Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

This article explains how to grow your medical or health-related business online and contains useful information on ways to improve the effectiveness of your medical or health-related web presence …

Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

How To Build And Grow A Health And Medical Clinic Business Online Using WordPressHealth and medical professionals face a number of challenges in today’s web economy, especially in terms of growing their presence online.

Online Challenges For Medical & Health Businesses

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry 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 an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your health services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the medical industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be assigned towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps to give them a wider reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, 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 over time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical professionals face, as other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has only about 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching for or they will go 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 The Medical Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health-related sector that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy challenges and can think outside the box when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

This guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract and engage more visitors and create significant improvements in your online results.

Info

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical or health business website.

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

How To Improve Your Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a medical or health-related website needs, what type of content works best for medical or health websites, tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, read this detailed guide: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to structure your medical website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

It’s essential to have a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page can list services like:

  • Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology hematology, cancer, hyperbaric medicine, renal, endoscopy, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
  • Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
  • Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
  • Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
  • Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
  • Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, medical imaging, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
  • Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
  • Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
  • Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, natural therapy, meditation, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
  • Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, inherited diseases, prosthetics, mobility, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community programs, etc.

It should also include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your services and to set yourself above the competition.

List all of your awards certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc. in your About page

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

Your Staff

Are you looking for cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online or get people to interact more with your site? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in medical-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 should include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team 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 highlight your team member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

Add a 'meet the team' page

(Add an employee description page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to create and add a simple and easy-to-manage list of employees in WordPress, go here: Plugin Tutorial: How To Add An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your company. This page would include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted by your organization, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information about new career opportunities in the medical or health-related 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you will also help to are also providing potential clients with social proof.

Add a page with case studies and client reviews

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

We have written a comprehensive article about using client case studies and reviews to grow your business online. For more info, see this article: How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Meaningful Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

It should provide the following information about your center:

  • Business Name
  • Physical location
  • Telephone
  • Facsimile
  • Contact email
  • Google Map and directions
  • Web URL
  • Contact form
  • Contact name
  • Links to social media pages
  • Chat

If your business services several locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content like events, updates, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your company.

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

Info

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that will begin driving targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

If you would like to know more about this here:

Legal Info Pages

It’s vital to make sure they 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 you are not contravening any local, regional or federal laws or regulations in whatever area or location you provide services.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

  • Contact Us
  • 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 on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive global economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

By committing to providing useful content with tips, advice and information, you will get your visitors to share your web pages online and come back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide solutions that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

  • Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
  • How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure sustainable weight loss
  • How to develop a better eating and exercise regimen
  • Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
  • And many other content topics

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

Info

Remember to use relevant keywords and terminology in your articles that your readers will be searching 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 and practical tips that will show 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. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

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

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

  • All of your content updates are in one place
  • Doesn’t rely on email
  • Your feeds can be shared online
  • Users can subscribe to your feed
  • A feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
  • RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
  • There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
  • RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable content 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 visiting sites of medical and health-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are some examples of feeds containing useful information that you could add to a health or medical site:

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “caregivers rss feeds”, “heart disease rss feeds”, “alzheimer’s rss feeds”, etc.

Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your medical-related website's user experience.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical or health website’s UX.)

Provide Downloadable Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can provide step-by-step information and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists are also great client educational tools.

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

  • Checklists/forms for booking appointments
  • Checklists for post-surgery recovery
  • Health checklists for specific medical conditions
  • Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
  • Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
  • General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)
Online Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other applications could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your site that can also help improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

How To Grow A Health-Related Business Online Using WordPress

***

This is the end of part 1 of this article on ways to improve your medical-related business web presence.

To view the rest of this guide, click this link:

***

***

"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group

Originally published as Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress.