Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and opportunities for medical or health businesses.

Online Challenges For Medical And Health Services Providers

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the health or medical industry are also finding that they will need to allocate a greater amount of their marketing budget to develop and manage a website that brings new leads, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and creates wider exposure online.

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

One other difficult challenge that medical organizations (and all other businesses) face with their websites, is that you have an average of 30 seconds to give users what they need 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 Health Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to medical or health practices that can evolve to meet online demands and who can think strategically in terms of marketing themselves better online.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to attract new visitors and see significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your medical or health-related web presence, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your medical or health website.

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Small Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Services And Health Center Site

This section covers ways to improve your medical or health website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content works best, ways of improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need help with website planning, visit this page: How To Plan A Website: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

Professional websites need some essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  should have and how to set up your health or medical-related website for best results.

Services And Products Description Page

You need to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page can include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology haematology, cosmetic surgery, gerontology, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, radiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive services, speech language therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, mobility, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to also mention any health-related awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your services and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Your Staff Page

If you are looking for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online, then help your prospective clients get to know you and your organization better.

People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. It should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to easily add a simple and easy-to-maintain list directory of employees or team members to your website using free plugins, go here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory In WordPress

Career Opportunities

List any job opportunities within your practice. This page should include training, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the health industry.

Maintain 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you are also helping to provide social proof.

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

For a detailed article about using testimonials and reviews get better results online, go here: How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should include the following information:

• Name
• Physical location
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Interactive chat feature (optional)

If you operate out of multiple locations you should make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like news and announcements, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin to drive new visitors to your business, simply by adding content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Information

It’s vital for health and medical services practitioners businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken in whichever region you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s highly competitive online economy, the sooner you begin publishing content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

Providing great content with useful information, advice or tips will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides 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
• Tips for developing a better eating and exercise regimen
• What salad dressings can ruin your weight loss goals (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your health or medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your readers 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 actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

Improving your 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 UX.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

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

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great content on your website from other websites, 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 searching online for health and medical-related government departments and industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds you could consider adding to a medical website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Pregnancy, 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. Nucleic Acids Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Obesity, Medscape, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products, tobacco news, 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 - Find various feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Neurology, Diabetes, Sexual Health, Travel Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – 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. Stem Cell Research, Pain/Anesthetics, Compliance, Cholesterol, Heart Disease, HIV/AIDS, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ebola rss feeds”, “disasters rss feeds”, “oncology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical site’s user experience.)

Adding Online Checklists And Forms

Checklists and educational charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide useful information and resources to perform necessary tasks. Forms and checklists are great client educational tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms, charts and checklists covering subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your health site using WordPress plugins and themes that can also help improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to grow your medical business online.

Click on this link to read the rest of this guide:

• Grow Your Medical Practice Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation Using Plugins And Themes

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