Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only revolutionised businesses around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for medical practitioners.

Online Challenges For Medical And Health Services Providers

Now, more than ever, medical services practitioners must work harder to remain competitive and source new clients. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and figuring out smarter ways to grow your services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical-related industry are also finding that they need to allocate a more significant amount of their marketing budget to developing and managing a website that will drive new clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and increase their marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change in time and some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a sound website and content management strategy in place.

Another challenge that health-related businesses (and other businesses) face online, is that you have around thirty seconds or less to give users the information they are looking 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 And Health Services Providers

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to health-related practices that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy demands and can think outside the box about improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways to attract new bookings and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see these articles:

• Discover Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Small Business Online With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content you need, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to structure your website for best results.

Services Page

You need to include a page that lists your products or services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, neurosurgery hematology, cancer, neurology, respiratory, infection control, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, oral health, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, speech therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

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 book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropic donations, etc.

It’s important to also mention any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your business and position yourself above your competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are searching for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online, then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your team members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline each 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.

(Add a ‘meet the team’ page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to create and add a simple staff directory in your website with no coding skills required, refer to this tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee Directory: Plugin Tutorial

Recruitment

This is a listing of career opportunities within your practice. This page can include training, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include case studies of recruits who have worked their way up in your business and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials also helps your health-related website to provide 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 case studies, testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online, go here: How To Improve Your Conversions With Effective Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide visitors with the following information:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Interactive chat (optional feature)

If you operate out of several locations you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as news, new releases, training information, discussions on current topics, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing health site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your clinic.

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

You probably don’t know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can begin attracting a stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

For more info, see this article:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information

As a professional medical or health services provider, having a compliant website is important. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you do business.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your medical or health site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), 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 Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving Your Content

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

By providing great content with information, advice or tips, you will get your readers to share your information and come back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to ask for support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• 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 many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative 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 keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients would search 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your site 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 completely FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving user experience (known as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great 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 useful RSS feeds for your website, visit sites of medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

For example, here are some feeds you could add to a medical-related site:

• 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. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, 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. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, PsychiatryOnline Journals, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, BMJ Archives of Disease, The New England Journal of Medicine, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, recalls, cosmetics, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related 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 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 select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Men’s health, Cholesterol, Pregnancy, Digestion, Heart, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Medical Students/Training, Seniors/Aging, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Autism, Men’s Health, Allergy, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, 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. “medical insurance rss feeds”, “cosmetic medicine rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Add Forms & Checklists

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. They can also be great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools you can add to your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a several online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to build your medical or health business web presence.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• How To Successfully Grow A Medical And Health Center Website With WordPress – Part 2

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