Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services practitioners today face growing challenges.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to participate in the community you serve, you must also develop an active web presence. This includes having an effective website and searching for smarter ways to promote your health or medical services services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to developing and maintaining a website that brings in prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps to increase your presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your 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 sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health-related organizations face with their websites (and most other businesses for that matter), is that you have only about 30 seconds to help users find the information they need 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 And Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health industry that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy demands and think outside the box about marketing their business better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and see noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your medical or health business online, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• Discover Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• The Beginner’s Guide To Building Your Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Practice Site

This section explains ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

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

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need some basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  should have and how to set up your medical or health website for best results.

Your Services And Products

You need a page that describes your services and products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page could include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology hematology, plastic surgery, hyperbaric medicine, renal, infection control, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, wellness, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, natural therapy, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, fertility services, optical services, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

It should also mention any industry awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and position yourself above your competitors.

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

Team

If you are looking for quicker and simpler ways to grow your business online or get people to interact more with your site, then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your business better.

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

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

(Add a staff page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in your site using a free WordPress plugin, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. It should include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can include stories of trainees who have risen within your business and information about new career opportunities in the medical industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you will also help to provide social proof.

(Add a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews get better results online. For more details, go here: How To Convert More Visitors Into Prospects Using Engaging Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Chat/Skype

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

You could also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical-Related Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many 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 the latest news, updates, educational articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is very hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used 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 system that will begin attracting an ongoing stream of new visitors to your site, simply by adding regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Grow Your Website Traffic For Your Business

Legal Pages

As a professional business, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is really important. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws or regulations in whichever area or location you do business.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• 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 to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content

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

By providing great content with useful information, advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your information and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the areas you could cover in your content include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to set realistic, but challenging weight loss goals
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include keywords in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for.

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

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide valuable information, other sites will 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 kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS 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. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing 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 loads of useful content for your website by searching online for medical-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Here are a few useful RSS feeds you could add to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s 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. PhysiologicalReviews, Bionet RSS, Neurology India, Occupational Medicine, The New England Journal of Medicine, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, product recalls, radiological health, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications 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 specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Men’s health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Prevention & Wellness, Skin, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Bird Flu/Avian Flu, Lymphology/Lymphedema, Dermatology, Food Intolerance, Respiratory/Asthma, Genetics, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “medical insurance rss feeds”, “dyslexia rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health site’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide useful information and resources to perform a task. They are great client instructional tools.

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

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

Adding Online Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are popular tools for your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue reading, click here:

• How To Grow Your Medical Services Business Online With WordPress – Part 2

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