Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Medical and Health professionals today face increasingly difficult challenges thanks to the digital economy.
Challenges Health And Medical Businesses Face Online
Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your practice online.
As well as investing dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health-related businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be directed to developing and maintaining a website that attracts prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase your marketing reach online.
This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and many areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-developed website and content management strategy.
One other difficult challenge that health or medical-related organizations (and other professions) face online, is that they have only around thirty seconds to provide users with what they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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 Medical Profession In The Digital Economy
As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health industry that are willing to adapt to meet digital challenges and who can think outside the box when it comes to marketing themselves better online.
The guide below will help you uncover ways and opportunities to attract new visitors and improve your online results.
As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your medical or health-related website, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health or medical-related business website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see these articles:
- Learn How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
- Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Small Business Online With WordPress
Useful Tips To Improve Your Website
Let’s start by reviewing the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best, useful tips for improving your site’s navigation structure, etc.
If you need help with website planning, visit this page: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners
Essential Pages
All business websites need some basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your should have and how to structure your website for best results.
Description Of Services
It’s essential to include a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could include services such as:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology endocrinology, oral surgery, gerontology, renal, infection control, optometry elective surgery, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
- Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, radiology and imaging, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
- Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, reiki, meditation, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
- Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, fertility services, optical services, neurosciences, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.
List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should book an appointment with you.
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, philanthropy, etc.
Remember to also include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above other competitors.
(List all of your industry awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in your About Us page. Image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)
Team Profile
Are you searching for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products online? Then something you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know you, your team and your business better.
Potential clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow individual team members on their social pages.
In this page, make sure to outline your employee’s qualifications, how they add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
To learn more about how to add an updatable simple team directory in WordPress with no coding skills required, refer to this tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List For Your WordPress Site
Career Opportunities
List any job opportunities available within the organization. It can include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or encouraged by your business, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical or health industry.
Also include a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.
Testimonials
Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you will also help to establish social proof online.
(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have created a detailed article about using testimonials, case studies and reviews get better results online. For more details: How To Get Better Results Online Using Engaging Client Testimonials
Contact Page
Having a functional contact page is crucial.
It should provide some or all of the following information about your business:
- Business Name
- Your physical address
- Telephone number
- Facsimile number
- Email address
- Google Map and directions
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Name of person to contact
- Social media URLs
- Live chat feature
If your business services multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.
Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Blog
A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as news and events, new releases, useful information, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.
If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical organization.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your business website and business blog.
Very few people know that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin attracting targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate web traffic automatically to your website)
For more details, go here:
Legal Info Pages
As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucially important. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you practice.
Adding the following legal pages to your health-related site 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 Policy
- Terms Of Use
- 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.
We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site
Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content
In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, committing to the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.
You want to provide useful content with information, advice and tips that will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.
For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the topics you can write about include the following:
- Potential health issues caused by being overweight
- How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
- Comparing different diets, e.g. Paleo diet, Mediterranean diet, Weight Watchers diet (what these are, how they work, how effective they are)
- Smartphone apps for tracking calories and exercise
- And endless other content topics
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.
Include keywords and terminology in your articles that prospective clients will be searching to find you online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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 Experience
Improving your site’s user experience (known as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
Use RSS Feeds
An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides many benefits for your business.
If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites 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
- your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared
- Feeds allow users to subscribe
- A feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, 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 for your website, search online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.
Below we have listed examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to a medical-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 RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, American Cancer Society, Neurology.org, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Get various feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get feeds on fda-related topics like FDA drug safety, health fraud, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, drugs, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- Department of Health UK (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 RSS feeds on health-related topics 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. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
- MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Travel Health, etc.)
- MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Colorectal Cancer, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, Medical Insurance, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Epilepsy, Cancer/Oncology, etc.)
You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “dentistry rss feeds”, “irritable-bowel syndrome rss feeds”, “hepatitis rss feeds”, etc.
(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)
Checklists And Forms
Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to perform tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great educational tools.
Checklists, charts and medical forms could cover subjects such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)
Adding Online Tools
Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Health-related calculators, for example, are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other applications can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.
In part two of this detailed article, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your health-related business online.
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