Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
The digital age has not only revolutionised the way business is done globally, it has also created a number of challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the health-related profession.
Online Challenges For Medical Services Practitioners
Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning smarter ways to grow your services online.
As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., businesses in the health-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be delegated towards the development and maintenance of a website that brings in prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps give them wider reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change over time and many areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.
Another problem that health or medical-related organizations face with their websites, as most other businesses do for that matter, is that you have an average of thirty seconds to help visitors find the information they are looking for or they will leave and 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 Medical Providers
As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for health-related businesses that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think outside the box when it comes to marketing their services better online.
In this guide, you will discover a number of ways to attract and engage more visitors and improve your online results.
As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your health-related website or blog.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:
Practical Tips To Improve Your Health Practice Website
This section looks at ways to improve your medical-related website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content works best for medical or health-related sites, useful tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, read this article: The Web Site Planning Process: A Comprehensive Guide For Business Owners
How To Improve Your Web Pages
Professional business websites need some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.
Services Description Page
It’s essential to have a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services like:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology haematology, maxillofacial surgery, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, urology, ophtalmology day surgery, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, audiology, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellbeing, social work services
- Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, natural therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, inherited diseases, prosthetics, sleep therapy, 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 what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.
Who We Are
This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
Remember to list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and set yourself above other competitors.
(List all of your awards recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)
Staff
If you are searching for cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is help prospective clients get to know you and your business better.
You want potential clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in medical or health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team 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 team member’s expertise, how their skills and knowledge add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)
To learn more about how to add an easy-to-update list of staff or team members in your web site using free WordPress plugins, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory To Your Site
We’re Hiring
This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within the clinic. It can include training, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health 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 and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you are also helping to establish social proof online for your business.
(Add a page to your site with client reviews and case studies. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Conversions Using Standout Customer Testimonials
Contact Page
A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.
Your contact page should provide the following information:
- Name Of Your Business
- Physical location
- Phone
- Fax
- Email address
- Google Map
- Website address
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media links
- Chat (optional feature)
If your business operates from several areas you will want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.
You can also include a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Health Or Medical Blog Section
A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an established health website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical clinic.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health site is hard to keep updated or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your business website and business blog.
Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin driving a stream of new visitors to your website, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your website)
You can learn more here:
Legal Pages
It’s crucial for professional businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever you provide services.
Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help you stay 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/Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- etc.
To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Improving Your Content
In today’s highly competitive online business economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.
By committing to providing great content with useful tips or information, you will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your business and services.
For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the areas you could write content about include:
- Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
- How to get support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
- Incorporating exercise into your busy schedule
- How to make smarter choices choices when eating in restaurants
- Etc.
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Include keywords and terms in your content that readers will search for online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving website user experience (known as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.
Content Syndication – RSS Feeds
RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.
If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.
Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your updates are in one place
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Feeds can be shared
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- It provides a way for links to point back to your content
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- RSS provides several ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to providing information 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 RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.
Below we have listed a few RSS feeds you could add to a medical or 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 also choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, BMJ Heart, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, Journal of Cell Science, 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 - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, pet health, foods, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- UK Department Of Health (www.gov.uk) – 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 RSS feeds on health-related news and topics 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 feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.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. Allergies, Asthma, Cold & Flu, Pregnancy, Eyesight, Sleep, etc.)
- MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT 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. Lung Cancer, Fertility, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Autism, Food Intolerance, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)
You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “stem cell research rss feeds”, “endocrinology rss feeds”, “erectile dysfunction rss feeds”, etc.
(Use RSS feeds to improve your website’s UX.)
Provide Charts And Checklists
Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Charts and checklists can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and charts are great client educational tools.
You can provide a range of forms and checklists covering areas such as:
- Booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists for specific conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and exercise program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)
Other Tools
Providing useful tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators are popular tools for your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.
In part two of this guide, we will look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your website that can also help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to grow your health or medical-related business online.
To view the rest of this guide, click here:
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