Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only revolutionised the way business is done around the world, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for health and medical services professionals.

Online Challenges For Health Services Professionals

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

In addition to spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned to develop and manage a website that will bring in prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and increase your marketing 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 the needs of the website may change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a sound website and content management strategy in place.

One other difficult challenge that health organizations face, as other professions do for that matter, is that they have only about 30 seconds or less to give users what they need or they will look 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 Practitioners In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical sector that can evolve to meet digital demands and who can think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and create significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your medical or health business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business
• Learn How To Grow Your Small Business Using A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Health & Medical Center Website

This section looks at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what content works best for health or medical websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s go over these.

Your Services And Products

You need to include a page that explains your products and services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. ear, nose & throat, neurosurgery blood disorders, oral surgery, gerontology, rheumatology, bariatric surgery, optometry palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, medical imaging, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, podiatry, fertility services, optical services, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

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

It should also mention any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Staff Page

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. 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 will not tend to be well-versed in medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline each person’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff description page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-update simple employee directory in a WordPress site using free plugins, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities

List any job opportunities within the organization. This page should include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted by your business, etc. It should include information about career opportunities in the medical-related 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you will also help to will also be providing social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and client reviews to improve your business results online here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online With Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Page

A functional contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide:

• Company Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business services several locations you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing health or medical site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your medical organization.

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin to deliver web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

To learn more about this go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information

It’s important to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your practice is located.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal 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/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more about this: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

You will want to provide useful content with great tips and information that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the areas you can publish content about include the following:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• What calories really are and how they play a role in weight loss
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Remember to use relevant keywords and terminology in your articles that your readers would 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 and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your site.

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

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great content 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 RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a medical 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 select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, American Cancer Society, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find feeds on fda-related news and topics like enforcement reports, food safety reports, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, tobacco news, 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 various RSS feeds on health-related news 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.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Chronic Pain, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Eyesight, Travel Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Acid Reflux/GERD, Medical Insurance, Conferences, Smoking/Quit Smoking, Litigation/Medical Malpractice, Ear, Nose and Throat, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “eye health rss feeds”, “dyslexia rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your users. Health-related calculators are popular tools for your website. Other applications would include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this detailed guide, we look at a number of online tools you can add to your health website using WordPress plugins that can also help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click here to view the rest of this guide:

• Grow Your Medical Center Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins

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