Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals today face increasing challenges.

Online Challenges For Health And Medical Services Professionals

Today, more than ever, medical services practitioners must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and obtain new clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your practice online.

As well as spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to designate a more significant amount of your budget towards the development and management of a website that drives new clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you create a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-planned website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that medical or health-related businesses face online (as other businesses do for that matter), is that you have only about 30 seconds to provide users with what they are looking for or they will leave and go 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 Medical Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical-related businesses that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy challenges and can think strategically in terms of marketing their business services better online.

The article below will help you uncover opportunities to attract more visitors and establish online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your health or medical business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), go here:

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by going over some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health website, go here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

Professional business websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Services

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology diabetes, reconstructive surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, infection control, optometry elective surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, x-ray, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, yoga, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive services, physiotherapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

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

This page should also list any medical or health-related awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and position yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online or increase user interaction with your site, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One 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 well-versed in medical 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 also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow selected team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline your person’s qualifications, 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 to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to create and add a simple and easy-to-update simple team members directory in your website without coding skills here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory

Work With Us

List any job opportunities within the practice. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the health-related 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, join your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with case studies and testimonials also helps your health or medical-related website to provide visitors social proof online.

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

If you would like to learn more about using client case studies and reviews get better results online, go here: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should include the following information:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature

If your business operates from multiple areas you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, useful pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as events, product releases, training articles, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an health website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your services.

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic system that will help begin to drive web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

If you would like to learn more here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

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

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your medical or health website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of 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
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. For more info, see this article: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving Your Content

In today’s highly competitive online business economy, the willingness to deliver valuable content to visitors free of charge has become one of the key success factors for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Providing useful content with great tips, information and advice will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could cover as content on your site:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• How small efforts in portion control can help achieve weight loss results
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Remember to include keywords in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for online.

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 teach 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 completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your business.

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 having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

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

There are also a number of benefits 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 RSS feeds with useful content for your website, visit sites of medical or health-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to a health-related 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 individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, 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 various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Rheumatology, Human Molecular Genetics, CDC USA, Radiology, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food safety, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, 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 many feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Migraine Headaches, Diet & Weight Management, Senior Health, Infectious Disease, 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. Bipolar, Immune System/Vaccines, Radiology/Nuclear Medicine, Hearing/Deafness, Transplants/Organ Donations, Dyslexia, Crohn’s/IBD, 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. “stress rss feeds”, “gastrointestinal rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical-related website’s UX.)

Provide Online Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we will be discussing a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to view the rest of this article:

• A Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Medical Services Presence Online With WordPress – Part 2

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