Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health or medical professionals today are facing increasing challenges thanks to the online economy.

Challenges Medical Firms Face Online

Today, more than ever, health and medical services providers must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and source new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and searching for smarter ways to market your health services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned to developing and managing a website that will attract new leads, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health-related businesses face online (as do most other professions for that matter), is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to help users find what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 Practitioners In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to health-related practices that can adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and can think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.

This article will help you uncover new ways to generate traffic and establish online credibility for your business.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Money
• WordPress For Business Owners – An Online Guide To Growing Your Successful Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section explains ways to improve your health-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages your site needs, what type of content you need, suggestions for improving your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health website, read this guide: The Website Planning Process Explained - A Practical Blueprint For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All business websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your health-related website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics endocrinology, oncology, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory, infection control, eye diseases operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, audiology, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, hydrotherapy, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, stomal therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

This page should also mention any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and set yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile

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

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise, how their skills add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-manage list of employees or team members to your site using free plugins, see this tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff List To Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of job opportunities available within the practice. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have risen within your business and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the health industry.

Also include 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 contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to provide potential clients with social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using client testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Standout Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Business Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Online Chat/Skype

If your business operates from multiple areas you will want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like events, new releases, training information, opinions and discussions, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin delivering web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s essential for professional organizations to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• 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. Go here to learn more: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

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

Provide useful content with great tips or information that will get your readers sharing your information and coming back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How small efforts in portion control can help you lose weight
• How to incorporate exercise into your weight loss program
• How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And endless other content topics

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

Use the same keywords and terminology in your articles that readers will search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business 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 Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides many benefits for your website.

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing information 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 for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a medical-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, 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 list of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, PsychiatryOnline Journals, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, The New England Journal of Medicine, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), pet health, foods, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (www.gov.uk) – 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 - 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 RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness & 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 select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Menopause, Neurology, Depression, Digestion, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cardiovascular/Cardiology, Ebola, Medical Insurance, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Endocrinology, Mental Health, Medical Practice Management, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “pharmacist rss feeds”, “dyslexia rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide visitors with step-by-step information and resources to perform a task. Checklists and forms are great client instructional tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable checklists and forms covering areas such as:

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

Add Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators are popular tools for your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins you can add to your website that can also help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to build your health business web presence.

To continue, click here:

• Your Medical Services And Health-Related Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Traffic Generation

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