Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionized business worldwide, it has also created growing challenges and opportunities for health and medical services providers and financial service providers.

Online Challenges For Medical And Health Services Professionals

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and searching for smarter ways to market your business online.

In addition to spending money advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health businesses, you will need to assign a more significant part of your marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that brings new prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase your reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and many areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

One other problem that health businesses (and most professions) face with their websites, is that your site has only around 30 seconds or less to provide visitors 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

Online Opportunities For Medical Services

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical sector that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think progressively in terms of marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn opportunities to drive more web traffic and create noticeable improvements in your business online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health-related business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Business
• Mastering WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages a medical or health website needs, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, visit this page: How To Plan Your Web Site: A Cost-Saving Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services and products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page can include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, stroke, rheumatology, gastroenterology, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, functional medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, lymphedema therapy, physiotherapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to 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

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

Remember to include any professional awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and set yourself above the competition.

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

Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker and easier ideas to grow your business online or get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for your prospects to get to know your business better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

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

(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory to your website using a free plugin, refer to this tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory To Your Site

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your company. It can include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and new 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, subscribe to your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you will also help to provide social proof online for your business.

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

We have created a comprehensive article about using testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions With Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include:

• Business Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If you operate out of multiple areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like announcements, product releases, useful articles, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

You may not be aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can attract an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your health site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global business economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competitors.

You want to provide useful content with advice, information and tips that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if you provide services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could cover in your web content include:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• What calories really are and how they play a role in weight loss
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• Vitamins and minerals that aid in weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients will search for.

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 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 presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, 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 content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Allows for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing valuable information on your website 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 by visiting sites of relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds you could add to a health or medical-related 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 specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, 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 leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, Human Molecular Genetics, BMJ Injury Prevention, BMJ Journal of Clinical Pathology, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, 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) - Get various feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Neurology, Depression, Sexual Health, Women’s Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Bipolar, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, ADHD/ADD, Aid/Disasters, CJD/vCJD/Mad Cow Disease, Medical Innovation, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “multiple sclerosis rss feeds”, “dyslexia rss feeds”, “huntingtons disease rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical-related site’s UX.)

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Charts and checklists can provide users with useful information and resources to get necessary steps performed. They can also be great client instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are great tools you can add to your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this comprehensive article on ways to build your health business web presence.

Click on this link to access Part Two:

• How To Grow A Health Center Business Online – Part Two

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