Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed businesses globally, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for medical-related businesses.

Challenges Health & Medical Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, health or medical-related businesses must work hard to remain competitive and source new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and figuring out better ways to grow your services online.

In addition to spending dollars marketing offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned towards the development and maintenance of a website that will drive new prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and help give their business a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your website 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 the needs of your website will change over time and many aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical-related businesses face, as do most other businesses for that matter, is that they have an average of 30 seconds or less to give visitors the information they are looking for or they will go away.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for medical-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet digital demands and can think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover new ways to generate more web traffic and improve your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your medical or health-related business online, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a health website needs, what content works best for medical or health-related sites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Pages

All business websites need several essential pages. Let’s go over these.

Services And Products Description Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, orthopedics hematology, reconstructive surgery, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, gastroenterology, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, x-ray, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, speech language therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, sleep therapy, 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 Page

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

Remember to also list any professional awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Staff

If you are searching for cost-effective ways to sell more products online, then one of the things you can do, is help your visitors get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in health terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your staff member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a list directory of employees in your website using free plugins here: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site

Recruitment

This is a listing of job opportunities within the organization. It can include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, 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-related industry.

Include also 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 your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

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 case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you are also helping to will also be establishing social proof online.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Improve Your Sales With Profit-Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Chat feature (optional)

If your business services several areas you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, main pages, booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as news, updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your company.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that will begin attracting new targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding new content to your website on a regular basis.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Traffic For Your Business Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information

As a professional medical or health services provider, ensuring that you have a compliant website is very important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws or regulations wherever you practice.

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more, go here: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving Your Web Content

In today’s ultra-competitive digital economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

Providing great content with advice, information or tips will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if you provide products that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, how to identify yours)
• What are calories and how they play a role in weight loss
• How to incorporate exercise into your weight loss program
• 5 tips that will help you curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• And endless other content topics

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

Include the keywords in your content that your readers 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 actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality 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 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your medical business.

If you provide useful information, 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 updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to 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 useful content just search online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some RSS feeds you could add to a medical or health-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 choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. Nucleic Acids Research, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), American Cancer Society, Radiology, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, health fraud, pet health, animal and veterinary news, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news 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.com – 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. Alzheimer’s Disease, Asthma, Chronic Pain, Depression, Senior Health, Hearing, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Abortion, Headache/Migraine, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Flu/Cold/SARS, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Cosmetic Medicine/Plastic Surgery, Cancer/Oncology, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “anxiety rss feeds”, “IBS rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your medical or health-related website’s user experience.)

Adding Online Checklists

Checklists and educational charts are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide useful step-by-step information and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Checklists and forms are also great educational tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Provide Other Tools

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

In the next section of this guide, we will be discussing a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your medical or health-related site that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this step-by-step article on ways to improve your health or medical business presence online.

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

• Your Medical Services & Health Center Website – WordPress Plugins That Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic

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