Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
Medical providers face many challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing their presence online.
Online Challenges For Health Services Providers
Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.
As well as spending dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to allocate a more significant portion of your budget to develop and manage a website that will bring new clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help you gain a wider degree of marketing reach online.
This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.
One other problem that medical services providers face, as do most professions for that matter, is that your site has around thirty seconds to provide users with what they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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
Online Opportunities For Medical Services Providers
As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical or health practices that are willing to evolve to meet online challenges and who can think progressively about marketing their business better online.
In this detailed guide, you will discover new opportunities to drive more web traffic and establish online credibility for your business.
As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical or health website or blog.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), go here:
- Discover How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Money
- The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress
How To Improve Your Health Clinic Site
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 show you what web pages you need, what content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners
Your Website Pages
All business websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s review the pages your should have and how to structure your medical or health website for best results.
Products And Services Description Page
You need to include a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page can list services like:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, nephrology hematology, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation medicine, rheumatology, infection control, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
- Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
- Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, radiology, pap smears, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, wellness coaching, social development services
- Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, physiotherapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, mobility, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.
List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.
About Us Page
The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
Remember to list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above other competitors.
(List all of your awards recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in your About Us page. Screenshot image source: squaremedical.com.au)
Your Staff
If you are searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ways to sell more products online, then help prospective clients get to know you, your team and your organization better.
You want your business to be relatable. A 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 brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with medical terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected team members on their social networks.
In this page, make sure to outline each team member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory to a WordPress site without editing code here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site
Work With Us
This is a listing of job or career opportunities within your business. It could include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include stories of trainees who have risen within your organization and information about additional career opportunities in the medical industry.
Also include 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.
Testimonials & Case Studies
Testimonials from previous clients 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 will also help to establish social proof for your business.
(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written extensively on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Create Better Results Online Using Compelling Client Testimonials
Contact Us Page
Having a contact page is crucial.
Your contact page should provide the following information:
- Business Name
- Physical address
- Phone
- Facsimile
- Email address
- Map and directions
- Web address
- Contact form
- Request for information – contact details
- Social media links
- Chat feature
If you have several areas you should make that clear when showing your address and contact information.
You can also include a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.
Blog Section
A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like announcements, updates, training information, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your practice.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical-related website is very hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and business blog.
Something not many businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can begin driving web traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.
(WordPress can generate new traffic automatically to your website)
Go here to learn more:
Legal Info Pages
Having a compliant website is vitally important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws and regulations in whichever location you do business.
Depending on the services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms 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
- and others
Go here if you would like to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site
How To Improve The Content On Your Website
In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competitors.
By providing useful content with tips, information and advice, you will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.
For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the topics you can write content about include:
- Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, how to identify yours)
- Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
- Characteristics of different diets, e.g. HCG diet, GI diet, Jenny Craig diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, are they effective)
- Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
- And endless other content topics
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.
Include the keywords and terminology in your content that 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Ways To Improve Visitor Experience
Improving user experience (known as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.
RSS Feeds
RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.
If you provide information that adds value to others, 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
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared online
- Feeds allow users to subscribe
- It provides a way for links to point back to your site
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
- RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.
Below we have listed some useful RSS feeds you could add to your website:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts 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. Breastfeeding, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, 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 various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), Stem Cells, The Journal of Physiology, ADA DOC News, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Find various feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information updates, FDA drug shortages, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, vaccines, blood and biologics, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- Department of Health UK (www.gov.uk) – 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 - Find many 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 by going to publications like the NYTimes 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 select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Sleep, etc.)
- Medical News Today – MNT Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- Medical News Today – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Melanoma/Skin Cancer, Aid/Disasters, COPD, Biology/Biochemistry, Statins, etc.)
You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “bird flu rss feeds”, “myeloma rss feeds”, “alzheimer’s rss feeds”, etc.
(Adding RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical website’s user experience.)
Checklists And Charts
Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Forms and checklists can also be great client instructional tools.
Forms, charts and checklists could cover subjects such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for pre or post surgery
- Health checklists for specific conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Weight loss and exercise program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)
Unique Tools
Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your users. Calculators, for example are great tools to add to your website. Other tools would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.
In part 2 of this guide, we look at a several online tools you can use in your health or medical-related website using WordPress plugins that can also help improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
***
This is the end of part 1 of this comprehensive article on ways to improve your health-related web presence.
Click here to continue:
***
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)