Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only revolutionised businesses around the world, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and opportunities for medical services providers.

Online Challenges For Health And Medical Practitioners

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to promote your practice online.

As well as investing money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned towards developing and managing a website that brings in prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps you gain wider exposure online.

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

One other challenge that medical services providers face (as other professions do for that matter), is that they have only around thirty seconds or less to give users the information they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health-related practices that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and can think strategically when it comes to marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn opportunities to attract more visitors and establish online credibility for your business.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), go here:

• Discover How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Learning WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your medical website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what content works best for medical websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this guide: Planning Your Small Business Website - A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Improving Your Web Pages

All business websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to set up your website for best results.

Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology diabetes, cosmetic surgery, neurology, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, meditation, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, optical services, inherited diseases, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, community health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to 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 Page

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

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

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

Team Profile

If you are looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online and increase user interaction on your site, then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health or medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. It should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your staff member’s expertise, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update simple employee directory in WordPress using free plugins, see this tutorial: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory

Career Opportunities Page

List any job or career opportunities available within your organization. This page should include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted or sponsored by your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

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

(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials and reviews get better results online. For more details: How To Create Better Results Online With Sales Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following:

• Company Name
• Address of consulting practice
• Telephone number
• Facsimile number
• Email
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Interactive chat (optional feature)

If your business operates from different areas you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ page, main pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like news and events, new releases, educational information, informative posts, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical company.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health-related website is very hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and business blog.

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that will begin to deliver new visitors to your website, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can drive web traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Web Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s crucial for professional businesses to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. For more info, see this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive digital economy, being generous with information has become one of the key success factors for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Provide great content with tips, advice or information that will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more content. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could publish content about include the following:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
• Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Include keywords in your articles that readers will search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses 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 kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for your 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 providing valuable content on your site 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 by searching online for health-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds containing useful information that you could add to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can search by departments and select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, 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 Quality and Safety in Health Care, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, The Journal of Immunology, The Journal of Physiology, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, health fraud, product recalls, drugs, 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 - Get various health-related RSS feeds 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. 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 specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Digestion, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, ADHD/ADD, Neurology/Neuroscience, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Cosmetic Medicine/Plastic Surgery, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “medical training rss feeds”, “physical therapy rss feeds”, “genetics rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide users with step-by-step information and resources to complete necessary tasks. They are great client instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover subjects 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, cosmetic 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.)

Adding Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are great tools to add to your website. Other tools would include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we look at a number of online tools you can use in your medical or health website using WordPress plugins that can improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view the rest of this guide, click this link:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide On How To Successfully Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Web Presence – Part 2

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