Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only transformed the way business is done worldwide, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for medical or health businesses.

Challenges Health And Medical Services Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your practice online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to invest a bigger share of your marketing budget to developing and managing a website that can bring new prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, 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 the website may change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health practitioners face online, as other professions do for that matter, is that they have an average of 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what they are searching 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

Online Opportunities For Medical Services Practitioners

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical practices that are willing to evolve to meet digital demands and think outside the box in terms of marketing their business services better online.

In this guide, you will learn about new ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your health or medical business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Customers
• A Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your health website and get better results. We will look at what pages a health or medical site needs, what content you need, ways to improve layout and navigation, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All business websites need several essential web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Products And Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery endocrinology, cancer, incontinence, respiratory, weight loss surgery, eye diseases elective surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, hearing, 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 services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, wellness, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, functional medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, stomal therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community 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 these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community contributions, etc.

Remember to include any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and set yourself above other competitors.

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

Team Profile

Are you searching for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products online? Then help prospects get to know you and your business better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each employee’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an updatable simple team directory in your web site without coding skills here: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the company. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. It should include case studies of trainees who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the health 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, join your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with client reviews and case studies also helps your medical or health business to provide social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a comprehensive article on using client testimonials and reviews here: How To Convert More Visitors Into Prospects Using Knockout Client Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following information about your company:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Interactive chat feature (optional)

If your business services multiple areas you should make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like the latest announcements, updates, educational information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your organization.

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin driving targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is very important. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being breached in whichever region you do business.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your medical site 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 Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive 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 WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive online business economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Provide great content with information, tips or advice that will get your visitors sharing your information with others and coming back for more. This is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide products that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could cover as content on your site:

• What to do before starting any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• How to get support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• 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 readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching 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 that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Use RSS Feeds

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

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

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

There are also benefits 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 loads of useful content just search online for medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• 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 choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. PhysiologicalReviews, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 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
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, food safety reports, pet health, radiological health, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS 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 specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Menopause, Chronic Pain, Depression, Digestion, Travel Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Immune System/Vaccines, Medical Insurance, Neurology/Neuroscience, Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy, Epilepsy, Genetics, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “lymphology rss feeds”, “medical malpractice rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide useful information and resources to perform steps. They can also be great client instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are popular tools for your website. Other tools can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your health site that can also help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• Tips For Health And Medical Services Providers – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic Using Plugins And Themes

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