Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Health practitioners face a number of challenges in the digital economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business online.
Online Challenges For Medical And Health Services Practitioners
Now, more than ever, medical practitioners must work harder to remain competitive and source new clientele. 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 business online.
In addition to spending money advertising offline, businesses in the health or medical industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed to developing and managing a website that will drive new prospects, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and create a wider amount of reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and many aspects will need to be updated often. This requires implementing sound web and content management strategy.
Another problem that health or medical-related organizations face online (and most other professions for that matter), is that you have only about thirty seconds to help users find what they need or they will go away.
“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 Providers
As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the health industry that are willing to evolve to meet online economy challenges and can think strategically about marketing their services better online.
In this detailed guide, you will discover new opportunities to increase traffic and create noticeable improvements in your business results online.
As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health or medical-related web presence, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your medical-related business website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see these articles:
Practical Tips For Improving Your Website
Let’s start by reviewing the basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content works best for health sites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed step-by-step guide: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Useful Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners
Essential Website Pages
All websites require several basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your should have and how to structure your website for best results.
Services And Products Description Page
You need a page that lists your products or services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can include services such as:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics diabetes, plastic surgery, incontinence, rheumatology, bariatric surgery, optometry palliative care, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
- Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
- Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, hearing, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social development services
- Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, colloidal silver therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services/therapies – weight management, othopedics, reproductive services, optical services, inherited diseases, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.
Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.
Who We Are
The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropic activities, etc.
It’s important to also mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and set yourself above similar service providers.
(List all of your business awards recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)
Meet Your Staff
Are you looking for cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online and get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospective clients get to know you and your organization better.
You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in medical or health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your staff members on their social networks.
In this page, make sure to outline each team member’s experience, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
To learn more about how to add an easy-to-manage simple employee directory to your site without coding skills, go here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory To WordPress
Job Opportunities Page
This is a listing of career opportunities within your practice. This page should include training, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your business, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the medical-related industry.
Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies
Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you are also helping to will also be providing social proof.
(Add a web page with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews to improve your business results online, go here: How To Get Better Results Online With Captivating Client Testimonials
Contact Page
A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.
Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:
- Name Of Your Business
- Address
- Telephone number
- Facsimile
- Map and directions
- Website address
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media links
- Live chat feature
If you have several locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.
Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Blog Section
A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like events, updates, training articles, informative posts, educational videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your medical clinic.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is very hard to manage or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and your blog.
Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that can begin attracting an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding content to your website on a consistent basis.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)
For more details:
Legal Info Pages
As a professional business, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws or regulations wherever you practice.
Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- 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.
If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ways To Improve The Content On Your Website
In today’s fiercely competitive global business economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.
By providing great content with information, tips or advice, you will get your readers sharing your web pages online with others and coming back for more content. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your services.
For example, if you provide services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:
- What to do before starting any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
- What calories really are and how understanding them aids in weight loss
- How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
- How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
- And many other content topics
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Use keywords in your content that prospective clients will search for online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information 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 site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
Improve Visitor Experience
Improving your website’s user experience (known as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
RSS Feeds
RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.
If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.
Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other websites using RSS feeds, include:
- All of your content updates are kept in one place
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared online
- Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
- A feed provides links to your site
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable information on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.
Here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a medical or health-related site:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can search by departments and choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Neurophysiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), RadioGraphics, Neurology.org, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Get various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Get feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, pet health, drugs, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- UK Department Of Health (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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
- MedicineNet – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Menopause, Cholesterol, Pregnancy, Eyesight, Hearing, etc.)
- MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. MRSA/Drug Resistance, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Surgery, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Nursing/Midwifery, Women’s Health/Gynecology, Psychology/Psychiatry, etc.)
You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “surgery rss feeds”, “gastrointestinal rss feeds”, “genetics rss feeds”, etc.
(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health or medical-related site’s UX.)
Adding Online Forms
Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide visitors with useful information and resources to complete necessary steps. Forms and checklists can also be great instructional tools.
Forms, charts and checklists could include topics such as:
- Booking appointments
- Checklists for pre or post surgery
- Health checklists and charts for specific systems
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and nutrition program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)
Other Tools
Providing useful tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your users. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools to add to your website. Other applications can include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.
In part 2, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part 1.
Click on this link to read Part 2:
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