Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed the way business is done around the world, it has also created a number of challenges and opportunities for health services providers.

Challenges Medical Services Professionals Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical and 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 maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other health or medical businesses, you will need to designate a larger portion of your budget towards developing and managing a website that can drive clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help increase your marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and some aspects may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that medical-related businesses face (as do other businesses for that matter), is that they have only about 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will 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 Medical Services Practitioners

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 or medical-related industry that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and who can think progressively about improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover new ways to attract new visitors and create significant 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 to power your health-related website.

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

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• WordPress In Business – A Beginner’s Guide To Growing Your Successful Small Business With A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips For Improving 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 will look at what pages you need, what content works best, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, go here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Products And Services Page

You need a page that describes your products and services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology endocrinology, plastic surgery, continence management, rheumatology, infection control, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, veneers, crowns and bridges, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – mammography, skin cancer, radiology, women’s health, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, meditation, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, fertility services, speech language therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, community health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors 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, supported community programs, etc.

It should also list any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your business and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Your Staff

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online and get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then something you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in medical-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can include social buttons so your site visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline your team member’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge 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 image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a list directory of staff members to your website here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within the clinic. This page can include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your business, etc. It should include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or medical 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 announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients also helps your medical business to provide prospective clients with social proof online.

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

If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide some or all of the following information:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Chat (optional feature)

If you operate in multiple areas you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, useful pages, booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as events, product releases, useful articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic system that can drive an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into An Automated Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information Pages

It’s vital for medical providers organizations to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken in whatever area you do business.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your medical-related site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, 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 Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competitors.

Provide useful content with great information, tips or advice that will get your readers to share your information and come back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• Vitamins and minerals that help with weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that readers will be searching for online.

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

Ways To Improve Visitor Experience

Improving your site’s 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.

Adding RSS Feeds

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

If you provide valuable content, other sites 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
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• 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. users can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes 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.

To find RSS feeds with useful content just visit sites of health-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few feeds you could consider adding to a medical or health website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, BMJ, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, cosmetics, 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 - Get many health-related news 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. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Men’s health, Neurology, Depression, Exercise & Fitness, Sleep, etc.)
• Medical News Today – 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. Eye Health/Blindness, Stroke, Health Insurance, Veterinary, COPD, Respiratory/Asthma, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “caregivers rss feeds”, “back pain rss feeds”, “wearable technology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and charts are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Charts and checklists are great client educational tools.

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

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools to add to your website. Other tools could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed article, we will be discussing a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1 of this step-by-step article on ways to grow your health-related business web presence.

Click here to access the rest of this article:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow A Health Center Services Web Presence With WordPress – Part 2

***

***