Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, medical services practitioners must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from their competition and generate new clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out smarter ways to grow your services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be delegated to develop and manage a website that can attract leads, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help give you a wider degree of exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and some areas will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that health and medical services practitioners (and most businesses) face online, is that they have only around 30 seconds or less to give visitors what they need 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 The Health & Medical Profession In The Web Economy

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 profession that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy challenges and who can think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn opportunities to attract new visitors and see noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health or medical-related website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see the articles below:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Clients
• How To Grow Your Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Health Site

This section looks at how to improve your health website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a medical-related website needs, what type of content works best for medical websites, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need help with website planning, check out the detailed guide we have written here: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Practical Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Pages

Professional business websites need some essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Description Of services And Products

You need a page that lists your products and services. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, nephrology endocrinology, oral surgery, geriatric medicine, renal, gastroenterology, ophtalmology palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, lung screening, x-ray, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, marriage counselling, wellness coaching, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, natural therapy, meditation, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive endocrinology, speech language therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home and community care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to 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.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It should include any business awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above your competitors.

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

Meet Our Team

If you are searching for simple ideas to grow your business online or get people to stay longer on your site, then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in health 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 so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your employee’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 team profile page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add a list directory of employees or team members in your website using free WP plugins, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site

Recruitment

List any job or career opportunities available within your business. It can include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You should also include stories of graduates who have worked their way up in your company and information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Also include a positions available section in your 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

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also helps your medical or health business to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using testimonials and client reviews, see this article: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If your business services different areas you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content like announcements, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

You may not be aware of this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin attracting targeted visitors to your business, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Get More Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

As a professional health or medical services practitioner, having a compliant website is very important. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you do business.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key business differentiators.

By providing useful content with great tips, advice or information, you will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides products that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Is hypnosis and effective weight loss treatment?
• A guide to making the right choices when eating out at any restaurant
• And many other content topics

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

Remember to use specific keywords in your content that your readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for 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!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites 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 content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content by visiting sites of relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed some RSS feeds you could add to a health-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can search by departments and choose individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Evidence-Based Nursing, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, recalls, foods, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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 (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 by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.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. Allergies, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Thyroid, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eating Disorders, Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP, ADHD/ADD, Flu/Cold/SARS, Men’s Health, Pediatrics/Children’s Health, Tuberculosis, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “compliance rss feeds”, “pediatrics rss feeds”, “fitness rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your health site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Checklists and charts can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. They are great instructional tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists covering areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other applications would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To keep reading, click this link:

• Your Medical Clinic Website – WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Generating More Web Traffic

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