Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created many challenges and opportunities for the health or medical sector.

Challenges Medical Firms Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for smarter ways to promote your medical or health services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be allocated towards the development and maintenance of a website that will attract prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help you gain wider exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical and health services professionals face with their websites (as all other professions do for that matter), is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to give visitors the information they need or they will leave the site.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical-related industry that can evolve to meet digital economy challenges and think strategically in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

The article below will help you uncover a number of ways to drive more traffic and establish online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, 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 Content Management System, see these articles:

• Discover Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Money
• The Complete Guide To Building Your Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health & Medical Services Site

Let’s start by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health or medical website, visit this page: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Cost-Saving Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Pages

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

Description Of Services

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page can include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, neurosurgery haematology, cancer, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, audiology, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive services, optical services, medical genetics, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

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

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

Your Team

If you are looking for ideas to sell more products or services online, then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It should include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline each team member’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to your WordPress site using free plugins, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

We’re Hiring

List any job or career opportunities within your organization. This page should include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You should also include information about career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include 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 updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

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

(Add a page to your site with testimonials and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article on using testimonials and client reviews get better results online. For more details: Discover How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

It should provide some or all of the following information about your clinic:

• Name Of Your Business
• Address
• Phone number
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Social media URLs
• Live chat feature (optional)

If you have multiple locations you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, updates, educational information, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your medical business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your website and your blog.

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that can attract an ongoing stream of web traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information Pages

As a professional business, having a compliant website is crucial. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional or federal laws or regulations in whichever area you provide services.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and 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 Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

Go here if you would like to learn more about adding legal pages to your site: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

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

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to identify the bad habits you need to correct to ensure permanent weight loss
• Incorporating exercise into your busy schedule
• Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords and terminology in your content that prospective clients will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business 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 website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

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

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses may 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 content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing information on your site 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 by searching online for health and medical-related government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some useful RSS feeds you could add to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (American Association for Cancer Research), ADA DiabetesCare , CDC USA, Current Psychiatry, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, FDA drug shortages, product recalls, tobacco news, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many RSS feeds on health-related 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 RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Menopause, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Sexual Health, Thyroid, 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. Public Health, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Dermatology, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Dyslexia, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “nuclear medicine rss feeds”, “plastic surgery rss feeds”, “hepatitis rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Add Forms

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Charts and checklists can also be great instructional tools.

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

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

Add Other Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Others can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2 of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that can also help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this article on ways to improve your health or medical web presence.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• Tips For Health Providers – Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic With WordPress Plugins

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