Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals today are facing a growing number of challenges thanks to the online economy.

Online Challenges For Medical And Health Practitioners

Today, more than ever, health or medical businesses must find smarter ways to stand apart from their competition and source new clients. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning better ways to market your health or medical services services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical or health industry are now also finding that they need to delegate a more significant share of their budget to developing and maintaining a website that can bring new prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase their reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical or health businesses face online, as most businesses do for that matter, is that they have around thirty seconds to help users find what they are looking for 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 Health Services

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical profession that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think strategically when it comes to marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover a number of ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your medical or health-related business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your health or medical-related website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see these articles:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Potential Customers
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Website

This section covers how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All business websites need some essential pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics blood disorders, plastic surgery, gerontology, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dental, 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 services – breast screens, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, reproductive services, rehabilitation, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

Remember to also list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products or services online or get people to interact more on your site, then help your prospects get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected staff 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 each staff member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff members in WordPress with no coding skills required, refer to this tutorial: How To Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. This page can include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information about additional career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides potential clients with social proof online.

(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Profit-Boosting Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is vitally important.

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

• Business Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat (optional)

If your business operates out of multiple areas you should make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news and events, updates, educational articles, informative posts, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established medical site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your services.

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 business website and blog.

You may not have been told about this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can help begin delivering an ongoing stream of web traffic to your site, simply by publishing new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

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

Legal Information

It’s essential to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws or regulations in whichever area you service.

Adding the legal pages below to your website 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 and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

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

By committing to providing great content with information, advice or tips, you will get your readers sharing your information with others online and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can publish content about include the following:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (carbs, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins)
• Easy portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• How to make smarter choices choices when eating out at any restaurant
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use the same 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 regular 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 that will add value to 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!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

Improving your site’s 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.

Adding RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful information, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable content on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, visit sites of health or medical-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog 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. Body image, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, 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 well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Quality and Safety in Health Care, ADA DiabetesCare , Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery, Journal of Cell Science, Respiratory Research, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get 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 feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Mental Health, Cold & Flu, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News 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. Public Health, Multiple Sclerosis, Medical Insurance, Cholesterol, Transplants/Organ Donations, Allergy, Erectile Dysfunction/Premature Ejaculation, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ALS rss feeds”, “sports medicine rss feeds”, “dementia rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful instructions and resources to complete necessary steps. Charts and checklists are great client instructional tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active 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 stages of development, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2, we will be discussing a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your medical or health website that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click here to view the rest of this article:

• How To Grow A Medical And Health Center Presence Online With WordPress – Part Two

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