Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical and Health professionals today are facing an increasing number challenges created by the digital economy.

Challenges Health Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical or health practices must find smarter ways to remain competitive and generate new clients. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your health or medical services services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the health industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated towards developing and managing a website that can bring new clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help increase their reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and some aspects may need to be updated often. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that medical-related businesses face (as most professions do for that matter), is that you have an average of thirty seconds to provide visitors with what they are looking for 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 The Medical Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical sector that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.

This guide will help you uncover opportunities to generate new potential clients and establish stronger online credibility for your health or medical-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your medical or health-related website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Business
• The Complete Guide To Building A Successful Small Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section covers ways to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what content you need, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, check out the article we have written here: How To Plan Your Business Web Site: A Practical Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need several basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to set up your medical website for best results.

Services And Products Description Page

You need a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics hematology, reconstructive surgery, aged care, rheumatology, gastroenterology, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental implants, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, x-ray, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, occupational therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, community health, 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 direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropic programs, etc.

It’s important to include any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and position yourself above the competition.

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

Our Team

Are you looking for cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospects get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline each team member’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills and knowledge contribute to the success of 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 on how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory in your website using free plugins here: How To Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Recruitment

List any job opportunities within the business. This page could include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Also include 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.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you are also helping to provide potential clients with social proof online for your business.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you want to learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, refer to this article: Achieve Better Results Online With Engaging Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include:

• Company Name
• Physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media links
• Chat/Skype (optional)

If you have different areas you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, updates, educational articles, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an medical or health-related website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your medical business.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin to drive targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can generate new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Visitors Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s essential to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more, go here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Website

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

By providing useful content with tips and information, you will get your readers sharing your information and coming back for more content. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your services.

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include the keywords and terminology in your articles that your readers will 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 teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve User Experience

Improving 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 visitor engagement and user experience.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

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

There are also benefits to providing valuable content on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just visit sites of medical or health-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, 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. Blog posts 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, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, ADA DiabetesCare , BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Infectious Agents and Cancer, 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) – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products, foods, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. 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 choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Cancer, Cold & Flu, Diabetes, Digestion, Travel Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Fertility, Lymphology/Lymphedema, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “cardiology rss feeds”, “dyslexia rss feeds”, “hepatitis rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide useful step-by-step information and resources to perform steps. Charts and checklists are also great instructional tools.

You can provide a range of checklists and forms (or links to these) covering areas such as:

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

Add Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two of this detailed guide, we look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your medical or health-related website that improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• Your Medical Services & Health Center Website – Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Visitors Using Plugins And Themes

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