Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Online Challenges For The Health Profession
Today, more than ever, health services providers must work harder to remain competitive and generate new clients. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and searching for smarter ways to market your business online.
As well as investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be directed towards the development and maintenance of a website that will bring in clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and increase their marketing reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy.
One other difficult challenge that medical and health services practitioners face with their websites, as all other professions do for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds to provide users what they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.
“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
Online Opportunities For Health & Medical Related Businesses In The Digital Realm
As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical sector that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.
In this article, you will discover new ways and opportunities to source more client bookings and improve your business presence online.
As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your health-related website, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical-related business website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:
- How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Customers
- WordPress And Small Business – An Online Guide To Growing Your Successful Small Business Using A WordPress Site
Useful Tips To Improve Your Medical Website
In this section we will show you how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a medical-related website needs, what type of content works best, navigation structure, etc.
If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed step-by-step guide: How To Plan Your Business Website - A Useful Primer For Business Owners
Basic Website Pages
All websites require some essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your need and how to set up your website for best results.
Services
It’s essential to have a page that explains your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services such as:
- Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics diabetes, reconstructive surgery, aged care, rheumatology, infection control, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
- Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, x-ray, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
- Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
- Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, fertility services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, mobility, home care, clinical information, medical equipment, 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
This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
This page should list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your services and set yourself above your competitors.
(List all of your awards accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc. in the About Us page. Image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)
Staff
Are you looking for inexpensive ways to grow your business online and get people to interact more with your site? Then help visitors get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.
Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual team 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 highlight your person’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 page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)
We have created a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-update simple team members directory in your site with no coding skills required here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site
Career Opportunities Page
This is a listing of career opportunities within your practice. It would include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have worked their way up in your company and information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health-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
Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps to provide visitors social proof.
(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and reviews get better results online. To learn more about this go here: Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions Using More Effective Testimonials
Contact Us
Having a clean contact page is vitally important.
It should include the following:
- Business Name
- Your physical location
- Phone
- Fax
- Contact email address
- Google Map
- Website URL
- Contact form
- Name of person to contact
- Links to social media networks
- Chat (optional feature)
If your business operates from multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.
You could also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.
Blog
A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your medical services.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health website is 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 people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can help drive web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate web traffic automatically to your website)
Go here to learn more about this:
Legal Info Pages
It’s extremely important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened in whichever region you do business.
Depending on what services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site
In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.
Providing useful content with great information, advice or tips will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Using content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.
For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you can cover as content on your site:
- What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
- How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
- Characteristics of different diets, e.g. HCG diet, Raw Food diet, Volumetrics diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, how effective they are)
- How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
- 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, terminology, etc.
Use keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients would search for online.
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 website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your presence online using content. 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 site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.
RSS Feeds – Content Syndication
RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in a number of different ways.
If you provide content 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
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Your feed can be shared
- Feeds allow users to subscribe
- It provides a way for links to point back to your content
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for medical and health-related government departments or industry bodies.
For example, here are some examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to your site:
- 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 choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Applied Physiology, BMJ, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, The Journal of Physiology, Respiratory Research, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Get many RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get feeds on fda-related news like enforcement reports, food safety reports, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, vaccines, blood and biologics, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- UK Department Of Health (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health) – 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 RSS 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 – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Cholesterol, Pregnancy, Exercise & Fitness, Heart, etc.)
- Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. MRSA/Drug Resistance, Arthritis/Rheumatology, Blood/Hematology, Flu/Cold/SARS, Heart Disease, Mental Health, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, 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. “anaesthetics rss feeds”, “IBS rss feeds”, “MRI rss feeds”, etc.
(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health or medical-related website’s user experience.)
Adding Downloadable Forms
Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and charts can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to perform tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.
You can provide forms, charts and checklists covering a range of topics such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists for specific systems
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)
Online Tools
Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Health-related calculators are useful tools for your website. Other tools could include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.
In the next section of this detailed article, we take a look at a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your site that improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part 1 of this article on ways to grow your health or medical-related business online.
Click here to continue reading:
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