By: Daniel J Brownell

© Copyright 2008 Full Throttle Massage, Inc.

You just opened your massage therapy office and it is growing at a slower rate than anticipated. Your advertising budget rather small and you are wondering what will give you the best return for the dollar. You’re thinking maybe a web site will boost the traffic to my office. Or you already have a web site, but are getting very little traffic both online and in your office, and you don’t understand why. Right now you may be thinking “What can I do to help build my practice? I’ve tried everything I can think of, and nothing seems to be working.” If you are reading this article, you have taken a step in the right direction. I will tell you some secrets that will make your online efforts pay off. Besides paying for a web site; the best thing about my strategy is it doesn’t have to cost you a thing except some of your time. The more you put into it, the more you will get from it.

First things first, if you don’t have a web site, you will have to get one. There are many free sites available out there but they have limitations. The best thing you can do for yourself is get a quality web site. This will be your only recurring expense and it is well worth the small amount of money it will cost. Many web site providers out there are geared for massage therapists. Do some shopping and find out exactly what comes with the web site. You will want to have control of what is on the web site. If you can’t add your own content, links, photo’s, services, etc., etc. then don’t buy that web site. Don’t let some sales pitch tell you that all you have to do is pay for the site and it will run itself. Oh it will run itself, but you will never see any new clients from it. It will be on page 10 million of the search engines and nobody searches that deep. This is where you invest your time in your web site.

Your thinking “I don’t know anything about how to make a web site.” Not to worry; if you can copy and paste, you can do everything that is needed to get your web site found by potential clients. Let me explain in simple terms what your web site has to have; in order for it to be “search engine friendly” and client worthy.

The first thing you need is relevant content. That means you have to have words, sentences, articles; on your web site. They have to be meaningful, or relevant, to your web site. If your web site is about massage therapy, then write about massage therapy. Don’t fill your web site with meaningless garbage. Remember you are trying to attract new clients and the search engines. If you are not very good at writing then find relevant content elsewhere on the Internet and copy and paste it in your web pages. If you choose to add your content this way, be sure to follow the rules of the web site you are getting the content from. The people who take the time to submit articles only get compensated through the links that are included in the author biographies. Which brings me to the next most important thing your web site will need; LINKS!

Why are links so important? Links are important to search engines like Google and Yahoo. Besides content, links are what these search engines use to determine how important your web site is. I can best explain this as the more important your web site is, the higher it will be placed in the search engines. The higher, or more important, your web site is, the better your chances are of potential clients finding it. After all that is our main goal; to gain a steady supply of new clients.

There are two different kinds of links; these are reciprocal links and one way links. Reciprocal links are an exchange of links between two web sites. One way links are where one web site links to another web site without reciprocation. Remember when I talked about content and following the rules if you are going to use someone else’s content on your web site. This way the person writing that article gets a one way link to his web site. This is the “compensation” he gets for his time and effort. Which is better, the reciprocal link or the one way link? They are weighed differently by the search engines so it’s best if you can get both. But if you are not into writing content, the reciprocal link will be just fine. The more reciprocal links you have the better your web site will rank with the search engines.

Just as with your web sites content, your links need to be relevant also. Not every link has to be to another massage web site, the links can be to other healthcare related web sites. You can also have a few links that are with non-related web sites. I would not have more of these non-related links than you have of related links. The best way to get link exchanges is searching web sites and directly asking the web site owner. You can also join link exchange directories; most are free and only ask that you place a reciprocal link on your web site.

Exchanging links with other relevant sites can be frustrating. This is especially true with the massage therapy industry. There seems to be a misconception with massage therapists that if they link to another massage web site, they will lose potential clients. This might be true only if you exchange a link with another massage therapist in your home town.

Let’s examine this a little more closely. I have a massage therapy office in Chattanooga, TN called Full Throttle Massage, Inc. I find a great massage therapy web site in Tombstone, AZ called Acme Massage, and exchange links with them. Any potential clients to my web site will not be making an appointment Acme Massage as they are not in Chattanooga, TN. The same goes for anyone visiting Arizona’s Acme Massage’s web site, they are not interested in scheduling with a massage therapy office in Chattanooga, TN. So my web site and the Arizona web site have exchanged valuable relevant links without competing for clients. By doing this with many relevant web sites you raise through the ranks in the search engines.

Let’s revisit the first paragraph of this article. You want to build your clientele. You don’t have a web site or your web site is not giving you the results you hoped it would. You have a limited budget for advertising. What did all this talk about content and links have to do with that? Simple, remember I said all you would need to do was to put some time into your web site. You add content and links to your web site, your web site improves in the search engines. All of a sudden you are booking more appointments each month (remember that was the goal). How much did it cost you? The cost was only the price of your web site and some spare time. That, my friend, is known as a great return on investment or ROI.  

__________________________

I have more secrets and tips that will help you get more from your web site. I will help anyone I can. This offer is almost completely free. All it requires is a reciprocal link! That's a fair price. Just send me an email at fullthrottlemassage@gmail.com 

flag