Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services professionals face many new challenges in the online economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business online.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical and health services practitioners must work hard and find smarter ways to stand apart from their competition and find new clientele. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out better ways to market your services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., 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 assigned to develop and manage a website that attracts new clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps to give your business wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change over time and many areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that medical providers face with their websites (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that you have only around 30 seconds or less to provide visitors what they are searching for 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

Online Opportunities For Health Practitioners

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical industry that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think strategically about marketing their business better online.

The guide below will help you uncover ways to find more bookings and see significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your medical business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• Discover How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Money
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Small Business Using A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health Practice Site

Let’s start by going over some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a medical website needs, what content works best for medical-related websites, ways to improve layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: Planning Your Business Website: A Practical Guide For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites need some essential pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  should have and how to structure your medical website for best results.

Your Services And Products

You need a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, urology, eye diseases day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, veneers, crowns and bridges, orthodontics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, oral health, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, meditation, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, speech language therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

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

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

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

Your Team

If you are searching for simple ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected staff 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 each person’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 page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add a simple team directory in your site without touching code, refer to this tutorial: How To Add An Employee Directory

Work For Us

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within your company. It would include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include 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 the page, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also provides prospective clients with social proof online.

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

To learn more about using client testimonials and client reviews go here: Improve Your Conversions With Highly Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is vitally important.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Address of business
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Chat (optional feature)

If your business services multiple areas you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact info.

You can also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like news and announcements, new releases, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing medical or health-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your medical clinic.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health site is very hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and blog.

Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that will begin delivering new targeted traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Increase Your Website Traffic For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Information

It’s crucial to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached 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 (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of 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 Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. You can learn more here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive online business economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competitors.

By committing to providing useful content with great advice or tips, you will get your visitors sharing your information online with others and coming back for more content. This is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• The role portion control plays in helping you achieve weight loss results
• Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
• Apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include keywords in your articles that your readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, 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 content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Allows users to subscribe
• It provides links to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 for your website by searching online for health and medical-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some feeds you could add to your site:

• 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. Breast cancer, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, 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. AHA Journals (American Heart Association Journals), Human Molecular Genetics, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, Current Psychiatry, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, food allergies, tainted products, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news 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 select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Neurology, Diet & Weight Management, Digestion, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Anxiety/Stress, Multiple Sclerosis, Blood/Hematology, Hearing/Deafness, Parkinson’s Disease, Biology/Biochemistry, Medical Practice Management, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “lymphology rss feeds”, “diabetes rss feeds”, “MRI rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Checklists and charts can give them step-by-step information and resources to perform a necessary task. They are great client educational tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators are useful tools for your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your medical-related business online.

To continue reading, click this link:

• A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Medical & Health Practice Services Presence Online Successfully – Part 2

***

***