Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services professionals today face a number of challenges.

Challenges Health Businesses Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry 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 and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your health or medical services services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health or medical businesses, you will need to assign a greater portion of your budget towards developing and maintaining a website that can drive new prospects, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and help you gain a wider amount of marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change over time and some aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that medical or health-related businesses face, as most other businesses do for that matter, is that they have only around 30 seconds to provide visitors with 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 The Medical & Health Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for medical or health businesses that can adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think outside the box about marketing their services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn ways to attract more visitors and build more online credibility for your medical or health business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Buyers And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow A Successful Business Online

Tips To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your health-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content works best, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical-related website, visit this page: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

All business websites need several basic web pages. Let’s go over these.

Products And Services Page

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology haematology, cosmetic surgery, incontinence, renal, colon/rectal surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, oral health, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, meditation, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, speech therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to 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 these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

It should also list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your business and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff

If you are searching for ideas to sell more products online, then make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want potential clients 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 bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical or health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s expertise and qualifications, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an updatable list of employees in your website using free plugins, see this step-by-step tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To WordPress

We’re Hiring

List any job opportunities available within the practice. This page would include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include information about new career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include a positions available section in this 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.

Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you are also helping to provide visitors social proof online for your business.

(Add a page to your site with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article about using client testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online. If you would like to know more here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should include:

• Company Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Interactive chat

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

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as announcements, updates, training articles, discussions on current topics, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to market your medical organization.

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

You probably don’t know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will help begin delivering web traffic to your website, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Drive More Web Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s important for professional organizations to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being broken wherever you provide services.

Adding the legal pages below to your medical website will help keep you 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 And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more, go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key success factors for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your readers sharing your information and coming back for more content. Publishing content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• How to ask for support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terms in your articles that prospective clients would search 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 site, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

If you provide valuable information, 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
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, TheLancet.com, 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 (www.nih.gov) - Get various feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), recalls, drugs, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news 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.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. Allergies, Menopause, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Digestion, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Colorectal Cancer, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Body Aches, COPD, Cleft Palate, Genetics, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ADD rss feeds”, “heart disease rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your medical site’s UX.)

Adding Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can provide useful instructions and resources to complete necessary steps. Charts and checklists can also be great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can address subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are popular tools for your website. Others can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this detailed guide, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your health-related website that can also help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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

Click on this link to continue reading:

• Your Medical Practice Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

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