Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical services practitioners face many new challenges in the online economy, especially when it comes to growing their business presence online.

Online Challenges For The Health Profession

Today, more than ever, health services providers must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and source new clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having an effective website and learning better ways to promote your services online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other health-related businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned towards the development and management of a website that can drive new clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help to give you a wider degree of reach online.

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

Another challenge that health or medical organizations (and most other businesses) face online, is that your site has only around 30 seconds to provide users with what they are searching for or they will leave 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 Services Practitioners

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to health-related businesses that are willing to evolve to meet online economy demands and can think outside the box about marketing themselves better online.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover new opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your medical website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages a health-related site needs, what type of content works best for medical sites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

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

Services Description Page

It’s essential to have a page that describes your products and services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology blood disorders, oncology, incontinence, respiratory, bariatric surgery, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, medical imaging, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, reiki, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, othopedics, reproductive services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual 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 what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It’s important to also list any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and set yourself above your competitors.

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

Staff Page

Are you looking for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online and get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff members on their social networks.

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

(Add a staff description page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory to your website using free WP plugins here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff List To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities within the company. It could include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include information about career opportunities in the medical or health industry.

Also include 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 your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides visitors social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Create Better Results Online With Compelling Client Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is vitally important.

It should include:

• Company Name
• Location
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Live chat feature

If your business services different areas you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

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

Blog

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content such as announcements, product releases, useful articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an medical or health-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your organization.

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 act as both your website and your blog.

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly deliver web traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your website)

For more details, go here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Info Pages

As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is very important. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws and regulations in whichever area you provide services.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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 comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. For more details, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, having a content marketing strategy has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

By committing to providing great content with useful information, advice or tips, you will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more content. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your business and services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the areas you can cover in your web content include:

• How does fiber help you with weight loss?
• What are calories and how they play a role in weight loss
• How to develop a better eating and exercise regimen
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your medical or health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Remember to use relevant keywords in your content that readers will be searching to find you 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 high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business 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 user experience (known as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

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

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

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

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, ADA ClinicalDiabetes, Obesity, BMJ Journal of Clinical Pathology, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like criminal investigations, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related RSS feeds 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.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Arthritis, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Sexual Health, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Gout, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, Compliance, Neurology/Neuroscience, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Biology/Biochemistry, Genetics, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “ebola rss feeds”, “irritable-bowel syndrome rss feeds”, “genetics rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your medical or health-related website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and medical forms are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. They are great educational tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators are great tools you can add to your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Health & Medical Center Services Website – WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Website

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