Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised the way business is done worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for medical and health services providers.

Challenges Medical Services Practitioners Face Online

Today, more than ever, medical services providers must find smarter ways to remain competitive and generate new clientele. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and figuring out better ways to promote your medical or health services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the medical or health industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated to develop and manage a website that brings in prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps them gain a wider reach online.

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

One other problem that medical and health services providers face (as most businesses do for that matter), is that your site has around thirty seconds or less to give users the information they are searching for or they will leave the site 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 Medical And Health Services Providers

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical industry that can adapt to meet online economy demands and think strategically when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

The article below will help you uncover a number of ways to increase traffic and establish online credibility for your medical-related business.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Money
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Health Practice Services Site

Let’s start by going over some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for medical or health websites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, read this article: A Cost-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All business websites need some basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Products And Services

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, pulmonology blood disorders, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, infection control, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, orthodontics, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, radiology and imaging, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, hydrotherapy, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, stomal therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to 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.

About Us

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

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

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site, then help your visitors get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It can include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline each staff 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 page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to create and add an updatable simple employee directory to a WordPress site without using code, go here: Adding An Employee List Directory: Plugin Tutorial

Career Opportunities

List any job opportunities within your clinic. It could include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of trainees who have risen within your company and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health-related 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, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to establish social proof online for your business.

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

We have created a comprehensive article on using testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Get Better Results Online Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat/Skype (optional)

If your business operates from different locations you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as the latest announcements, updates, training information, informative posts, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to market your medical clinic.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin to drive web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Drive More Website Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information Pages

It’s extremely important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws and regulations wherever your business is located.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here for a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving Your Content

In today’s ultra-competitive online economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

Provide useful content with information, advice and tips that will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more content. This is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about using your services and products.

For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• Potential health issues caused by being overweight
• What are calories and how understanding them aids in weight loss
• Comparing different diets, e.g. Paleo diet, GI diet, Volumetrics diet (what these are, how they work, are they effective)
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• And many other content topics

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

Include 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes 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.

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

For example, here are some RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 also choose specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Applied Physiology, BMJ, RadioGraphics, Medscape, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various health-related feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information, health fraud, tainted products, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Asthma, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diet & Weight Management, Exercise & Fitness, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Headache/Migraine, Eczema/Psoriasis, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Men’s Health, Respiratory/Asthma, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “cervical cancer rss feeds”, “food intolerance rss feeds”, “drug trials rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. They can give them useful instructions and resources to perform tasks. Checklists and charts are great client educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could include areas such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Provide Unique Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed article, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical or health-related website that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click on this link to access the rest of this guide:

• Grow Your Health Practice Website – Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors To Your Website With Plugins And Themes

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