Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Medical professionals face many challenges in today’s digital economy, especially in terms of growing their business online.
Challenges Health And Medical Services Practitioners Face Online
Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning better ways to grow your health services online.
As well as spending dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical or health industry are also finding that they need to delegate a more significant portion of their budget to developing and managing a website that will bring new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and give their business wider reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website will change in time and some areas may need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.
One other difficult challenge that medical providers face online (as all other professions do for that matter), is that you have only about thirty seconds to help users find the information they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.
“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 Professionals In The Online Economy
As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical sector that can evolve to meet online challenges and think strategically when it comes to marketing their business better online.
In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about ways and opportunities to find more bookings and establish online credibility for your business.
As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health or medical-related web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your medical or health website or blog.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:
- Learn Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Customers
- A Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Successful Business Using WordPress
Tips To Improve Your Website
This section looks at how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best, layout and navigation, etc.
If you need specific help with website planning, go here: Planning Your Business Website: A Cost-Saving Primer For Business Owners
Basic Website Pages
All business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your need and how to set up your medical website for best results.
Services Description Page
It’s essential to have a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could list services such as:
- Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics diabetes, plastic surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, bariatric surgery, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, implants, emergency dental, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, oral health, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social work services
- Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, natural therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, stomal therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, mobility, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.
List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.
About Us Page
The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
It’s important to also include any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and position yourself above the competition.
(List all of your awards certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc. in your About Us page. Image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)
Core Team
If you are looking for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know you and your business better.
Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your team members on their social networks.
On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your person’s expertise and 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.
(Add an employee description page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in your site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory To WordPress
Recruitment
List any job opportunities within the organization. It should include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the medical or 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.
Testimonials And Case Studies
Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you will also help to provide social proof for your business.
(Add a page to your site with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have created a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using Effective User Testimonials
Contact Page
A functional contact page is absolutely vital.
Your contact page should provide:
- Company Name
- Your address
- Telephone
- Facsimile
- Contact email
- Google Map and directions
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Request for information – who to contact
- Links to social media networks
- Chat/Skype (optional)
If your business operates in multiple areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.
Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Medical Blog Section
A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like news and announcements, product releases, training articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your medical business.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health site is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and your blog.
Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can help begin attracting targeted visitors to your business, simply by adding regular content to your web site.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)
To learn more about this go here:
Legal Pages
It’s very important for health professionals organizations to have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws or regulations wherever you do business.
Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:
- Contact Us
- 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
- etc.
We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Improve The Content On Your Site
In today’s ultra-competitive online economy, being generous with information has become one of the key business differentiators.
You want to provide useful content with great tips, advice or information that will get your visitors to share your information with others online and come back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about your services.
For example, if you provide services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:
- Potential health issues caused by being overweight
- What are calories and how understanding them helps in weight loss
- How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
- Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
- Etc.
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.
Include keywords in your articles that prospective clients will search 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 for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. 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 site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
RSS Feeds
An RSS feed provides many benefits for your website.
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 kept in one place
- your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
- It provides links back to your site
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also a number of 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 just visit sites of relevant government departments or key industry bodies.
For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, The Psychiatrist, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), BMJ Evidence-Based Mental Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Find various feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. consumer health information, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), recalls, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
- MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Asthma, Cholesterol, Depression, Eyesight, Travel Health, etc.)
- Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Ovarian Cancer, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, ADHD/ADD, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Endocrinology, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)
You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “stem cell research rss feeds”, “neuroscience rss feeds”, “personal monitoring rss feeds”, etc.
(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your site’s user experience.)
Checklists And Charts
Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide useful instructions and resources to complete steps. Checklists and charts can also be great client educational tools.
You can provide checklists and forms covering a range of topics such as:
- Checklists and 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, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and exercise program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)
Provide Online Tools
Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators are great tools to add to your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.
In the next section, we discuss a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your site that can improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.
***
This is the end of section one of this guide on ways to improve your medical business online.
To continue, click this link:
***
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum