Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionized business around the world, it has also created many challenges and great opportunities for medical or health businesses.

Challenges Health Businesses Face Online

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

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other health or medical businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that will drive prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your reach online.

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

Another challenge that medical professionals (and other businesses) face online, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds or less to give visitors what they are looking 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

Opportunities For Health Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to health-related practices that are willing to evolve to meet online challenges and who can think progressively in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn about ways to attract new visitors and notice significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your medical or health-related business online, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your medical-related business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Potential Customers
• The Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical Center Website

This section covers how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, check out the detailed guide we have written here: The Web Site Planning Process - A Cost-Saving Blueprint For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional business websites require a number of basic web pages. Let’s review these.

Services Description Page

You need to include a page that lists your services and products. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can include services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory, bariatric surgery, eye diseases operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, functional medicine, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, fertility services, optical services, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical equipment, 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 your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It should also include any medical or health-related awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and position yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for ideas to grow your business online and get people to interact more on your site, then one of the things you can do, is help your visitors get to know your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. This page can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each person’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a team profile page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-maintain list directory of staff members to your web site using a free plugin, refer to this tutorial: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within the practice. It should include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or encouraged by your business, etc. You can include information about new career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Maintain a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to are also providing social proof online.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using client testimonials and reviews to grow your business online, go here: All You Need To Know To Get Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Online chat (optional)

If your business services several areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news, new releases, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established health site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your medical company.

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will begin to drive targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

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

For more info, see this article:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vital 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 breached wherever you provide services.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health or medical website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site. For more details: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, the willingness to deliver valuable content free of charge has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Providing great content with tips, advice or information will get your visitors to share your web pages online and come back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about using your services.

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

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure sustainable weight loss
• How to develop an exercise regimen you can enjoy and will stick with
• What salad dressings can derail your weight loss goals (and healthier choices)
• And endless other content topics

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

Use the same keywords in your content that prospective clients will search for.

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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, 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 updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site 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 useful content by visiting sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a health or medical 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 select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Fitness and nutrition, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, ADA (American Diabetes Association), TheLancet.com, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, The New England Journal of Medicine, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, health fraud, tainted products, animal and veterinary news, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to 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 specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Menopause, Chronic Pain, Diet & Weight Management, Senior Health, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Gout, Fertility, Eczema/Psoriasis, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, COPD, Biology/Biochemistry, Statins, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “public health rss feeds”, “nutrition rss feeds”, “obesity rss feeds”, etc.

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)

Add Charts & Checklists

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and charts are also great educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools you can add to your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed article, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help to 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 1.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Medical Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes That Can Help Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

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