In Part One of this article on ways to grow your medical-related business presence online, we covered the following areas:
- Online Challenges For Medical Professionals
- Opportunities For Health & Medical Professionals
- Your Web Pages
- Improving The Content On Your Site
In this section, we continue exploring more ways to grow your medical or health-related business online.
Areas covered in this (and the next section) include:
- Improve Web Traffic
- Generating Leads & Enquiries
- WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Improve Search Engine Optimization, Create Better User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- Add New Features And Functionality To Your Blog With WP Plugins
- WP For Newbies – An Introduction To WordPress Themes
Note: Plugins are listed in this section. Health and medical themes are listed in Part 3.
Online Business Tips For Medical Providers – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Visitors To Your Website
Your web traffic is an integral part of your business growth. This section discusses WordPress plugins and themes that can help improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors.
Optimizing Your Site For Search Engines Using WordPress
There are lots of ways that WordPress helps improve your medical or health-related website’s SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized web addresses for your articles and posts.
- Tags – WordPress lets you choose the keywords that you want search engines to index your articles for.
- Categories – Create search engine-friendly categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Excerpts – Create the description for your posts that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – title images used in your content with keywords for improved search results.
- Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for better indexing of your content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify (ping) other search directories immediately upon publishing new content on your website.
Improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, the WP community makes available various plugins that will improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your business.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO)
Other WordPress plugins you can use to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your website 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 set up and run your own social network on your website.
- bbPress – bbPress can be used to set up a forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – Use this plugin to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – Power discussions and increases engagement on your site.
- Floating Social – Use this WordPress plugin to add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your site.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
How To Generate Leads & Enquiries
Let’s now take a look at ways to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Provide An Email Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. It provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Sends targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for engaging with users
- Provides you with an additional way for your content to be shared online with others
One of the best ways to get visitors to become subscribers is to provide users with high value information and offer them free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their personal details. This can be a guide, checklists for improving fitness and nutrition, access to health applications, discount vouchers, access to videos, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for readers to get in touch. Contact forms also let visitors report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request a quote, send suggestions for new services or products and more.
A contact form provides a number of benefits, like:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Gives 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 site
- Convenient for site visitors
One of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
Contact Form 7 allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms into any page on your site, customize the form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Something to consider if you want to set up a website for a medical center is to segment your contact form so visitors can select which practitioner they want to contact. This ensures that contact form requests reach the correct department.
Maps
Adding maps helps your visitors and customers find you.
Maps are a very useful tool for several reasons:
- Maps help to increase local SEO
- Visitors can find your office easily and plan their trips better
- Show location of events
(Adding maps to your site helps your visitors and customers find you)
Some of the most popular Google Maps plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation
WordPress Plugins
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for your site visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Booking Calendar
(Booking Calendar Plugin For WordPress)
This free bookings reservations plugin allows you to add online booking services to your site. Booking Calendar is well supported and has an intuitive and user-friendly interface. It is suitable for a range of health or medical-related uses, such as dental practitioners, physicians, health spas, booking yoga classes, etc.
(Booking Calendar WordPress Plugin – Overview)
Booking Calendar works right out of the box. Website visitors can check the availability of services and book appointments online quickly and 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 with extra features is also available.
For more details, go here}:
Event Espresso – Event Management And Registration Plugin For WordPress
(Manage Your Events Via The Web With Event Espresso Plugin For WordPress)
If you plan to run health events like seminars or workshops, then you need a plugin like Event Espresso.
The Event Espresso online event registration plugin for WP allows you to easily set up an event and start receiving online bookings in just a few minutes
(Event Espresso)
Event Espresso is a feature-packed plugin that gives you full control of the event registration management process.
We have written a comprehensive article on Event Espresso. For more details:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
Calculator Pro Calculators provides a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can provide to users on your website. Internationalization is supported.
Note: Most of them aren’t specifically designed for medical use, but there are a number you can add to your site, including:
- Body Statistics – e.g. BMI Calculator, Fat Calculator, Katch-Mcardle BMR Calculator, Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) GFR Calculator, Waist to Hip Ratio Calculator, etc.
- Calorie – e.g. Calorie to kJ Calculator, kJ to Calorie Calculator, Calories Burned Swimming Calculator, etc.
- Fitness Tests – e.g. Coopers 12 Minute Run Test Calculator, Bruce Treadmill Test Calculator, etc.
- Miscellaneous – e.g. Advanced One Rep Max Weight Lifting Calculator, Blood Donation Calculator, Pace Calculator, Running Pace Calculator, etc.
- Nutrition – e.g. Carbohydrate Calculator, Macronutrient Calculator, etc.
- Weight – e.g. BAI (Body Adiposity Index) Calculator, Weight Loss Percentage Calculator, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Calculated Fields Form
(Calculated Fields Form – WordPress Plugin)
Calculated Fields Form lets you create forms with dynamically calculated fields to display the calculated values, such as:
- Health & Fitness Calculators
- Ideal Weight Calculator
- Pregnancy Calculator
- Calorie Calculators
- And many more
The plugin is also available in a premium version with many additional features.
For more details, go here}:
Weight Loss Tracker
(Weight Loss Tracker – WordPress Plugin)
Weight Loss Tracker is a simple plugin for WordPress that lets users record their weight periodically. The results are then shown in a graph and table.
(Weight Loss Tracker – WordPress Plugin – User Graph)
The plugin allows users to input 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 For WordPress)
Simple BMI Calculator lets you add a widget to your website 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 look at to perform similar functions:
- BMI BMR Calculator – A BMI and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator that saves calculation data for logged-in users and gives an overview to the site administrator.
- BMI / IMC Calculator – A simple calculator that displays a visitor’s Body Mass Index
- Calotor Calorie Counter – Lets visitors figure out 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 WordPress 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 – WordPress Plugin – Results)
Drug information 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 and drug names are converted to the standardized RxNorm name.
For more details, go here}:
PubMed Posts
(PubMed Posts WP Plugin)
This plugin adds a dashboard widget that lets you crate posts from PubMed articles, plus a search function that lets site visitors search for posts with specific data. A simple content editor is also included with the plugin.
PubMed includes over 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, online books and life science journals.
For more details, go here}:
MJM Clinic
(MJM Clinic)
This 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 conditions, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Treato WordPress Plugin
(Treato Plugin For WordPress)
Treato lets you embed the Treato healthcare search engine into your WordPress sidebar so your site visitors can search drugs and see what patients are saying about different drugs.
Treato collects and analyzes patient experiences written in online 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 are working, and more from over 2.2 billion collected posts.
For more details, go here}:
HealthTap Concierge
(HealthTap Plugin)
HealthTap Concierge allows consumers to consult with 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, your site visitors 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 using video or text chat, or send the doctor their question.
For more details, go here}:
TrendMD
(TrendMD WP Plugin)
The TrendMD 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, cite or read scholarly content from your journals or websites through personalized recommendations.
For more details, go here}:
WP Nutrition Facts
(WP Nutrition Facts Plugin)
WP Nutrition Facts lets you add a nutrition facts table into your posts, pages and custom post types, allowing your site visitors to learn about the nutrient content of food.
(WP Nutrition Facts – WordPress Plugin – Nutritional Facts 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 Plugin)
If you own a health or fitness-related business that provides nutritional or healthy eating information, a great source of engaging content to your site is to add great recipes.
Plugins like WP Ultimate Recipe let you publish healthy recipes on your site.
Other WordPress recipe plugins include:
- Recipe Card – Create and publish search optimized recipes with nutrition facts that your site users can print, save and review.
- EasyRecipe – Makes publishing recipes on your site easy with features like cut and paste, auto conversion of your plain text recipe posts, 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. 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 WP Plugin)
Awesome Fitness Testimonials lets you showcase fitness & wellness testimonials, case studies and reviews on your website.
For more details, go here}:
Exercise Images by Everkinetic
(Exercise Images Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin lets you display a database of exercise illustrations on your fitness-related site.
(Exercise Images Plugin For WordPress – Image Catalog)
For more details, go here}:
In part 3 of this detailed guide, we will be discussing themes for health and medical businesses.
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This is the end of section two of this guide on ways to build your medical or health business presence online.
Click here to view 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)