Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health or medical professionals today face significant challenges.

Challenges Professional Health Practitioners Face Online

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

In addition to investing dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards developing and managing a website that can attract clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help you gain a wider degree of reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that health organizations face with their websites (as do all other professions for that matter), is that they have only about thirty seconds to help visitors find what they need 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 Medical Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health profession that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think strategically in terms of marketing their services better online.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and see noticeable improvements in your business online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health or medical-related website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Business With A WordPress Blog

Ways To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages a health or medical site needs, what type of content works best for medical or health-related sites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health or medical-related website, see this guide: How To Plan A Web Site: A Basic Blueprint For Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

All business websites require some basic web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Description Of services And Products

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, orthopedics blood disorders, oral surgery, incontinence, respiratory, weight loss surgery, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, oral health, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, holistic medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, speech language therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, 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

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

It’s important to list any medical or health-related awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and to set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Core Team

Are you looking for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ways to grow your business online? Then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page can include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a team profile page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add a simple team directory to your site using free WordPress plugins, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your practice. This page can include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies 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 are also providing social proof online for your business.

(Add a web page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using client testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. To learn more about this go here: How To Improve Your Conversions Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information:

• Business Name
• Location
• Phone number
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Live Chat/Skype (optional)

If your business operates from different locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health-Related Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like the latest news, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical practice.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health or medical-related website is hard to keep updated or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can serve both as your website and blog.

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will attract a stream of targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Website Traffic For Your Business Automatically

Legal Pages

It’s extremely important to have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you provide services.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below 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 Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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 website. For more details: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

By providing great content with information, advice or tips, you will get your visitors to share your web pages with others and come back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if your business provides products that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could cover in your web content include:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• What calories really are and how understanding them helps in weight loss
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients would search for online.

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

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses will 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 content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read 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 content on your site 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 by visiting sites of relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Here are a few useful RSS feeds you could add to a medical-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Mental 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 leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (American Association for Cancer Research), The Psychiatrist, The Journal of Immunology, The Journal of Physiology, The New England Journal of Medicine, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find feeds on fda-related news like enforcement reports, health fraud, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Cold & Flu, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Prevention & Wellness, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Anxiety/Stress, Stroke, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Irritable-Bowel Syndrome, Primary Care/General Practice, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “viruses rss feeds”, “pediatrics rss feeds”, “restless legs syndrome rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and charts can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform steps. Forms and checklists are great client educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools to add to your website. Others would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can also help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to grow your medical-related business online.

To continue, click here:

• How To Grow Your Health Clinic Web Presence – Part 2

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