Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals face many new challenges in today’s online economy, especially in terms of growing a successful presence online.

Online Challenges For Health Practitioners

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical sector 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 presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be directed to develop and maintain a website that brings new prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and increases your presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and some areas may need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical-related businesses (and other businesses) face with their websites, is that you have an average of thirty seconds to give users what they need or they will look 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 And Health Services Providers

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical-related sector that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and who can think progressively when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will discover ways to drive more traffic and build more online credibility for your medical-related business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your health or medical website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Business
• The Complete Guide To Building A Successful Small Business Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Clinic Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your website needs, what content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed guide we have written: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All business websites require several essential web pages. Let’s review the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need to include a page that describes your products and services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology hematology, oral surgery, gerontology, respiratory, weight loss surgery, ophtalmology day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, medical imaging, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, fertility services, speech therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should choose you.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It should also mention any professional awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Team

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ways to grow your business online or increase user interaction on your site, then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know, like and trust your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in health or medical-related terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s experience, how their skills add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily add an updatable simple team directory in your website using free plugins here: How To Add A Simple Staff List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Work For Us

List any job or career opportunities within the company. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can 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 the page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to will also be providing visitors social proof online for your business.

(Add a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using client testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online here: Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Effective Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should include:

• Name Of Your Business
• Address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Interactive chat feature

If your business operates out of several areas you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You should also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and events, updates, useful articles, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an health site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your organization.

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

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin to drive new targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Website Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s very important for professional companies to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you provide services.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your health or medical site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more about this: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin publishing great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Provide useful content with information, advice and tips that will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more content. This is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can cover as content on your site:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Hypnosis and weight loss
• Vitamins and minerals that aid in weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• And many other content topics

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

Use the same keywords in your content that prospective clients would search to find you 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 and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable information on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by visiting sites of health-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your 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 select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), BMJ Heart, CDC USA, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information, FDA drug shortages, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, radiological health, 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) - Find many feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Cancer, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Exercise & Fitness, Skin, 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. Ovarian Cancer, Acid Reflux/GERD, Eczema/Psoriasis, Preventive Medicine, Diabetes, HIV/AIDS, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, 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. “biotech industry rss feeds”, “cosmetic medicine rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Charts and checklists can provide useful information and resources to complete steps. Checklists and forms can also be great instructional tools.

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

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

Add Online Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators are useful tools for your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your medical website that can also help improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to improve your health or medical web presence.

Click here to continue reading:

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Medical Center Web Presence Successfully – Part Two

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