Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical and health services providers today are facing significant challenges thanks to the digital economy.

Challenges Medical Firms Face Online

Now, more than ever, health or medical-related businesses must work hard and find smarter ways to stand apart from the crowd and generate new clients. 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 market your business online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned towards the development and management of a website that brings new prospects, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give you a wider amount of marketing 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, the needs of the website will change in time and many areas will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that health services providers face with their websites (and most professions for that matter), is that your site has around thirty seconds to help visitors find what they need or they will leave and 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 Medical And Health Services Providers

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical sector that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and can think progressively in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover a number of ways to generate more web traffic and notice significant improvements in your medical or health-related business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health-related business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see the articles below:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business
• Learn How To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Blog

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. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content works best for medical websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed guide we have written: Planning Your Website: A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need some basic pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Your Services And Products

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, pulmonology haematology, plastic surgery, incontinence, rheumatology, colon/rectal surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, oral health, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, fertility services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical donations, etc.

It’s important to also include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and position yourself above the competition.

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to grow your business online and get people to engage more with your site, then help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your 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 employee’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update simple team members directory to your web site using a free plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Recruitment

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within the clinic. It would include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You can also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

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

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

If you want to learn more about using client case studies and client reviews, refer to this article: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions Using Knockout Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should provide the following information:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Chat feature

If your business operates from several locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like events, updates, educational articles, opinions and discussions, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an health or medical site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your services.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is very 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.

You are probably not aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin to attract web traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Attracting More Web Visitors For Your Business Automatically

Legal Pages

It’s really important for medical and health services practitioners businesses to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help you stay 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 Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s ultra-competitive global economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing useful content with tips, information and advice will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you could publish content about include the following:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, minerals, vitamins, fats)
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure lifetime weight loss
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. Atkins diet, Mediterranean diet, Volumetrics diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, are they effective)
• Useful tips that will help you curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. drink water with lemon)
• And endless other content topics

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

Use keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients will search to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (generally referred to 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 user experience.

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses will 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing valuable content on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website, search online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds containing useful information that you could add to a medical-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 also choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Screening tests and vaccines, 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 Journal of Medical Ethics, Journal of Biological Chemistry, BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), American Institute of Biological Sciences, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, product recalls, drugs, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related topics 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. 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 feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Cold & Flu, Diabetes, Senior Health, Hearing, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Gout, Pulmonary System, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Autism, COPD, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Genetics, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “STD rss feeds”, “medical innovation rss feeds”, “liver disease rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your website’s UX.)

Provide Online Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. They are great client instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can include areas such as:

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

Online Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators are great tools to add to your website. Others would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To continue reading, click here:

• Online Business Tips For Medical Practitioners – Improving SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins And Themes

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