Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only transformed business globally, it has also created many challenges and opportunities for medical services providers.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, medical providers must work harder to remain competitive and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health or medical-related businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that drives leads, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps increase your reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and many aspects may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health or medical organizations (and all other businesses) face online, is that your site has only around thirty seconds to provide visitors 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 Services Professionals In The Online Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to medical-related practices that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think progressively in terms of marketing their services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn a number of ways to attract more client bookings and improve your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• A Complete Guide To Growing A Successful Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by reviewing the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, read this article: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

Professional websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Products And Services

You need a page that describes your products or services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, gerontology, respiratory, urology, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, x-ray, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, colloidal silver therapy, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, fertility services, optical services, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

It’s important to also list any business awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and set yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for ways to grow your business online, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your business better.

People need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in medical 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 site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s qualifications, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily add an updatable list directory of employees or team members to WordPress without coding skills here: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory

Work For Us

List any job opportunities within the clinic. It would include training, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include 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.

Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also provides potential clients with social proof.

(Add a web page with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you want to learn more about using testimonials, case studies and user reviews, refer to this article: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions With Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your physical location
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Chat (optional)

If you operate from several locations you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

You can also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as news and events, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your business.

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

Something few people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that will begin delivering an ongoing stream of web traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your site)

For more details:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Increase Your Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Pages

As a professional health or medical services provider, ensuring that you have a compliant website is crucially important. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your health or medical-related site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms 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
• and others

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, committing to the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

By providing great content with useful information, advice and tips, you will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Using content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

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

• Being overweight vs. being obese – what are the differences?
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure sustainable weight loss
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• Apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients will search for.

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 high-quality content for your visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your website.

If you provide valuable information, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 useful content for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of feeds you could consider adding to a health or medical-related website:

• 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. Breastfeeding, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, ADA (American Diabetes Association), BMJ Injury Prevention, Neurology.org, Transplantation – Most Popular Articles, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like criminal investigations press releases, health fraud, recalls, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Cancer, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Sexual Health, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Stroke, Fibromyalgia, Veterinary, COPD, Sports Medicine/Fitness, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “STD rss feeds”, “nutrition rss feeds”, “IBD rss feeds”, etc.

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

Add Online Checklists

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a task. Forms and checklists are great instructional tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Add Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators, for example, are popular tools for your website. Other tools could include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two of this detailed guide, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to grow your medical business web presence.

Click here to continue reading:

• How To Successfully Grow A Medical Center Services Web Presence With WordPress – Part Two

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