Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals today face increasing challenges.

Challenges Medical Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your medical or health services services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other health or medical-related businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be delegated to developing and maintaining a website that will attract new leads, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase your reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that medical-related businesses face online, and most other businesses for that matter, is that you have an average of thirty seconds or less to help users find what they are looking for 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

Online Opportunities For Medical Services Providers

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical-related industry that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

The article below will help you uncover opportunities to source new clientele and see noticeable improvements in your health-related business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health-related business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, go here:

• Learn Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, read this article: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Page

You need a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery hematology, plastic surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, urology, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, meditation, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, lymphedema therapy, stomal therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

Remember to list any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and set yourself above the competition.

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

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

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each team member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an updatable simple team directory to WordPress without coding skills, go here: Tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your business. This page can include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your business, etc. You can also include case studies of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information about new career opportunities in the medical or health-related 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides social proof online.

(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: Achieve Better Results Online With Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is essential.

It should provide visitors with the following information about your consulting practice:

• Name
• Location
• Telephone
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Chat

If your business services several areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is 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 easily promote your business by publishing content such as the latest announcements, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to create more exposure for your services.

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

You may not have been told about this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin delivering new visitors to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

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

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s essential 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 and federal laws and regulations are being contravened in whichever area or location you service.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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 and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving The Content On Your Site

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

By committing to providing great content with tips, information and advice, you will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can publish content about include the following:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• What calories really are and how understanding them aids in weight loss
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And many 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 services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terms in your articles that your 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 easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your 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 a number of benefits when it comes to providing great 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 many useful RSS feeds by searching online for relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of feeds you could add to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, 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 directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, RadioGraphics, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like enforcement reports, health fraud, pet health, tobacco news, 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 - Get various feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Arthritis, Neurology, Oral Health, Prevention & Wellness, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Pain/Anesthetics, Blood/Hematology, Dermatology, Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy, Pediatrics/Children’s Health, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

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

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical or health-related website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and educational charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and charts are great educational tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists covering subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your users. Health-related calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Others would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we take a look at a number of online tools you can use in your medical or health-related website using WordPress plugins that can also help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Website – WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic

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