In Part 1 of this guide on ways to grow your health-related web presence, we provided practical tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Challenges Professional Health Services Practitioners Face Online
- Opportunities For Medical And Health Services Practitioners In The Digital Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Improving The Content On Your Site
In Parts 2 & 3, we explore more ways to grow your health or medical-related business online.
Topics covered in this (and the next section) include:
- Improving Web Traffic Using WordPress
- Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
- How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- Adding New Features And Functionality To Your WP Site With Plugins
- WP For Beginners – An Overview Of Themes
Note: WordPress medical and health plugins are covered in this section. Medical and health-related themes are covered in Part Three.
Tips For Medical Practitioners – How To Improve Your Business Online Using WordPress Themes And Plugins
Your web traffic is an integral part of your business growth. This section will help you improve your web traffic.
Optimizing Your Website For Search Engines (SEO) With WordPress
There are so many ways WordPress can help to optimize your medical-related website for search engines:
- SEO-Friendly – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want search engines to index your posts for.
- Post Categories – Create search engine-friendly categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that search engines will display in their search results.
- Images – title images with keywords for better search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily link internal content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your website.
WordPress Plugins That Can Help Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are various plugins for WordPress that improve your website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
For example, you can install the plugins below to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO)
Other WordPress plugins you can use to improve your website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are some more WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – Set up your own online social network on your website, with member profiles, user groups, activity streams, messaging, and more.
- bbPress – Use the bbPress plugin to set up and run your own online forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter allows you to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and increases user engagement on your website.
- Social Media Feather – Add social sharing features on your posts and pages.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
Generating Leads & Enquiries
In this section we discuss how to improve your sales and generate new leads and enquiries online.
Provide A Newsletter
Providing an email newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. Adding email newsletters] provides a number of benefits, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides practical tips and advice
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for improving interaction
- Provides additional ways for subscribers to share your content
A proven way to entice your visitors to subscribe is to provide users with valuable content and offer them a free gift in exchange for their details. This can be a time-saving guide, tips for improving general health and diet, access to health calculators, coupons, membership access to courses, podcasts, etc.
Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for readers to get in touch. Users can send feedback, contact specific departments, request a quote, and more.
Contact forms provide several benefits, like:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any post or page
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenient for visitors
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 WordPress Plugin)
Contact form 7 is a free plugin that is easy to install and configure and lets you create and manage multiple contact forms into any page or post, customize the forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is also supported.
Another option you may want to consider if you plan to set up a website for a health center or medical clinic is adding sections to your contact form so prospective clients can select the section of the practice they are contacting your business about. This helps visitors get their comment to the correct area.
Map
Adding maps helps your visitors and customers find you.
A map is a useful tool for several reasons:
- A map improves local SEO
- Clients can better plan their visits or appointments
- Shows location of events
(Maps help your visitors and customers find you)
Some of the more popular map plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors Using Plugins And Themes
Health Services Plugins For WordPress
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your health-related website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for users. Here are just some of these plugins:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar – WordPress Plugin)
This free bookings reservations plugin lets you add appointment booking services to your site. This flexible plugin is well supported and has an intuitive interface. It is highly suitable for a wide range of medical or health-related businesses, e.g. dental practitioners, surgical centers, massage therapists, booking patient appointments, etc.
(Booking Calendar – WordPress Plugin – Overview)
This booking reservations plugin works right out of the box. Your website visitors can check the availability of services and book appointments easily. Administrators and visitors receive booking confirmations. The plugin also lets you add a calendar or booking form to your website’s sidebar, and supports multiple languages. The plugin developers also offer a premium version with extra features.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticketing Management Software
(Manage Event Registrations Automatically With Event Espresso Plugin For WordPress)
If you plan to run medical or health events, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration WordPress software lets you easily set up an event and start processing bookings in just a few minutes
(Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Management Plugin)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed software that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
Go here for an in-depth article about Event Espresso:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators WordPress Plugin)
Calculator Pro is a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. It supports internationalization
Note: Most of the calculators aren’t designed for medical or health-related applications, but there are many you can use, including:
- Body Statistics – e.g. Body Fat Calculator, FENa Calculator, Goal Weight Calculator, Max Heart Rate Calculator, VO2 Max Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Calorie to kJ Calculator, RMR Calculator, Calories Burned Walking Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Coopers 12 Minute Run Test Calculator, Rockport Walk Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Advanced One Rep Max Weight Lifting Calculator, Blood Sugar Converter Calculator, Ovulation Calculator, Sobriety Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. Carbohydrate Calculator, Protein Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. Ideal Weight Calculator, Weight Loss Percentage Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form Plugin)
The Calculated Fields Form plugin is great for creating dynamically calculated field forms, including:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculator
- And more
A premium version of this plugin is also available and includes many more features.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker)
This free plugin lets logged-in users record their weight periodically. The results are then displayed in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker Plugin – Graph)
The plugin allows users to enter target weights and provides support for various weight formats: Metric (Kg), Imperial – Stones & Pounds, Imperial – Pounds only.
For more details, go here}:
Simple Body Mass Index Calculator Widget
(Simple Body Mass Index Calculator Widget Plugin For WordPress)
This free plugin installs a widget on your website that can be configured and customized to match your theme.
In addition to Simple BMI Calculator, there are other WordPress plugins you can check out to perform similar functions:
- BMI BMR Calculator – A mobile-friendly BMI and Basal Metabolic Rate calculator that saves calculation data for logged-in users and gives an overview to the administrator.
- BMI / IMC Calculator – A simple calculator to show users their Body Mass Index
- Calotor Calorie Counter – Lets visitors figure out their basal metabolic rate, by entering their age, sex and weight.
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Drug Interaction Data Plugin
(Drug Interaction Data WordPress Plugin)
Drug Interaction Data can be used to display drug information, including what the drug is used for and what other medications the drug is known to interact with.
(Drug Interaction Data – WordPress Plugin – Data Results)
Drug information can be displayed as a widget or inside your posts and pages. The plugin loads the drug and pharmaceutical data from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
For more details, go here}:
PubMed Posts
(PubMed Posts Plugin For WordPress)
PubMed Posts adds a dashboard widget that lets you crate posts from PubMed articles, and a search feature that finds posts with specific data. A basic content editor is also included with the plugin.
PubMed comprises more than 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
For more details, go here}:
MJM Clinic
(MJM Clinic)
This plugin can be used for medical and health care related websites. It lets you add service pages with booking forms, locations, provide related health conditions, assign case studies, link indication tags to services and conditions, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Treato
(Treato Plugin For WordPress)
Treato WordPress plugin lets you add a sidebar widget that allows your site visitors to search drugs and read what patients are saying about different drugs.
Treato gathers and analyzes patient experiences written in related forums and blog posts, then aggregates the posts to generate useful insights about users’ medications, diseases and symptoms. Users can access valuable insight about the side effects of 26,500+ medications, drug comparisons across 14,700+ medical conditions, which drugs people feel are working, and more, from over 2.2 billion collected posts.
For more details, go here}:
HealthTap Concierge
(HealthTap Plugin)
HealthTap Concierge allows visitors to consult with real doctors, clinical psychologists, etc. via text chat or HD video from any mobile device, computer, or smartwatch.
With HealthTap Concierge installed on your website or blog, your site visitors can type in a health question and based upon their location and type of question, they will receive a list of doctors in their geographic area who specialize in that particular topic. They can then choose a doctor, connect in real time using video or text chat, or send the doctor a question.
For more details, go here}:
Trend MD
(Trend MD Plugin)
The TrendMD plugin will add the TrendMD recommendations widget to your WP website. The TrendMD recommendations widget is used by scholarly publishers to increase their readership and revenue by allowing people to discover, cite or read interesting scholarly content from your journals or websites through personalized recommendations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Nutrition Facts
(WP Nutrition Facts Plugin For WordPress)
WP Nutrition Facts is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add a nutrition facts table into your pages and posts, allowing your visitors to learn about the nutrient content of food in a standardized format and make better food choices.
(WP Nutrition Facts Plugin For WordPress – Nutritional Facts Label Creation)
This plugin uses the Canadian Food Inspection (CFIA) nutrition labeling regulations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Ultimate Recipe
(WP Ultimate Recipe)
If you run a health-related business that provides dietary or healthy eating recommendations, a great source of engaging content to your site is to publish healthy recipes.
Plugins like WP Ultimate Recipe let you add healthy and delicious recipes on your site.
Other recipe plugins for WordPress include:
- Recipe Card – Create and publish beautiful recipes with nutrition facts that site visitors can print, save and review.
- EasyRecipe – Lets you easily add recipes to your site with features like cut and paste, plain text recipe auto conversion, Google Recipe View formatting, live custom formatting, automatic ratings and conversion from other recipe plugins.
- ZipList Recipes – Easily format recipe text and add images. The plugin also provides a number of additional features, including Google Recipe View formatting and SEO.
- And many more.
For more details, go here}:
Awesome Fitness Testimonials
(Awesome Fitness Testimonials – WordPress Plugin)
Awesome Fitness Testimonials lets you display fitness and wellness testimonials, case studies and reviews on your health & fitness sites.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images by Everkinetic
(Exercise Images)
This plugin lets you add exercise drawings to your site.
(Exercise Images by Everkinetic – Catalog)
For more details, go here}:
In part 3, we will look at health and medical themes.
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This is the end of section 2.
Click here to view Part Three:
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com