Page

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services or products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery hematology, maxillofacial surgery, incontinence, rheumatology, infection control, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, oral health, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, fertility services, occupational therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, mobility, home and community care, community health, medical transport, 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.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical activities, etc.

It should mention any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your services and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker and easier ways to sell more products online and increase user interaction on your site, then help your prospective clients get to know you and your business better.

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

In this page, make sure to highlight each person’s expertise, how their skills 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 staff description page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage simple team directory to your web site with no coding skills required here: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment

List any career opportunities available within your clinic. This page could include training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your business, etc. You can include case studies of graduates who have risen within your company and information about career opportunities in the medical or health-related 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and user reviews improve your business online here: How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects With Compelling User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:

• Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat (optional)

If your business services different locations you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, 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 for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as the latest news, updates, training articles, opinions on current topics, educational videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something few people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin attracting web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

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

For more details, go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

It’s vitally important for professional businesses to 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 breaching any laws or regulations wherever you do business.

Adding the following legal pages to your health site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive online business economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competitors.

Providing useful content with great information, tips or advice will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about using your products and services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• What to do before starting any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• What are calories and how understanding them helps in weight loss
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• How to make right choices when eating in restaurants
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include the keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving your website’s 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 your visitor engagement and UX.

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide useful content, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Allows for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for medical-related government departments and industry bodies.

Here are some examples of feeds you could add 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 individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, 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 leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Journal of Biological Chemistry, BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, FDA drug shortages, tainted products, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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) - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Cancer, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diabetes, Sexual Health, Sleep, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Schizophrenia, Seniors/Aging, ADHD/ADD, Cholesterol, COPD, Nutrition/Diet, Genetics, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “ebola rss feeds”, “deafness rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your health or medical-related website’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists are also great client instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists covering a range of areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools for your website. Other applications would include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your site that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to access the rest of this article:

• Your Health And Medical Clinic Services Website – WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation

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