Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services practitioners today face an ever growing number of new challenges created by the digital economy.

Challenges Professional Health Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical professionals must find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clientele. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your practice online.

As well as spending money marketing offline, businesses in the medical industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to develop and maintain a website that drives new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and increases their presence online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website may change in time and some areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health-related organizations face online, as other businesses do for that matter, is that you have around 30 seconds to give users the information they need or they will look 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

Opportunities For The Medical Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical industry that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and think strategically when it comes to marketing their services better online.

In this article, you will learn about new opportunities to generate more business and establish online credibility for your health business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, 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.

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

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow Your Business

Tips To Improve Your Website

This section explains how to improve your health website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best for medical sites, tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, read this detailed step-by-step guide: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites need some basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Products And Services

You need a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, nephrology diabetes, plastic surgery, aged care, respiratory, bariatric surgery, eye diseases operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, hearing, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, natural therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, stomal therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

It should also list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and to position yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Staff

If you are looking for cost-effective ways to grow your business online and get people to interact more with your site, then help your prospects get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

Prospective clients need 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 brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health-related terms it 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 visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each employee’s expertise, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple employee directory in your website using a free WordPress plugin, go here: Adding An Employee Directory: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Job Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities available within your business. It could include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include information about new career opportunities in the health 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 & Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients also establishes social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews, see this article: Improve Your Sales Using Powerful User Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is absolutely vital.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat (optional feature)

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

You could also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like events, updates, educational articles, opinions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health website is hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and business blog.

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can begin driving a stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your Website Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

It’s really important to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your practice is located.

Depending on the services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your medical or health 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 Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your site: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

Providing useful content with advice, information or tips will get your readers to share your information online and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

For example, if your business provides solutions that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can cover in your web content include:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• The role portion control plays in helping you achieve weight loss results
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And endless other content topics

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

Use keywords and terms in your articles 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 actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• A feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is 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 or industry bodies.

Here are a few useful RSS feeds you could add to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Rheumatology, The Psychiatrist, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, The Journal of Physiology, Respiratory Research, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products marked as dietary supplements, tobacco news, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Menopause, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Eyesight, Heart, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Medical Students/Training, Headache/Migraine, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Endocrinology, Respiratory/Asthma, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “palliative care rss feeds”, “nutrition rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. They are also great client instructional tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable checklists and forms (or links to these) covering subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Provide Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools to add to your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we discuss a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this guide on ways to build your health or medical business web presence.

To continue, click this link:

• The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Grow Your Medical Services And Health-Related Web Presence – Part 2

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