Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health services practitioners face many new challenges in the digital economy, especially in terms of growing a business online.

Challenges Health Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health industry 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 develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and searching for better ways to market your medical services online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the medical or health industry are now finding that they will need to allocate a bigger amount of their budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that brings new prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps give their business wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change over time and some areas may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that health-related organizations (and all other professions) face, is that they have an average of thirty seconds or less to give visitors what 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 The Medical And Health Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the health profession that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think strategically about improving their online business marketing skills.

In this guide, you will learn about ways and opportunities to increase traffic and create noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your business online, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical or health website or blog.

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

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Money
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

How To Improve Your Medical & Health Services Site

In this section we will show you how to improve your health or medical website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best, suggestions for improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health or medical-related website, visit this page: The Website Planning Process - A Comprehensive Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

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

Description Of services And Products

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, orthopedics blood disorders, plastic surgery, aged care, respiratory, colon/rectal surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, oral health, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, reproductive services, optical services, inherited diseases, prosthetics, mobility, home care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It’s important to also include any medical or health-related awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your services and set yourself above your competitors.

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

Core Team

If you are searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in health or medical-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients 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 your employee’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a list of staff members to your website without touching code, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities within the organization. It could include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and 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 And Case Studies

Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to provide social proof for your business.

(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you want to learn more about using client case studies and user reviews, see this article: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions Using Knockout Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should provide:

• Business Name
• Physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile number
• Contact email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype

If you operate out of multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

You should also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical-Related Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as events, updates, useful articles, informative posts, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something not many businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin delivering an ongoing stream of web traffic to your site, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate new traffic automatically to your site)

For more info, see this article:

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s important for health services providers businesses to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever you practice.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and 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/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. If you would like to learn more here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

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

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

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• How small efforts in portion control can help your weight loss efforts
• Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
• Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include the keywords in your content that your prospective clients will search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving user experience (known as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your site.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses may 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great information on your website from other sites, 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 by visiting sites of relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of feeds you could add to a medical-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, 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 well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, BMJ Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, food safety reports, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, foods, 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 - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics 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. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Neurology, Pregnancy, Digestion, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Bipolar, Acid Reflux/GERD, Fibromyalgia, Aid/Disasters, Heart Disease, Medical Innovation, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “hypertension rss feeds”, “orthopedics rss feeds”, “IBD rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Forms and checklists can also be great client educational tools.

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

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, for example are popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2, we discuss a several WordPress plugins you can add to your website that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to continue reading:

• A Practical Guide On How To Grow A Medical-Related Online – Part Two

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