Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health or medical professionals face a number of challenges in the web economy, especially in terms of growing a business presence online.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical or health industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be allocated towards the development and maintenance of a website that brings in clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and creates wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires a sound website and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that health or medical-related organizations face (as do most professions for that matter), is that you have only around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are looking 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

Online Opportunities For Health Professionals

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health or medical practices that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover ways and opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and build more online credibility for your health or medical business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your health or medical website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Prospective Customers
• WordPress And Small Business – A Beginner’s Guide To Building Your Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Center Website

This section covers how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results. We show you what pages a health or medical-related site needs, what type of content works best for health or medical-related websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed step-by-step guide: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need some essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to set up your health website for best results.

Description Of Services

It’s essential to include 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 such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, nephrology blood disorders, cosmetic surgery, stroke, renal, urology, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, medical imaging, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, natural therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, occupational therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to 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 why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

This page should also mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ways to sell more products online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know you and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in medical-related 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 can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s experience, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory to your website with no coding skills required here: Adding A Staff Directory To WordPress: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Job Opportunities

List any job opportunities within the company. This page can include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you are also helping to establish social proof for your business.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a comprehensive article on using client testimonials and reviews improve your business online. For more details: Create Better Results Online Using Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Telephone number
• Facsimile number
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media URLs
• Online chat (optional feature)

If you have different areas you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You should also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as events, product releases, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established health-related website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical-related website is hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and business blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that can begin to attract new visitors to your business, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Web Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

Having a compliant website is important. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws and regulations wherever you provide services.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health or medical-related website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start publishing content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By providing useful content with great tips and information, you will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if your business provides products that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• What is fiber and how can it help you with weight loss?
• How to get support for your weight loss efforts (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• 7 tips that will help you avoid late night snacking (e.g. sleep earlier)
• Etc.

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.

Include the keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients would 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 easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your business.

If you provide useful information, other sites 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
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways your 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 benefits to providing great information on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by searching online for medical-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could add to a medical or health website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nucleic Acids Research, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Neurology.org, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, product recalls, tobacco news, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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) - Get various RSS 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. 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 individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Cold & Flu, Depression, Exercise & Fitness, Hearing, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Eating Disorders, Immune System/Vaccines, Pregnancy/Obstetrics, Pancreatic Cancer, Water – Air Quality/Agriculture, Pediatrics/Children’s Health, Clinical Trials/Drug Trials, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “health insurance rss feeds”, “physical therapy rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your medical or health-related website’s UX.)

Provide Online Forms

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Charts and checklists can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. They are also great instructional tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists (or links to these) covering areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Provide Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other tools could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your medical website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section one.

Click here to access the rest of this article:

• A Step-By-Step Guide To Growing A Medical & Health Services Business Online Successfully – Part 2

***

***