Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business worldwide, it has also created growing challenges and great opportunities for the health industry.

Online Challenges For The Medical And Health Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning smarter ways to market your practice online.

In addition to spending money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., businesses in the medical-related industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be delegated towards the development and management of a website that brings new clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps give their business a wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

Another problem that health-related organizations face, as most professions do for that matter, is that they have only around thirty seconds to help visitors find the information they are searching 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 Services Providers

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to health businesses that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy demands and who can think strategically when it comes to marketing their business better online.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways to find more clients and create noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical website or blog.

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

• Discover Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Customers
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we will show you ways to improve your health or medical website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health or medical website, check out the detailed guide we have written here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites need some essential web pages. Let’s review these.

Services Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, neurosurgery hematology, cosmetic surgery, stroke, renal, infection control, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, medical imaging, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, optical services, neurosciences, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

Remember to list any medical or health-related awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your services and position yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online? Then something you can do, is help prospects get to know you, your team and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline your person’s expertise, how they add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-manage directory of staff members to your site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee List To Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Recruitment Page

List any job opportunities within the practice. This page should include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include case studies of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information about new 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 the page, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also establishes social proof.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a comprehensive article on using testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: Create Better Results Online Using Engaging Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide some or all of the following information about your business:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Interactive chat feature (optional)

If you operate out of several locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as the latest announcements, updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin delivering targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Drive More Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is essential. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws and regulations in whatever region you provide services.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your 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 Statement
• Terms 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 detailed article about adding legal pages to your website here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key business differentiators.

By committing to providing great content with information, advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your information and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your services.

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

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure permanent weight loss
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• How to avoid late night snacking (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include the keywords in your articles that prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some examples of feeds containing useful information that 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 select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BioMed Central, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, European Heart Journal, Occupational Medicine, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - 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 news and topics like enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, recalls, radiological health, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Prevention & Wellness, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Stroke, Fibromyalgia, Aid/Disasters, Men’s Health, Biology/Biochemistry, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “immune system rss feeds”, “mental health rss feeds”, “crohn’s rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can provide users with step-by-step information and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and charts are also great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover topics such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators are some of the most popular tools for your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2 of this guide, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• Your Health Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins

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