Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Medical services professionals today face significant challenges brought about by the online economy.
Online Challenges For Medical Businesses
Now, more than ever, medical services providers must work harder to remain competitive and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and figuring out better ways to promote your practice online.
As well as investing dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned to developing and maintaining a website that brings new prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give you wider reach online.
This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, 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 will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.
One other challenge that medical or health businesses face with their websites, as most professions do for that matter, is that you have around thirty seconds to provide visitors with what they need 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 Medical Businesses In The Digital Economy
As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the health-related profession that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think progressively when it comes to marketing themselves better online.
In this guide, you will learn about new ways to attract new client bookings and improve your online results.
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 business website.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, go here:
- Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
- Learn How To Grow Your Small Business Using WordPress
Practical Tips To Improve Your Website
In this section we’ll show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what type of content works best for medical or health websites, your layout and navigation, etc.
If you need help with website planning, check out the guide we have written here: How To Plan A Web Site: A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners
Your Website Pages
Professional business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your should have and how to structure your website for best results.
Description Of Products And Services
You need to include a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page could list services such as:
- Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery blood disorders, oncology, continence management, renal, gastroenterology, eye diseases elective surgery, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dental services, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
- Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, radiology, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
- Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, reiki, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, rehabilitation, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, community health, medical transport, 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 choose you.
About Us Page
The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community participation, etc.
Remember to list any business awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above other competitors.
(List all of your industry awards accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc. in the About page. Image source: squaremedical.com.au)
Core Team
Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.
You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health or medical-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow selected staff members on their social pages.
On this page, make sure to highlight each team member’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add a simple team members directory in WordPress using a free plugin here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List For Your WordPress Site
Career Opportunities Page
List any job opportunities within the company. This page should include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the health and medical industry.
Also include 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 announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies And Testimonials
Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you will also help to will also be establishing social proof for your business.
(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and client reviews improve your business online. To learn more about this go here: Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Knockout Customer Testimonials
Contact Page
Having a functional contact page is vitally important.
Your contact page should provide the following information about your organization:
- Name
- Location
- Phone number
- Facsimile
- Contact email
- Map
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Request for information – contact details
- Links to social media pages
- Chat
If your business operates out of multiple areas you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.
Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Blog
A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.
If you already have an established health-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your organization.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health or medical site is very hard to keep updated or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and your blog.
Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can attract web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your website.
(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your site)
To learn more about this go here:
Legal Information Pages
It’s vitally important for professional businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever your practice is located.
Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- 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
- etc.
If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Improving Your Web Content
In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to engage in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.
Providing useful content with great information, advice and tips will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your services.
For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the areas you can write content about include:
- What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
- How small efforts in portion control can help your weight loss efforts
- How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
- What processed foods can derail your weight loss goals (and healthier choices)
- And endless other content topics
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Include the keywords in your content that your prospective clients would search to find you 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving your website’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.
Content Syndication – RSS Feeds
Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.
If you provide information that adds value to others, 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 updates are in one place
- your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Can be shared online
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- It provides links back to your content
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
- RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your website 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 for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.
Below we have listed some RSS feeds you could add to your site:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog 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. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, 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. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, TheLancet.com, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, 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
- FDA – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like enforcement reports, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), pet health, cosmetics, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news and 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 – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Men’s health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Women’s Health, etc.)
- Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Headache/Migraine, Depression, Sleep/Sleep Disorders/Insomnia, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Sports Medicine/Fitness, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, etc.)
You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “stress rss feeds”, “gastroenterology rss feeds”, “statins rss feeds”, etc.
(Use RSS feeds to improve your site’s user experience.)
Checklists And Forms
Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Charts and checklists can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete steps. They are also great client educational tools.
You can provide a range of checklists, charts and forms covering areas such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for pre or post surgery
- Health checklists for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
- Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
- General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)
Other Tools
Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Others can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.
In part 2 of this guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part one.
Click on this link to continue reading:
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