Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health practitioners today face many challenges brought about by the online economy.

Challenges Medical Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and figuring out smarter ways to market your practice online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy health or medical businesses, you will need to delegate a bigger share of your budget to developing and managing a website that attracts clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps you gain wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical or health businesses (and most businesses) face with their websites, is that they have around 30 seconds to give users the information they are looking 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 & Health Businesses In The Online Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical or health businesses that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and think outside the box about improving their online business marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover new ways to drive more web traffic and establish online credibility for your business.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• Learn How To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Blog

Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a health or medical-related website needs, what type of content works best for medical or health websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

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

Your Products And Services

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, pulmonology endocrinology, maxillofacial surgery, hyperbaric medicine, respiratory, endoscopy, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, braces, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, lung screening, medical imaging, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, chiropody, lymphedema therapy, stomal therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, etc.

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 appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and position yourself above the competition.

(List all of your business awards certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc. in the About page. Image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)

Meet The Team

If you are looking for cost-effective ideas to sell more products online, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know you and your organization better.

People need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in health terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page can also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each team member’s expertise, how they add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily add a list directory of employees to your web site using free WP plugins here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee Directory For Your WordPress Site

We’re Hiring

List any job or career opportunities available within your company. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities promoted or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can include information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical or 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 the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

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

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

We have created a detailed article on using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Create Better Results Online Using Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is crucial.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Business Name
• Location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat (optional)

If you operate from multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as events, product releases, useful articles, opinions on current topics, educational videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established medical or health website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your company.

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that will begin delivering an ongoing stream of web traffic to your business, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate web traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Web Traffic For Your Business Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Information

As a professional health services practitioner, ensuring that you have a compliant website is vitally important. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached wherever your business is located.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• 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 for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses selling similar products or providing similar services.

Providing useful content with advice, information and tips will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Using content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• What calories really are and how understanding them helps in weight loss
• Tips for developing an exercise routine you can enjoy and will stick with
• What processed foods can derail your diet (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

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

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your readers would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your presence online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful information, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, search online for relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some RSS feeds you could add to your website:

• 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 choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Applied Physiology, BMJ Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Journal of Cell Science, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food allergy reports, pet health, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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 many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics 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 feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Menopause, Cholesterol, Depression, Eyesight, HIV, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Medical Students/Training, Seniors/Aging, Melanoma/Skin Cancer, Emergency Medicine, Men’s Health, Cosmetic Medicine/Plastic Surgery, Alzheimer’s/Dementia, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “homecare rss feeds”, “leukemia rss feeds”, “MRI rss feeds”, etc.

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

Adding Online Charts & Checklists

Checklists and charts are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Charts and checklists are great client instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could address topics such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Online Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed guide, we take a look at a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to grow your health or medical business online.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Medical And Health Practice Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation

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