Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised the way business is done globally, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for the health or medical-related industry.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning smarter ways to market your medical or health services online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards developing and maintaining a website that drives clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and gives you wider exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and some areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical or health-related organizations face with their websites (as do other businesses for that matter), is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what they are searching for 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 Services Practitioners In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical sector that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think outside the box in terms of marketing themselves better online.

In this guide, you will learn new opportunities to source more clients and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

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

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

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow A Successful Small Business Online

Practical Tips To Improve Your Medical Practice Website

Let’s start by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, check out the detailed guide we have written here: The Website Planning Process: A Useful Guide For Business Owners

Basic Pages

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

Services And Products

You need to include a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page can include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics haematology, maxillofacial surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, respiratory, gastroenterology, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, restorations, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, medical imaging, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellbeing, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, fertility services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, community 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 your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

Remember to mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Meet The Team

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products online? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected team 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 each person’s experience, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-maintain list directory of employees or team members in your website, see this step-by-step tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory In WordPress: Plugin Tutorial

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your company. This page would include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You should also include stories of recruits who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the health or medical-related 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

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

(Add a page to your site with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews, refer to this article: Achieve Better Results Online With Highly Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Live chat

If your business operates out of multiple areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like events, new releases, useful articles, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an health-related website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical business.

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can help begin driving targeted visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

You can learn more about this here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

It’s really important for professional businesses to make sure they 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 and federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your practice is located.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your health-related website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions 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
• etc.

Go here if you would like to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

Providing useful content with information or tips will get your visitors sharing your information with others and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the areas you could publish content about include the following:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• Comparing different diets, e.g. Atkins diet, South Beach diet, Nutrisystem diet (what these are, how they work, are they effective)
• Smartphone apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

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

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides many benefits for your business.

If you provide valuable content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes 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 RSS feeds with useful content by visiting sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few useful RSS feeds you could add to a health-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, 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. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), American Cancer Society, The AAPS Journal (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists), Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get feeds on fda-related news like FDA drug safety, food allergy reports, tainted products, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Migraine Headaches, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Urology/Nephrology, Pain/Anesthetics, Depression, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Medical Innovation, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “infectious diseases rss feeds”, “drugs addiction rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Adding Forms

Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete steps. Checklists and forms are also great instructional tools.

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

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

Provide Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your site can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to build your health web presence.

To keep reading, click this link:

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Growing A Medical-Related Website – Part 2

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