In Part One of this guide on ways to improve your health-related web presence, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Challenges Medical Professionals Face Online
- Opportunities For The Medical & Health Profession In The Digital Economy
- Your Web Pages
- Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site
In Parts Two & Three, we explore more ways to grow your health or medical-related services online.
Topics covered in this (and the following section) include:
- Ways Of Improving Traffic With WordPress
- Generate Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
Note: WordPress medical and health plugins are covered in this section. Health and medical themes are covered in Part 3.
Grow Your Medical Services & Health Clinic Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Traffic To Your Site Generation With WordPress Plugins & Themes
Web traffic is an integral part of your online business growth. This section discusses how to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and increase web traffic generation using WordPress plugins and themes.
Optimize Your Site For SEO
There are lots of ways that WordPress helps optimize your website for search engines:
- SEO-Friendly – configure the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Post Tags – Choose the keywords that you want your article pages to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Create search engine-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Excerpts – Create the description for your posts that search engines will show in their search results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for improved search engine results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that lets you easily link your content to other posts on your site
- Pinging – WordPress can be configured to automatically notify other search directories as soon as a new post is published on your website.
Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, the WP community makes available various plugins that improve your health-related website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your site.
For example, you can install the plugins below 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
(A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are some fantastic plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – BuddyPress lets you set up your own social networking community on your website, with member profiles, user groups, activity streams, messaging, and more.
- bbPress – Use this free plugin to run an online discussion forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without a third party subscription.
- Disqus – use this plugin to power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website.
- Social Media Feather – This WordPress plugin lets you add social sharing features and buttons to your pages and posts.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
In this section we will discuss how to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries online.
Add An Email Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is an excellent way to retain and grow your readership. It] provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful updates
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Increases user engagement
- Provides you with another way for your content to be shared online with other prospective clients
An effective strategy for attracting new subscribers to your email newsletter is to provide users with information of high value and offer them free gifts in exchange for their personal details. This could be an exclusive guide, tips for improving health, fitness and well-being, access to medical tools, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, podcasts, etc.
Add A Contact Form
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for prospective clients to get in touch. Contact forms also let users provide feedback, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits including:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your website
- Convenience for users
One of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
Contact Form 7 is easy to install and configure and allows you to create and manage multiple contact forms to your website, customize your form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Another feature to consider if you plan to set up a website for a medical practice is to segment your contact form so prospective clients can choose the section of the center they are contacting your business about. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right recipient.
Adding A Map
Maps help your visitors and customers find you.
Integrating maps, such as Google Maps, with your WordPress site also provides many benefits, such as:
- Maps improve local SEO
- Helps visitors find your office easily
- Show location of events
(Maps help your visitors and clients find you)
Some of the more popular Google Maps plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic With Plugins
Plugins For WordPress
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your medical or health site that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar – WordPress Plugin)
Booking Calendar lets you add online booking services to your site. This plugin is well supported, provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface with flexible functionality. It is suitable for a wide range medical and health consulting businesses, such as medical practitioners, specialists, massage therapists, booking patient appointments, etc.
(Booking Calendar – WordPress Plugin – Overview)
The plugin works out of the box. Website visitors can check the availability of services you offer and make an online booking quickly and easily. Site administrators and visitors receive notifications. The plugin is also widget-ready, and supports multiple languages. A premium plugin version is also available and includes many more features.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso
(Manage Event Registrations Via The Web Using Event Espresso WP Plugin)
If you plan to run medical seminars, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WordPress lets you easily schedule multiple events and begin receiving online registrations in minutes
(Event Espresso – Event Management & Ticket Registration Plugin For WordPress)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed plugin that gives you complete control of the event registration management process.
We have written a detailed article on Event Espresso. Go here to learn more:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators)
Calculator Pro provides 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 specifically designed for health or medical applications, but there are several you can include in your site, including the following:
- Body Statistics – e.g. Body Surface Area Calculator, Durnin/Womersley Skinfold Body Fat Calculator, GFR (Glomerular Filtration Rate) Calculator, Max Heart Rate Calculator, Waist to Hip Ratio Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Daily Calorie Calculator, RMR Calculator, Calories Burned Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Astrand Test Calculator, Rockport Walk Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Advanced One Rep Max Weight Lifting Calculator, Cigarette Savings Calculator, Due Date Calculator, Sobriety Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. BMR Calorie Calculator, Protein Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. Ideal Weight Calculator, Weight Loss Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form Plugin)
The Calculated Fields Form plugin lets you create forms that perform single and complex calculations, such as:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculators
- And more
A premium plugin version with additional features and functionalities is also available.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker WP Plugin)
Weight Loss Tracker is a simple plugin for WordPress that lets logged-in users record their weight on given dates. The data is then displayed in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker Plugin For WordPress – User Graph)
The plugin allows users to insert target weights and supports the following weight formats: Metric (Kg), Imperial – Stones & Pounds, Imperial – Pounds only.
For more details, go here}:
Simple Body Mass Index Calculator
(Simple Body Mass Index Calculator Widget – WordPress Plugin)
Simple BMI Calculator 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 WordPress plugins you can check out to perform similar functions:
- BMI BMR Calculator – A Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate calculator that saves calculation data for logged-in users and gives an overview to the trainer (administrator).
- BMI / IMC Calculator – A simple calculator that displays your site visitor’s BMI
- Calotor Calorie Counter – Lets visitors calculate their basal metabolic rate, based on age, sex and weight.
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Drug Interaction Data Plugin
(Drug Interaction Data Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin will retrieve and display information about drugs, including what the drugs are used for and what other medications the drugs are known to interact with.
(Drug Interaction Data – Information Screen)
Drug information 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 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)
PubMed Posts adds a dashboard widget that lets you crate posts from PubMed articles, and a search function that lets visitors search for posts with specific article data. A basic content editor is also included.
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 versatile plugin was designed for clinic and health care related websites. You can add service pages with booking forms, provide related health conditions, add case studies, link indication tags to services and conditions, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Treato WordPress Plugin
(Treato Plugin For WordPress)
Treato WordPress plugin lets you embed the Treato healthcare search engine into your WordPress sidebar so you and your users can search drugs and see what patients are saying about different drugs.
Treato collects 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 receive valuable 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
(HealthTap)
HealthTap Concierge allows users to consult with real doctors, clinical psychologists, etc. 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, connect in real time over video or text chat, or send the doctor a question and get answers with the service, which has a database of over 70,000 doctors.
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 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, pages and custom post types, allowing your visitors to make better food choices towards healthy eating goals.
(WP Nutrition Facts Plugin – Custom Post Type Label Creation)
WP Nutrition Facts uses the Canadian Food Inspection (CFIA) nutrition labeling regulations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Ultimate Recipe
(WP Ultimate Recipe – WordPress Plugin)
If you own a health or fitness-related business that provides diet or healthy eating suggestions, a great source of engaging content to your site is to publish great recipes.
A plugin like WP Ultimate Recipe lets you add recipes on your site.
Other WordPress recipe plugins include:
- Recipe Card – Publish search optimized 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, Google Recipe View formatting and preview button, automatic ratings and conversion from other recipe plugins.
- ZipList Recipes – Easily format recipe text and add images. Includes additional Google Recipe View formatting and SEO features.
- And many more.
For more details, go here}:
Awesome Fitness Testimonials
(Awesome Fitness Testimonials Plugin For WordPress)
The Awesome Fitness Testimonials plugin lets you add fitness and wellness testimonials, case studies and reviews to your website.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images
(Exercise Images by Everkinetic WP Plugin)
Exercise Images by Everkinetic lets you display a database of exercise illustrations on your site.
(Exercise Images Plugin For WordPress – Database)
For more details, go here}:
In part three, we look at health and medical WordPress themes.
***
This is the end of part two.
Click on this link to continue:
***
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum