Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health professionals today are facing increasing challenges created by the web economy.

Challenges Medical Services Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical businesses must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and source new clients. Not only do you have to participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your medical services online.

As well as investing money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that will drive prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your site 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 in time and many aspects will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical organizations face with their websites (as other professions do for that matter), is that your site has around 30 seconds to help users find the information 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

Online Opportunities For Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the medical or health-related industry that can adapt to meet online economy demands and who can think progressively when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover ways to attract more visitors and build more online credibility for your health business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your medical or health-related web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your health or medical business website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your medical or health website and get better results. We show you what pages a medical-related site needs, what type of content works best for health or medical-related websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, visit this page: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  should have and how to structure your website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need to include a page that describes your products and services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology hematology, cancer, stroke, renal, urology, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, audiology, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, functional medicine, tai chi, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home and community care, clinical information, medical transport, 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 the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

Remember to include any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know you, your team and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each 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 ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to add a simple and easy-to-manage simple team members directory in WordPress, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work With Us

List any job opportunities available within your clinic. It should include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or sponsored by your business, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and additional 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, join your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase what type of services you offer. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you will also help to are also providing visitors social proof.

(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a comprehensive article about using testimonials and reviews improve your business online here: How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects With Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information about your company:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat feature

If you operate in multiple locations you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

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

Add A Medical Or Health Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as announcements, updates, educational information, opinions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an medical site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your company.

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin to drive targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s vitally important for professional companies to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you do business.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms 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
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with information has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

Provide useful content with information, advice or tips that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. This is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your services.

For example, if you provide weight loss services, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• Is weight loss surgery right for you? (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• How to modify recipes for achieving healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your medical or health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients would search for.

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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

Improving user experience (known as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

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

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 content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are examples of feeds you could add 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 search by departments and select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, The Journal of Immunology, Toxicological Sciences, Neuropsychopharmacology, 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
• FDA – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, food allergy reports, recalls, cosmetics, 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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get many RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS 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.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Men’s health, Migraine Headaches, Depression, Exercise & Fitness, Women’s Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Ebola, Fibromyalgia, Cholesterol, Men’s Health, Cosmetic Medicine/Plastic Surgery, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “medicare rss feeds”, “pediatrics rss feeds”, “tuberculosis rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and charts can provide visitors with useful information and resources to perform tasks. Forms and checklists are great instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can cover areas such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools for your website. Others can include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we discuss a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this comprehensive guide on ways to improve your health web presence.

Click here to continue reading:

• How To Grow Your Medical Services & Health-Related Online – Part 2

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