In Part One of this guide on ways to grow your health web presence, we provided in-depth information on the following topics:
- Challenges Medical Businesses Face Online
- Opportunities For Health & Medical Businesses In The Digital Economy
- Essential Website Pages
- How To Improve The Content On Your Site
In Parts 2 and 3, we will continue looking at more ways to grow your medical-related services online.
Areas covered include:
- How To Improve Traffic
- Generate Leads & Enquiries
- Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic With Plugins & Themes
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
Note: Plugins are described in this section. Medical and health-related themes are listed in Part Three.
Grow Your Medical Services And Health-Related Website – Improve Your Business Online With WordPress Plugins and Themes
Your web traffic is an important part of your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines With WordPress
There are lots of ways WordPress can help to improve your website’s SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – configure the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Tags – WordPress lets you specify the keywords that you want search engines to index your posts for.
- Categories – Create categories for your posts and products.
- Excerpts – Create descriptions for your posts that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – title your images with keywords for better search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily link internal content
- Pinging – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify other search directories whenever a new post is published on your website.
WordPress Plugins That Can Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are quite a number of plugins that will improve your website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your medical-related site’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social features. Here are a few plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below are also free):
- BuddyPress – Run your own social community on WordPress.
- bbPress – Set up your own online discussion forum on your WordPress website.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter allows you to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress dashboard, without requiring 3rd-party subscriptions.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Social Media Feather – This WordPress plugin lets you add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your website.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site using WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your sales and generate more leads and enquiries for your medical-related business.
Add An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. Adding newsletters] provides many benefits including:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful updates
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for improving user engagement
- Provides an additional way for your content to be shared around with others
A proven way to attract subscribers is to provide users with information of high value and offer them additional items of value for free in exchange for their details. This can be a guide, tips for improving diet and well-being, access to fitness apps, free trials, membership access to courses, podcasts, etc.
Provide A Contact Form
Contact forms make it easy and simple for readers to get in touch. Contact forms also allow users to report issues, ask questions to specific departments, ask for quotes, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits including:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Different forms can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Is convenient for users
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7)
Contact form 7 is a free plugin that allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms into any page or post, customize the form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin also supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Something to consider if you are setting up a website for a medical practice is to segment your contact form so users can choose the practitioner they want to contact. This ensures that visitors’ enquiries reach the right department.
Add Maps
Adding a map helps your visitors and clients find you.
Inserting maps, such as Google Maps, into your website also provides users with a number of benefits, such as:
- A map increases local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Show location of events
(Adding maps helps your visitors and customers find you)
Below are some of the more popular plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your WordPress site:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improving SEO, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors With Plugins & Themes
Health Plugins For WordPress
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your website that will immediately make available a range of practical tools for your site visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar Plugin)
This free bookings reservations plugin allows you to add appointment booking services to your site. It provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface and flexible functionality. It is suitable for a range of medical, health and beauty-related uses, such as medical practices, surgical centers, massage therapists, booking yoga classes, etc.
(Booking Calendar Plugin – Overview)
The plugin works right out of the box. Your website visitors can check availability of services you offer and book appointments online quickly and easily. Administrators and visitors receive booking confirmations. The plugin is also widget-ready, and supports multiple languages. A premium plugin version with many more features and functionalities is also available.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso – Event Registration And Ticket Management
(Manage Your Events Automatically Using Event Espresso For WordPress)
If you plan to run health seminars, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration software lets you easily schedule multiple events and begin processing online bookings in a few minutes
(Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration System For WordPress)
Event Espresso is a versatile and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control over the event registration management process.
Go here for an in-depth article about Event Espresso:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators – WordPress Plugin)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website. Internationalization is supported.
Most of them aren’t specifically designed for health or medical-related applications, but there are many you can use, including:
- Body Statistics – e.g. Body Composition Calculator, Frame Size Calculator, Goal Weight Calculator, Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) GFR Calculator, Protein Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Daily Calorie Calculator, kJ to Calorie Calculator, Calories Burned Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Push-Up Test Calculator, Rockport Walk Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Advanced One Rep Max Weight Lifting Calculator, Cigarette Savings Calculator, Due Date Calculator, Running Pace Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. Alcohol Calorie Calculator, Macronutrient Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. Ideal Weight Calculator, Weight Loss Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form – WordPress Plugin)
The Calculated Fields Form plugin is great for creating forms that perform single and complex calculations, such as:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculator
- And lots more
A premium plugin version with extra features and functionalities is also available.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker – WordPress Plugin)
Weight Loss Tracker lets users record their weight on given dates. The results are then shown in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker WordPress 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 BMI Calculator Widget
(Simple BMI Calculator Plugin)
This plugin lets you add a widget to your sidebar that can be configured and customized to match your theme.
As well as Simple Body Mass Index Calculator, there are a number of other plugins you can use to perform similar functions:
- BMI BMR Calculator – A BMI 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 inputting their age, sex and weight.
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Drug Interaction Data Plugin
(Drug Interaction Data Plugin)
This plugin 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 WP Plugin – Database 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 and drug names are converted to the standardized RxNorm name as defined by the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
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 function that locates posts with specific article data. A basic content editor is also included.
PubMed contains over 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
For more details, go here}:
MJM Clinic
(MJM Clinic – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin can be used to add functionality to clinic and health care related websites that provide information on symptoms and health conditions.
For more details, go here}:
Treato WordPress Plugin
(Treato WP Plugin)
This plugin lets you embed the Treato healthcare search engine into your WordPress sidebar so your site visitors can search a vast drug database and see what patients are saying about different drugs.
Treato collects and analyzes experiences sourced directly from patients written in forums and blog posts, then aggregates the content to generate useful insights about users’ medications, diseases and symptoms. Users gain valuable insight about side effects, drug comparisons, which drugs people feel work, and more from over 2 billion collected posts.
For more details, go here}:
HealthTap
(HealthTap WP Plugin)
HealthTap Concierge allows users to locate and book a virtual consult with doctors, clinical psychologists, etc. via text chat or HD video from any mobile device, personal computer, or smartwatch.
With HealthTap Concierge installed on your WordPress site, 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 select a doctor, connect in real time using video or text chat, or send the doctor their question and get answers using the HealthTap service.
For more details, go here}:
TrendMD
(TrendMD Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin lets you add the TrendMD recommendations widget to your website. The TrendMD recommendations widget is used by scholarly publishers to grow 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)
This simple plugin lets you insert a nutrition facts table into your posts, pages and custom post types, allowing your visitors to learn about the nutrient content of food in a standardized format.
(WP Nutrition Facts – WordPress Plugin – Creating Labels)
WP Nutrition Facts uses the Canadian Food Inspection (CFIA) nutrition labeling regulations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Ultimate Recipe
(WP Ultimate Recipe Plugin)
If you run a health or fitness website that provides nutrition or healthy eating advice, a great way to add engaging content to your site is to publish healthy recipes.
A plugin like WP Ultimate Recipe lets you publish delicious and healthy on your site.
Other recipe plugins for WordPress include:
- Recipe Card – Create 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 & paste, plain text recipe auto conversion, live custom formatting, Google Recipe View formatting and preview button, automatic ratings and conversion from other recipe plugins.
- ZipList Recipes – You can easily format recipe text and add images. Additional features like SEO and Google Recipe View formatting are included.
- And many more.
For more details, go here}:
Awesome Fitness Testimonials
(Awesome Fitness Testimonials)
Awesome Fitness Testimonials allows you to display fitness & wellness testimonials, case studies and reviews on your website.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images
(Exercise Images by Everkinetic WordPress Plugin)
Exercise Images by Everkinetic lets you display a database of exercise images inside your content.
(Exercise Images by Everkinetic – Database)
For more details, go here}:
In the next section, we discuss health and medical themes.
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This is the end of part 2 of this article on ways to improve your health-related business presence online.
Click here to continue reading:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum