In Part One of this article on ways to improve your health-related business web presence, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Challenges Professional Health Providers Face Online
- Opportunities For Health And Medical Services Practitioners
- Your Website Pages
- Improving Your Content
In Parts 2 and 3, we explore more ways to grow your medical or health business online.
Topics covered in this (and the next section) include:
- Improving Traffic Using WordPress
- Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins And Themes
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
Note: WordPress health and medical plugins are described in this section. Themes for medical businesses are listed in Part 3.
Tips For Medical Services Professionals – Improving SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins
Web traffic is vital to your online business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimize Your Site For Search Engines Using WordPress
There are lots of ways WordPress can help to improve SEO:
- URLs – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want search engines to index your articles for.
- Categories – Add search engine-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – Create the description for your posts that will show in search results.
- Images – title images used in your content with keywords for improved search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for better page indexing
- Post Notification – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your site.
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are many plugins for WordPress that improve your website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your site.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your health or medical-related site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing features. Here are a few fantastic plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin lets you set up and run your own social networking community on your website.
- bbPress – This free WordPress plugin can be used to set up a community forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter allows you to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress dashboard.
- Disqus – This plugin lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Social Media Feather – Use this WordPress plugin to add social sharing features to your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Tools
In this section we will show you how to improve your sales and generate new leads and enquiries.
Provide An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a list of subscribers. Adding newsletters] provides many benefits and advantages including:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Keeps readers updated
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special services or products to a select audience
- Increases user interaction
- Provides additional ways for readers to share your content
A proven way to entice visitors to subscribe is to provide high value information and give users a free gift in exchange for their details. This can be an exclusive report, tips for improving health, fitness and well-being, access to health calculators, free trials, membership access to courses, podcasts, etc.
Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for prospective customers to get in touch. A contact form also lets readers send feedback, contact specific departments, ask for quotes, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Gives you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Different forms can be added to any page or post
- Looks professional
- Convenient for visitors
A popular contact form plugin is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
Contact Form 7 allows you to add and manage multiple contact forms on your pages and posts, customize the forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Something else to consider if you are setting up a website for a medical practice is to segment your contact form so users can choose which practitioner they want to contact. This will make sure that visitors get their comment to the correct department.
Maps
A map helps your visitors and customers find you.
A map is a great tool for several reasons:
- Maps increase local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Display location of events
(Adding 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
WordPress Plugins That Can Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your site that will immediately add a range of practical tools for your site visitors. Here are some of these:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar Plugin For WordPress)
This free bookings reservations plugin allows you to add appointment bookings to your site. It has an intuitive interface. It is highly suitable for a wide range medical, health, fitness and sports-related uses, such as medical practices, specialists, chiropractors, booking patient appointments, etc.
(Booking Calendar WordPress Plugin – Overview)
This bookings plugin works out of the box. Website visitors can check the availability of services you offer and book appointments online quickly and easily. Site administrators and visitors receive notifications. Booking Calendar also lets you add a calendar or booking form to your site’s sidebar, and offers multi-language support. A premium version of this plugin is also available with a ton of additional features and functionalities.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso – Event Manager & Ticketing Registration System For WordPress
(Manage Event Bookings Online Using Event Espresso For WordPress)
If your business involves running health or medical seminars, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin allows you to easily set up multiple events and start receiving bookings in just minutes
(Event Espresso – WordPress Event Registration And Ticket Manager Software)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-rich plugin that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
We have written a comprehensive article about the benefits and features of using Event Espresso. To learn more, go here:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. It also supports internationalization
Most of them aren’t designed for health-related applications, but there are quite a few you can include in your site, including:
- Body Statistics – e.g. BMR Calculator, Frame Size Calculator, Lean Body Mass Calculator, Ponderal Index Calculator, Stride Length Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Alcohol Calorie Calculator, kJ to Calorie Calculator, Calories Burned Swimming Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Push-Up Test Calculator, Rockport Walk Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Beats and Breaths Calculator, Blood Sugar Converter Calculator, Ovulation Calculator, Running Pace Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. Carbohydrate Calculator, Protein Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. BMI Calculator, Weight Loss Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form Plugin For WordPress)
Calculated Fields Form is great for creating forms that perform single and complex calculations, including:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculators
- And lots more
A premium version of this plugin is also available with extra features and functionalities.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker – WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin lets logged-in users record their weight periodically. The results are then shown in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker Plugin For WordPress – User 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 BMI Calculator – WordPress Plugin)
Simple Body Mass Index Calculator is a simple WordPress plugin that installs a widget on your sidebar that can be configured and customized to match your theme.
In addition to Simple Body Mass Index Calculator, there are a number of other WordPress plugins you can check out that 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 trainer (site administrator).
- BMI / IMC Calculator – A simple calculator to show users their Body Mass Index
- 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)
Drug Interaction Data Plugin will retrieve and display information about drugs, 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)
Information about drugs can be displayed inside your pages and posts, or as a widget on your sidebar. The plugin loads the drug and pharmaceutical data from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the U.S. National Institutes of Health and converts common names of drugs to their standardized RxNorm name.
For more details, go here}:
PubMed Posts
(PubMed Posts Plugin)
PubMed Posts adds a dashboard widget that lets you publish content to your site from PubMed articles, and a search function that finds posts with specific data. The plugin also includes an editor that changes the layout of your post content.
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)
MJM Clinic can be used to add functionality to medical and health care related websites that provide information on health conditions and symptoms.
For more details, go here}:
Treato
(Treato WordPress Plugin)
Treato 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 gathers and analyzes experiences sourced directly from patients from online forums and blog posts, then aggregates the content to generate useful insights about users’ medications, diseases and symptoms. Users gain insight about the side effects of 26,600+ medications, drug comparisons across over 14,700 medical conditions, which drugs people feel work, and more, from over 2.2 billion collected posts.
For more details, go here}:
HealthTap
(HealthTap – WordPress Plugin)
HealthTap Concierge allows consumers to 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 particular topic. They can then choose a doctor, chat over text or video, or send the doctor their question and get answers via the HealthTap service.
For more details, go here}:
Trend MD
(TrendMD Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin adds 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, 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 Plugin)
This simple plugin for WordPress 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.
(WP Nutrition Facts – Custom Post Type Label Creation)
This plugin uses the Canadian Food Inspection (CFIA) nutrition labeling regulations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Ultimate Recipe
(WP Ultimate Recipe Plugin)
If you own a health-related website that provides nutritional or healthy eating information, a great source of content that will engage your readers is to add great recipes.
A plugin like WP Ultimate Recipe lets you easily add delicious and healthy on your site.
Other WordPress recipe plugins include:
- Recipe Card – Publish beautiful recipes with nutrition facts that your site users can print, save and review.
- EasyRecipe – Makes entering recipes on your site easy with features like cut & paste, auto conversion of your plain text recipe posts, 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 Plugin)
This plugin lets you showcase fitness and wellness testimonials, reviews and case studies, before and after photos, etc. on your fitness-related websites.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images by Everkinetic
(Exercise Images by Everkinetic – WordPress Plugin)
The Exercise Images plugin lets you add exercise illustrations to your site.
(Exercise Images by Everkinetic Plugin For WordPress – Image Database)
For more details, go here}:
In part 3 of this guide, we will look at medical themes for WordPress.
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This is the end of part 2.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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