Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical and health services professionals today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For Health And Medical Services Professionals

Today, more than ever, medical and health services providers must find smarter ways to remain competitive and source new clients. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and figuring out smarter ways to market your services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to invest a larger amount of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that attracts clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you create a wider degree of exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website will change in time and many areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that health or medical-related organizations face online (and most other businesses for that matter), is that you have only about 30 seconds or less to provide visitors with what they are looking for or they will leave the site 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 Health And Medical Services Providers In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to health-related businesses that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think progressively about marketing their services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about opportunities to generate more web traffic and establish online credibility for your health or medical-related business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your medical or health website, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health-related website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Potential Customers And What To Do About It
• Learning WordPress – The Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Clinic 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 type of content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed step-by-step guide: A Cost-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

All business websites need several essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to set up your medical-related website for best results.

Products And Services Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics hematology, reconstructive surgery, stroke, renal, bariatric surgery, ophtalmology day surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, restorations, implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, audiology, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, hydrotherapy, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, speech therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, clinical information, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your 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 it stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

Remember to also include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your services and set yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Team

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

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not that well-versed in health or medical terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your employee’s experience, how their skills and knowledge add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

If you need help how to add an easy-to-maintain simple team directory to your website, refer to this tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities available within the company. This page would include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information about career opportunities in the health-related industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing prospective clients with social proof for your business.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. For more details, go here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online With More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

• Company Name
• Address of business
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Chat (optional feature)

If your business services multiple areas you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and announcements, new releases, useful information, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your medical clinic.

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

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that can begin to deliver web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing content to your website on a consistent basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

If you would like to know more here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Attract More Traffic For Your Business

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important for medical and health services practitioners businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Adding the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• 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 about adding legal pages to your site here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, the sooner you start to publish great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competitors.

Providing great content with information, advice or tips will get your readers to share your information and come back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about your business and services.

For example, if you provide solutions that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (carbs, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins)
• How small efforts in portion control can help achieve weight loss results
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• What processed foods can derail your weight loss program (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

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

Use the same keywords in your articles that prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website 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 user experience (known as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using 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 your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, 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 in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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.

To find useful RSS feeds just search online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you could add to your site:

• 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 choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, ADA (American Diabetes Association), Neurology India, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, health fraud, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS 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.com – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Digestion, Heart, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured 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. Bipolar, Pain/Anesthetics, Fibromyalgia, Body Aches, Alcohol/Addiction/Illegal Drugs, Cleft Palate, Alzheimer’s/Dementia, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “lung cancer rss feeds”, “bones rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your medical or health-related site’s user experience.)

Provide Downloadable Checklists And Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and charts are also great instructional tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, 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.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two, we discuss a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view Part 2, click here:

• How To Build And Grow Your Health & Medical Clinic Services Presence Online Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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