Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionized the way business is done around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for medical-related businesses.

Online Challenges For Health Services Professionals

Now, more than ever, health services professionals must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and source new clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated to develop and maintain a website that will attract new clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help increase their marketing exposure online.

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

Another challenge that medical or health-related businesses face (as do most professions for that matter), is that you have only about 30 seconds to give users the information they are searching for or they will find what they are looking for 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 Practitioners

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical industry that can adapt to meet online demands and who can think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.

This article will help you uncover opportunities to find new bookings 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 WordPress to power your medical or health website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Small Business Using A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by covering the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best for health or medical sites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, go here: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Useful Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites require some essential pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to structure your medical website for best results.

Services And Products

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, pulmonology hematology, oral surgery, neurology, respiratory, bariatric surgery, eye diseases day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, medical imaging, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, occupational therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community participation, etc.

It’s important to also list any health or medical-related awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Team

Are you searching for simple ways to sell more products or services online and get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help visitors get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. This page can include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your staff member’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a team profile page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to add an updatable directory of staff members to WordPress using a free plugin, go here: Adding A Staff List Directory In WordPress

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your business. This page can include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health and medical 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 your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides social proof online.

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

We have created a comprehensive article on using testimonials and user reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Standout Client Testimonials

Contact Us

A clean contact page is vitally important.

It should provide:

• Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Online chat feature

If your business operates in several locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You could also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as the latest news, updates, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin attracting a stream of new targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Increase Your Website Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s important to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being broken in whatever area you do business.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health or medical site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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 Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. For more info, see this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

Providing great content with information, advice and tips will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more. Using content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the areas you can cover in your web content include:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Tips for developing a better eating and exercise regime
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
• And endless other content topics

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

Include keywords and terms in your articles that your readers will search for.

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

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide useful information, other sites will 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great 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 RSS feeds with useful content by visiting sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds you could add to a health or medical-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, 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 feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, The Psychiatrist, European Heart Journal, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Respiratory Research, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like enforcement reports, health fraud, pet health, tobacco 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find various health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Prevention & Wellness, Women’s Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News 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. Gout, Immune System/Vaccines, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Cholesterol, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, HIV/AIDS, Statins, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “fibromyalgia rss feeds”, “leukemia rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your site’s UX.)

Add Online Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Charts and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.

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

• 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.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

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

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

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

Click on this link to continue:

• The Complete Guide To Growing Your Medical Services And Health-Related Web Presence – Part 2

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