In Part One of this guide on ways to improve your health or medical business online, we provided in-depth information on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For Health Services Professionals
- Opportunities For Health Providers
- Your Website Pages
- How To Improve The Content On Your Website
In this section, we continue looking at more ways to grow your medical or health business online.
Topics covered include:
- Improving Traffic Using WordPress
- Generating New Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Applications
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic With WordPress Plugins
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
Note: Medical and health plugins are covered in this section. Health and medical themes are listed in Part 3.
Your Medical Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation
Web traffic is vital to your online business growth. This section will help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines (SEO)
There are loads of ways that WordPress helps improve your website’s SEO:
- URLs – configure the permalinks to create search engine-optimized web addresses for your content posts.
- Post Tags – Specify the keywords that you want search engines to index your articles for.
- Post Categories – Create SEO-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – Create an excerpt that will show to search engine users.
- Images – title images used in your content with keywords for improved search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily link internal content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify (ping) other search directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your site.
WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Increasing User Engagement And Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress community makes available a number of plugins that improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your site’s search engine optimization:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are some more plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – Set up an online social networking community on your site, with member profiles, user groups, messaging, activity streams, and more.
- bbPress – Set up a community forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter lets you send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – use this plugin to power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – Add powerful social sharing features and buttons on your site.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your website using WordPress plugins)
Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
Let’s discuss now ways to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries.
Add An Email Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. It] provides several benefits, like:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides practical tips and advice
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Increases user interaction
- Provides additional ways for your content to be shared around with others
One of the things you can do to get visitors to become subscribers is to provide high value content and give users something for free in exchange for their details. This can be a time-saving guide, tips for improving health, fitness and nutrition, access to medical calculators, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, podcasts, etc.
Provide Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for readers to get in touch. Contact forms also let users report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits and advantages including:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Different forms can be added to any page or post
- Looks professional
- Convenience for visitors
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
Contact Form 7 allows you to create multiple contact forms, customize the form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is supported.
Something else to consider if you are setting up a website for a clinic or medical center is to add sections to your contact form so prospects can select which section of the center they are contacting your business about. This will help get their comment to the correct department.
Provide Maps
Adding a map helps your visitors and customers find you.
A map is a great tool for several reasons:
- A map increases local SEO
- Helps visitors find your office easily
- Show location of events
(A map helps your visitors and clients find you)
Popular Google Maps plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic With Plugins & Themes
WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your website to immediately add a range of practical tools for visitors. Here are some of the plugins you can choose from:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar – WordPress Plugin)
This free bookings reservations plugin lets you add online bookings to your site. This plugin has an intuitive interface with flexible functionality. It is highly suitable for a range medical and health consulting businesses, such as medical practices, surgeons, chiropractors, booking sessions with personal trainers, etc.
(Booking Calendar – WordPress Plugin – Overview)
This booking reservations plugin works right out of the box. Website visitors can check the availability of services and make online bookings easily. Administrators and visitors receive booking confirmations. Booking Calendar also lets you add a calendar or booking form to your website’s sidebar, and offers multi-language support. A premium plugin version is also available and includes a ton of extra features.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration & Ticket Management System
(Manage Event Bookings Via The Web Using Event Espresso WordPress Plugin)
If you run medical or health events like seminars or workshops, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily schedule your event and start processing online bookings in minutes
(Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticketing Manager Plugin)
Event Espresso is a feature-rich software that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
We have written a detailed article on the benefits and features of using Event Espresso. Go here to learn more:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin)
Calculator Pro Calculators provides a free collection of over 400 calculators. You can embed these into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Most of them aren’t designed for medical or health-related uses, but there are many you can use, including the following:
- Body Statistics – e.g. Body Surface Area Calculator, Fat Calculator, Goal Weight Calculator, Max Heart Rate Calculator, WHtR Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Daily Calorie Calculator, kJ to Calorie Calculator, Calories Burned By Heart Rate Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Coopers 12 Minute Run Test Calculator, Balke Treadmill Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Advanced One Rep Max Weight Lifting Calculator, Cigarette Savings Calculator, Ovulation Calculator, Smoking Cost Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. Calcium Calculator, Water Intake Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. BMI Calculator, Weight Loss Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form Plugin)
The Calculated Fields Form plugin is useful for creating dynamically calculated field forms, including:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculator
- And more
The developers of this plugin also provide a premium version with many more features and functionalities.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker WP Plugin)
Weight Loss Tracker is a simple WordPress plugin that lets logged-in users record their weight periodically. The results are then displayed in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker – Graph)
The plugin allows users to enter target weights and supports the following weight formats: Metric (Kg), Imperial – Stones & Pounds, Imperial – Pounds only.
For more details, go here}:
Simple BMI Calculator
(Simple Body Mass Index Calculator Plugin)
Simple BMI Calculator is a simple plugin for WordPress that lets you add a widget to your website that can be configured and customized to match your theme.
As well as Simple BMI Calculator, there are additional WordPress plugins you can use to perform similar functions:
- BMI BMR Calculator – A responsive Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate calculator that saves calculation data for logged-in users and gives an overview to the trainer.
- BMI / IMC Calculator – A simple calculator to show users their BMI
- Calotor Calorie Counter – Lets visitors calculate 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 Plugin)
Drug Interaction Data retrieves and displays information about drugs, including what the drug is used to treat and what other medications the drug is known to interact with.
(Drug Interaction Data – WordPress Plugin – Data Results)
Drug information can be displayed on your site. The data is provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
For more details, go here}:
PubMed Posts
(PubMed Posts)
PubMed Posts adds a dashboard widget that lets you add content from PubMed articles, as well as a search function that lets users search posts with specific data. It also includes a basic editor that changes the layout of your post content.
PubMed includes over 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
For more details, go here}:
MJM Clinic
(MJM Clinic Plugin)
This plugin was designed for clinic and health care related websites. You can add service pages with booking forms, provide related health conditions, create case studies, link indication tags to services and conditions, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Treato WordPress Plugin
(Treato Plugin)
Treato WordPress plugin lets you display information about drugs on your site and see what see what patients are saying about different drugs.
Treato collects and analyzes experiences sourced directly from patients from medical forums and blog posts, then aggregates the content to generate useful insights about users’ medications, diseases and symptoms. Users can access insight about side effects, drug comparisons, which drugs people feel are working, and more from over 2.2 billion collected posts.
For more details, go here}:
HealthTap Concierge
(HealthTap Concierge Plugin For WordPress)
HealthTap Concierge allows visitors to locate and book a virtual consult with real doctors, clinical psychologists, etc. who specialize in a given health topic via HD video or text chat from any mobile device, computer, or smartwatch.
With the plugin installed, users can type in a health question and receive a list of doctors in their geographic area who specialize in that health topic. They can then choose a doctor, connect in real time over video or text chat, or send the doctor their question.
For more details, go here}:
Trend MD
(Trend MD WP Plugin)
The TrendMD plugin will add the TrendMD recommendations widget to your WordPress website. The TrendMD recommendations widget is used by scholarly publishers to increase their readership and revenue by allowing people to discover, read or cite interesting scholarly content from your journals or websites through personalized recommendations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Nutrition Facts
(WP Nutrition Facts – WordPress Plugin)
WP Nutrition Facts lets you add a nutrition facts table into your posts, pages and custom post types, allowing your visitors to learn about the nutrient content of food.
(WP Nutrition Facts – WordPress Plugin – Label Creation)
This plugin uses the Canadian Food Inspection (CFIA) nutrition labelling regulations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Ultimate Recipe
(WP Ultimate Recipe Plugin For WordPress)
If you own a health or fitness website that provides nutrition or healthy eating information, a great way to add content that will engage your readers is to publish healthy recipes.
Plugins like WP Ultimate Recipe let you add delicious and healthy on your site.
Other WordPress recipe plugins include:
- Recipe Card – Create and publish beautiful recipes that site users can print, save and review.
- EasyRecipe – EasyRecipe lets you easily add recipes to your site with features like cut and paste, plain text recipe auto conversion, live custom formatting, Google Recipe View 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 showcase fitness & wellness testimonials, reviews and case studies, before and after photos, etc. on your fitness website.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images
(Exercise Images – WordPress Plugin)
Exercise Images by Everkinetic lets you display a database of exercise drawings on your site.
(Exercise Images Plugin For WordPress – Image Database)
For more details, go here}:
In the next section, we will look at medical themes.
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This is the end of section two of this guide on ways to build your medical or health web presence.
To keep reading, click this link:
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