Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business around the world, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and opportunities for health and medical services professionals.

Challenges Professional Medical Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical professionals must find smarter ways to stand apart from their competition and obtain new clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned to develop and manage a website that can drive prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help give them wider marketing exposure online.

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

One other problem that health and medical services professionals (and most professions) face, is that they have an average of 30 seconds to provide users what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 & Health Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical-related profession that can evolve to meet online challenges and who can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will learn a number of ways to increase web traffic and build more online credibility for your medical-related business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your health-related business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• WordPress And Small Business – The Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Small Business With WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by going over some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your medical or health website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content works best for medical or health websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical or health website, go here: Planning Your Web Site - A Basic Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All business websites require several basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to structure your website for best results.

Description Of services And Products

You need a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose and throat, pulmonology blood disorders, plastic surgery, hyperbaric medicine, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, veneers, crowns and bridges, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, fertility services, physiotherapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, mobility, home and community care, clinical information, medical transport, 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 what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

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

It’s important to also include any industry awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site, then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It can also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each staff member’s qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to WordPress with no coding skills required, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff List To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of job opportunities available within the clinic. It can include training, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical and health 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, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps your medical-related business to provide potential clients with social proof online.

(Add a web page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

For a detailed article about using testimonials, case studies and reviews improve your business online, go here: Improve Your Sales Using Profit-Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Chat (optional)

If you operate out of several areas you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like news, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will begin delivering a stream of targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive web traffic automatically to your website)

Learn more here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Generate More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Information

It’s very important to have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being broken wherever you provide services.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health 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 about this: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s ultra-competitive digital economy, content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Provide useful content with great information, tips or advice that will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the areas you can cover as content on your site:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• How to identify the bad habits you need to correct to ensure sustainable weight loss
• How you eat your food - just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• How to avoid late night snacking (e.g. sleep earlier)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Remember to use the same keywords and terms in your content that readers will be searching for.

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 teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for 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!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Allows for subscribing
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the 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.

To find RSS feeds with useful content just search online for health-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds you could consider adding to your 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. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Dermatology Times, ADA (American Diabetes Association), European Heart Journal, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, food allergy reports, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various 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 feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Arthritis, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Eyesight, Skin, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Fertility, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Dermatology, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Medical Innovation, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “palliative care rss feeds”, “plastic surgery rss feeds”, “premature ejaculation rss feeds”, etc.

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

Add Online Checklists

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and charts can provide users with step-by-step information and resources to perform a task. Charts and checklists can also be great client educational tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists covering areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Other tools can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this detailed guide, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your site that improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click here to continue:

• How To Build And Grow A Medical Services & Health-Related Website – Part 2

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