Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
The information economy has not only revolutionised the way business is done around the world, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and opportunities for health or medical-related businesses.
Challenges Medical Practitioners Face Online
Today, more than ever, businesses in the health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having a website and searching for better ways to market your business online.
As well as investing money marketing offline, businesses in the health or medical-related industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned towards developing and managing a website that can bring in prospects, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help increase their presence 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 over time and some aspects may need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a well-planned web and content management strategy.
Another problem that medical providers face, as do most businesses for that matter, is that they have around 30 seconds or less to help users find the information they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.
“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
As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical industry that can adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and can think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.
This article will help you uncover opportunities to attract new visitors and see significant improvements in your online results.
As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your medical or health-related website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:
- How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business
- Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Business Using WordPress
Useful Tips For Improving Your Website
In this section we’ll show you how to improve your medical-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages a health-related website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed guide: A Comprehensive Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners
Basic Website Pages
Professional websites require several basic pages. Let’s review the pages your should have and how to structure your medical website for best results.
Description Of Services
It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could include services such as:
- Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose & throat, neurosurgery hematology, cancer, incontinence, respiratory, weight loss surgery, eye diseases day surgery, etc.
- Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, x-ray, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
- Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, holistic medicine, meditation, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive services, optical services, neurosciences, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical equipment, 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
This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.
This page should mention any health or medical-related awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and set yourself above your competitors.
(List all of your awards accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc. in the About Us page. Screenshot image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)
Meet Our Team
Are you looking for quicker and simpler ways to grow your business online? Then help your visitors get to know you and your organization better.
Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in medical or health-related terms it should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.
On this page, make sure to outline each person’s expertise, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)
We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add a simple team members directory to your site without editing code here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code
Job Opportunities Page
List any job opportunities within the company. This page should include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have worked their way up in your company and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the medical and health 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 announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies
Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you will also help to provide visitors social proof online.
(Add a page to your site with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)
To learn more about using client case studies and client reviews go here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Meaningful Testimonials
Contact Page
Having a functional contact page is essential.
It should include some or all of the following information about your company:
- Name Of Your Business
- Your physical address
- Telephone
- Fax
- Email address
- Map
- Website URL
- Contact form
- Request for information – contact details
- Social media URLs
- Online chat
If your business operates from different areas you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.
Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, booking form, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Health Blog
A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like events, product releases, useful information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your business.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used as both your business website and your blog.
Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will begin to attract new visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.
(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your site)
Go here to learn more:
Legal Information
As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you practice.
Adding some or all of 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 Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- etc.
We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
How To Improve Your Web Content
In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with information has become one of the key success factors for businesses.
By providing useful content with tips or information, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your services.
For example, if your business provides products that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could publish content about include the following:
- What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
- How to calculate how many calories you burn each day
- Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
- How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
- And many other content topics
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).
Include keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients will be searching to find you online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
Improve User Experience
Improving your website’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.
Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds
An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your business.
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 having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your content updates are kept in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Can be shared online
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- It provides links to your content
- RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- RSS provides several ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. read your 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 useful content for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.
For example, here are some feeds you could add to a health or medical site:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Healthy aging, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, 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. Journal of Neurophysiology, Epidemiology – Featured Articles, BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, jobs.ac.uk health and medical jobs, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Find various RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. FDA drug safety, health fraud, recalls, animal and veterinary news, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various health-related news 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. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
- MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Neurology, Diabetes, Senior Health, Hearing, etc.)
- Medical News Today – MNT 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. Public Health, Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Men’s Health, Respiratory/Asthma, Tuberculosis, etc.)
You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “HPV vaccine rss feeds”, “alcohol addiction rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.
(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)
Checklists And Charts
Adding checklists and educational charts to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful information and resources to complete steps. Checklists and charts are also great educational tools.
Forms, charts and checklists can include areas such as:
- Booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Fitness and nutrition program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)
Add Unique Tools
Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are great tools you can add to your website. Other tools can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.
In part 2, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.
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This is the end of section one.
Click on this link to access the rest of this article:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)