In Part 1 of this guide on ways to grow your health business web presence, we covered the following areas:
- Challenges Medical Services Providers Face Online
- Online Opportunities For Medical Services Practitioners
- Ways To Improve Your Website Pages
- Improve The Content On Your Website
In Parts Two & Three, we discuss more ways to grow your health-related business online.
Areas covered in this (and the following section) include:
- Improving Traffic Using WordPress
- Tips For Generating More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- How To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
- WP Plugins – Improving Your Website’s Functionality
- WP For Beginners – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Note: Health and medical plugins are listed in this section. Medical and health-related themes are listed in Part Three.
Your Health Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes That Can Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic
Your web traffic is a vital part of your online business growth. This section discusses ways of improving your website using WordPress.
Optimizing Your Website For SEO With WordPress
There are many ways WordPress can help to optimize your website for search engines:
- URLs – Set the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Tags – WordPress lets you choose the keywords that you want your articles to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Add search engine-friendly categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that will show to search engine users.
- Images – title images with keywords for improved search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily create internal links for better indexing of your content
- Post Notification – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories as soon as a new post is published on your website.
How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic With WordPress Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are a number of plugins that will improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- Yoast 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 (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your website’s search engine optimization)
Other WordPress plugins you can add to improve your website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are some more plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin allows you to run your own social community on your website.
- bbPress – bbPress helps you set up and manage your own community forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter lets you send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without third-party subscriptions.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your website or blog.
- Social Media Feather – Easily add social sharing features and buttons to your website.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
Tips For Generating Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Applications
Let’s take a look now at ways to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Adding An Email Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is a great way to build a subscriber list. It] provides several benefits including:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful information and advice
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for increasing user engagement
- Provides other ways for your content to be shared online with others
One of the things you can do to get visitors to subscribe is to provide high value content and offer users a free gift in exchange for their personal details. This can be a special report, checklists for improving diet and well-being, access to fitness apps, discount vouchers, access to videos, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for prospective clients to get in touch with you. Contact forms also let readers provide feedback, contact specific departments, request quotes, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits, like:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what gets sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your website
- Convenient for visitors
One of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Something else to consider if you want to set up a website for a medical center is to segment your contact form so visitors can choose the practitioner they want to contact. This ensures that contact form enquiries reach the right destination.
Add A Map
Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you.
Integrating maps (e.g. Google Maps), with your WordPress site also provides many benefits, such as:
- A map increases local SEO
- Visitors can find your office more easily
- Show location of events
(Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and customers find you)
Here are just some plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your site:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Visitors To Your Site
WordPress Plugins - Medical And Health Services
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your website that will immediately make available a range of practical tools for users. Here are some of the plugins you can choose from:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar Plugin For WordPress)
The Booking Calendar plugin allows you to add appointment bookings to your site. It provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface and flexible functionality. It is suitable for a range health and medical consulting uses, e.g. dental practitioners, physicians, chiropractors, booking patient appointments, etc.
(Booking Calendar Plugin – Overview)
The plugin works right out of the box. Your website visitors can check the availability of services you offer and book appointments online easily. Site administrators and visitors receive email notifications. Booking Calendar also lets you add a calendar or booking form to your website’s sidebar, and offers multi-language support. A premium version of this plugin is also available and includes many more features.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso – Event Registration & Ticket Manager
(Manage Event Registrations Online With Event Espresso For WordPress)
If you plan to run medical events like seminars or workshops, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration WP plugin allows you to easily schedule an event and start receiving registrations in just minutes
(Event Espresso – WordPress Event Management & Ticket Registration Software)
Event Espresso is a flexible and feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of your event registration management process.
We have written a comprehensive article about Event Espresso here:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators)
Calculator Pro is a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. The plugin supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t specifically designed for medical-related usage, but there are a few you can add to your site, including the following:
- Body Statistics – e.g. BAI (Body Adiposity Index) Calculator, Frame Size Calculator, GFR (Glomerular Filtration Rate) Calculator, Max Heart Rate Calculator, WHtR Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Daily Calorie Calculator, RMR Calculator, Calories Burned Swimming Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Coopers 12 Minute Run Test Calculator, Bruce Treadmill Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Bike Size Calculator, Blood Donation Calculator, Due Date Calculator, Running Pace Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. BMR Calorie Calculator, Protein Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. Ideal Weight Calculator (kg), Weight Loss Percentage Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form Plugin)
This free plugin is useful for creating forms that perform single and complex calculations, including:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculator
- And lots more
A premium version is also available with extra features.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker Plugin For WordPress)
Weight Loss Tracker lets users record their weight on given dates. The results are then displayed in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker Plugin – User Graph)
The plugin allows users to insert 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 WP Plugin)
This simple plugin for WordPress 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 other plugins you can look at to perform similar functions:
- BMI BMR Calculator – A responsive BMI and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator that saves calculation data for logged-in users and gives an overview to the trainer (admin).
- BMI / IMC Calculator – A simple calculator that displays BMI
- Calotor Calorie Counter – Lets visitors figure out their basal metabolic rate, by inputting their age, sex and weight.
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Drug Interaction Data Plugin
(Drug Interaction Data WordPress Plugin)
Drug Interaction Data Plugin retrieves and displays information about drugs, including what the drugs are used for and what other medications the drugs are known to interact with.
(Drug Interaction Data Plugin For WordPress – Database Results)
Information about drugs can be displayed on your site. 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)
This plugin adds a dashboard widget that lets you add posts from PubMed articles, as well as a search feature that helps visitors find posts with specific data. It also includes a basic editor that lets you change the layout of your post content data.
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 versatile plugin can be used for clinic and health care related websites. It lets you add service pages with booking forms, provide information about symptoms and health conditions, create case studies, link indication tags to services, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Treato
(Treato)
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 from medical forums and blog posts, then aggregates the posts to generate useful insights about users’ medications, diseases and symptoms. Users can access insight about side effects, drug comparisons, which drugs people feel work, and more from over 2.2 billion collected posts.
For more details, go here}:
HealthTap Concierge
(HealthTap Plugin For WordPress)
HealthTap Concierge allows consumers to consult with doctors via text chat or HD video from any mobile device, personal computer, or smartwatch.
With With the HealthTap Concierge plugin installed, your visitors 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 select a doctor, connect in real time over video or text chat, or send the doctor their question and get answers with the HealthTap service.
For more details, go here}:
TrendMD
(TrendMD Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin adds the TrendMD recommendations widget to your website. The TrendMD recommendations widget is used by scholarly publishers to increase their readership and revenue by allowing people to discover, cite or read scholarly content from your journals or websites through personalized recommendations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Nutrition Facts
(WP Nutrition Facts)
WP Nutrition Facts lets you insert a nutrition facts table into your posts and pages, allowing your site visitors to learn about the nutrient content of food in a standardized format and make informed food choices.
(WP Nutrition Facts – Custom Post Type Label Creation)
This plugin uses the Canadian Food Inspection (CFIA) nutrition labelling regulations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Ultimate Recipe
(WP Ultimate Recipe – WordPress Plugin)
If you run a health-related business that provides diet or healthy eating advice, a great way to add engaging content to your site is to add recipes.
Plugins like WP Ultimate Recipe let you add delicious and healthy on your site.
Other recipe plugins for WordPress include:
- Recipe Card – Create beautiful recipes with nutrition facts that your 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, automatic ratings and conversion from other recipe plugins.
- ZipList Recipes – Easily format recipe text and add images. Additional features like Google Recipe View formatting and SEO are included.
- And many more.
For more details, go here}:
Awesome Fitness Testimonials
(Awesome Fitness Testimonials WP Plugin)
This plugin allows you to display fitness and wellness testimonials, reviews and case studies, before and after photos, etc. on your website.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images by Everkinetic
(Exercise Images WP Plugin)
Exercise Images by Everkinetic lets you display a database of exercise images on your website.
(Exercise Images Plugin For WordPress – Image Catalog)
For more details, go here}:
In part 3 of this guide, we take a look at WordPress themes for medical and health businesses.
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This is the end of part 2.
Click on this link to access Part 3:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)