Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals face many challenges in today’s web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business presence online.

Online Challenges For The Health Profession

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

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., businesses in the health or medical-related industry are now finding that they need to designate a greater amount of their budget to develop and maintain a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps increase their presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that 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.

Another challenge that health organizations face online, and most businesses for that matter, is that they have only about thirty seconds to provide users with what they need 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

Opportunities For The Medical Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the health-related industry that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover new opportunities to attract and engage new visitors and see noticeable improvements in your business online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your medical-related business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health or medical-related business website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Small Business – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Small Business Using WordPress

How To Improve Your Health Practice Services Site

We’ll start first by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content works best, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, visit this page: The Website Planning Process Explained - A Comprehensive Guide For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites need several basic pages. Let’s review these.

Description Of Products And Services

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery blood disorders, maxillofacial surgery, hyperbaric medicine, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, oral health, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, natural therapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, rehabilitation, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, 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 why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

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

This page should mention any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and set yourself above the competition.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products online? Then something you can do, is help visitors get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not that well-versed in health or medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow your team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each employee’s expertise, why they are an asset to 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-manage directory of staff members to your WordPress site using a free plugin, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory: Step-By-Step Tutorial

We’re Hiring

List any job or career opportunities within your company. It should include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have risen within your organization and information about new career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with client reviews and case studies also establishes social proof.

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

We have written a comprehensive article about using testimonials, case studies and reviews get better results online. To learn more about this go here: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Awesome Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is essential.

It should provide the following information:

• Company Name
• Location
• Phone
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Live chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates out of different locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You should also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an health site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is very hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and business blog.

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

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

For more details:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Get More Website Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s crucial to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws and regulations wherever you do business.

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

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to publish content on your site, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competitors.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you 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 prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, how to identify yours)
• How to calculate how many calories you consume each day
• Comparing different diets, e.g. Atkins diet, South Beach diet, Nutrisystem diet (what these are, how they work, are they effective)
• Apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your health or medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include keywords and terms in your articles that prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your business.

If you provide useful content, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other websites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of 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 a number of benefits when it comes to providing great content 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 searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds you could add to a medical or health-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 RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), BMJ, The Journal of Immunology, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, 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) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, recalls, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• 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 Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diabetes, Senior Health, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News 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. Bipolar, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Dermatology, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Nutrition/Diet, Psychology/Psychiatry, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “STD rss feeds”, “heart disease rss feeds”, “obesity rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health-related website’s UX.)

Provide Checklists & Charts

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. They are great client educational tools.

You can provide forms and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of areas such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Add Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators are useful tools for your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we take a look at a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• How To Build And Grow Your Medical-Related Online – Part 2

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