Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals today face significant challenges.

Online Challenges For The Health & Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and searching for smarter ways to market your business online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the medical or health industry are now finding that they need to designate a bigger portion of their marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that brings in clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps them gain a wider reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other problem that health-related organizations (and most other professions) face, is that you have around thirty seconds or less to help visitors find what they are looking for or they will go away.

“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 Health & Medical Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to health businesses that can adapt to meet digital challenges and can think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

This guide will help you uncover a number of ways to increase traffic and see noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your medical-related business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Learn How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Mastering WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Ways To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for health or medical websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed guide we have written: A Comprehensive Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require a number of essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Description Page

You need to include a page that explains your services and products. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, nephrology endocrinology, oral surgery, geriatric medicine, renal, endoscopy, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, audiology, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, holistic medicine, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, rehabilitation, neurosciences, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, community health, medical supplies, 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 with you.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It’s important to include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Our Team

If you are searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online and increase user interaction with your site, then help prospective clients get to know your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s expertise and qualifications, how they add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee description page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add a simple and easy-to-manage list directory of employees to WordPress with no coding skills required, go here: Adding A Staff Directory: Plugin Tutorial

Recruitment

List any career opportunities within the practice. This page would include training offered, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your business, etc. You can include information about new career opportunities in the medical-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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

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

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. You can learn more here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online With Standout Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Chat

If you have different areas you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related-Related Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like the latest announcements, updates, training articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can instantly deliver a stream of targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive web traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucial. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever your practice is located.

Adding the legal pages below to your health or medical-related website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. For more info, see this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin publishing content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Providing useful content with advice, information or tips will get your visitors to share your information with others online and come back for more content. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your services.

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

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (carbs, proteins, minerals, vitamins, fats)
• Is weight loss surgery right for you? (who should get it, risks, success rates)
• Tips for developing a better eating and exercise plan
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthier diet plan
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your medical or health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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 completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving website user experience (known as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Use RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Allows users to subscribe
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your site 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 loads of useful content by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some examples of feeds you could add to a health website:

• 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 specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, 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. Journal of Neurophysiology, PsychiatryOnline Journals, Neurology India, Neurology.org, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, food safety, recalls, foods, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many health-related RSS 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 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. Allergies, Asthma, Migraine Headaches, Pregnancy, Prevention & Wellness, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Cystic Fibrosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Compliance, Hearing/Deafness, Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “infectious diseases rss feeds”, “physical therapy rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. They can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to complete steps. They can also be great educational tools.

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

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

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your potential clients. Calculators are useful tools to add to your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part 2 of this guide, we will be discussing a several online tools you can add to your medical-related site using WordPress plugins that can improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your health or medical business web presence.

Click here to keep reading:

• The Complete Guide To Growing Your Medical & Health Center Services Presence Online Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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