Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health providers face many new challenges in today’s web economy, especially when it comes to growing a business online.

Challenges Medical & Health Services Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out better ways to market your business online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical or health industry are now finding that they will need to delegate a larger share of their budget towards developing and managing a website that brings new clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps increase their marketing reach online.

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

One other problem that medical organizations face with their websites (and other professions for that matter), is that your site has only around 30 seconds to give visitors what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to health-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy demands and who can think outside the box in terms of marketing their services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways to drive more web traffic and improve your online results.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your health-related website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Business
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best for medical websites, ways to improve layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, check out the detailed guide we have written here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need some basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to set up your medical-related website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

You need a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology hematology, cancer, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, endoscopy, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, oral health, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, natural therapy, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, othopedics, fertility services, rehabilitation, neurosciences, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, clinical information, medical equipment, etc.

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

Who We Are

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

It’s important to mention any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Meet Our Team

If you are searching for simple ways to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is help prospective clients get to know you, your team and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a mini biography. 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 should include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight your 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.

(Add a staff page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in your web site using a free plugin, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities

List any job opportunities within your company. It can include training, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health or medical industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you are also helping to establish social proof online for your business.

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

If you want to learn more using testimonials and client reviews go here: How To Get Better Results Online With More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If you operate out of different areas you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news, updates, useful articles, discussions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing health or medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to create more exposure for your medical clinic.

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that will begin to attract web traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more:

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s very important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being contravened wherever you practice.

Adding the following legal pages to your medical-related site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

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

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key success factors for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

You will want to provide great content with tips, information or advice that will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more content. This is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, 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)
• How small efforts in portion control can help your weight loss efforts
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords in your content that your prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve 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.

Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your health-related business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing content on 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 search online for medical-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Here are some RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a medical-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Healthy aging, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, Neurology India, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, food allergy reports, tainted products, animal and veterinary news, 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 - Find 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 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 select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Menopause, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Oral Health, Senior Health, Skin, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eating Disorders, Vascular, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Heart Disease, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “stem cell research rss feeds”, “cholesterol rss feeds”, “ear, nose and throat rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical or health site’s user experience.)

Add Downloadable Charts And Checklists

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Charts and checklists are great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase 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 business online.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Web Presence – Part 2

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