Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health services providers today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For Health Businesses

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning better ways to market your practice online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the health industry are now finding that they need to delegate a larger share of their marketing budget towards developing and maintaining a website that can attract leads, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help give them wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change in time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that medical businesses face, as most professions do for that matter, is that you have only around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will go away.

“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 Health & Medical Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical industry that can evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and who can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will learn about new ways to increase traffic and notice significant improvements in your business online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical or health business website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Clients And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Small Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we will show you how to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content works best for health or medical-related websites, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical or health website, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: How To Plan A Website - A Useful Guide For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services

It’s essential to have a page that explains your products and services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, gerontology, renal, endoscopy, optometry emergency surgery, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, x-ray, pap smears, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, natural therapy, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, rehabilitation, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

It’s important to include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your business and position yourself above your competitors.

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

Core Team

Are you searching for ideas to grow your business online? Then help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. It can also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline each person’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-update directory of employees to your site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Career Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities within your organization. This page could include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can also include information about new career opportunities in the health or medical-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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to are also providing social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Meaningful Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide the following information about your business:

• Company Name
• Your physical address
• Phone number
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature

If your business services multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

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

Add A Medical Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site 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 your blog.

Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin driving new visitors to your web site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create A Web Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Information

It’s vitally important 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 laws and regulations are being broken wherever you do business.

Adding the following legal pages to your health-related site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and 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 and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with information has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By providing useful content with great advice, information or tips, you will get your readers to share your information and come back for more content. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you can write content about include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• Advice on ways to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your articles that prospective clients will search for online.

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

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution 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 a way for links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the 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 site 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 for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.

For example, here are some examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• 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, Healthy aging, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Violence against women, 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. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, RadioGraphics, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like criminal investigations, FDA drug shortages, product recalls, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Cancer, Neurology, Diabetes, Senior Health, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Eating Disorders, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Veterinary, Back Pain, Allergy, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “medicaid rss feeds”, “prostate rss feeds”, “statins rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and charts are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. They are also great client instructional tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable checklists, charts and forms covering subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators are popular tools for your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part 2 of this detailed article, we will be discussing a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your website that can help improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To continue reading, click here:

• A Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing A Health Practice Services Presence Online Successfully – Part Two

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