An Easy System To Get Your Massage Website Written (Plus Some Free Tools)
Ever glanced around the web at some massage therapy websites for inspiration, and been stopped in your tracks by a website so convincing that you couldn’t help but read every single page?
Did you wonder what drew you in?
What caused you to linger?
Just how did they make their wording capture the exact thoughts that were going through your mind as you read?
That, my friend, is the power of well-written copy.
You see, even though society tends to cast writers as “creative types,” when it comes to copywriting for business it’s more science than art.
For the uninitiated, “copy” is anything written with the intention of helping you sell something—in this case, you’re selling yourself as a therapist to potential clients who visit your website.
As a crucial element of every small business marketing strategy, copywriting comes through for you when you need it the most: to sell your services on your behalf.
Good copywriting will sell you and your business to readers in a way that is natural, easy, and gimmick-free if you do it right.
But where do you begin?
And how do you get it done in a short timeframe, with limited money, and no writing skills?
You need an easy-to-follow system for writing your website copy. A system that is replicable so you can use it over and over again anytime you need to update your website branding, pages, or other online marketing materials.
You need a simple branding and copywriting system, and that’s exactly what I’d like to share with you.
I’m Margo, a Massage Therapist who turned my passion for the wellness industry into a second career as a copywriter for wellness business owners. I help massage therapists, health coaches and other small businesses launch authentic, profitable websites and I’m here to share with you the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Marketing used to be something I didn’t enjoy doing—in fact, I thought most marketing was “pushy” and overly aggressive!
But then I learned the straightforward, simple system of copywriting and began to fall in love with the process of marketing authentically to clients who already want what I’m offering.
Once I started writing website copy for other massage and wellness professionals, I was hooked.
So don’t worry, this article isn’t just for the marketing junkie, it’s also intended for the reluctant marketer who needs help writing copy that sells without going crazy in the process.
In this article you’ll learn:
- My simple 5-step process for writing the copy on your massage therapy website.
- Which free tools I recommend using to make writing your copy a painless process.
- At the end of the article, I’m sharing a free email challenge to help you implement all of these copywriting techniques, so be sure to read all the way to the end!
So let’s get this party started with the process you can use to get your website done already!
5 Simple Steps To Get Your Massage Website Written This Week
Even if you’re someone who enjoys writing, it can still be time-consuming.
I should know, as a copywriter for wellness entrepreneurs, I do it for a living.
Most business owners I know cram it into their to-do list somewhere between Bookkeeping and Getting New Business Cards, and tend to let it slip to the bottom of the list as the days go by.
I like to keep things simple and easy to remember, so a 5-step plan is perfect for me. Go ahead and swipe my system to get your website copy written the right way!
1. Learning
The learning phase of your copywriting journey is like the first course of the meal, it’s going to introduce your palate to the flavours and textures you’ll be marrying together over the following four steps.
You’re going to dig deep into the core of your business here, your clients. (Or your future clients, if you’re just starting out)
If you haven’t already, this is where you’ll take the time to create an ideal client profile, and make it as detailed as you possibly can, from where your target client lives, to how old they are, their gender or even their occupation. All of these little details will inform the next step in our process.
This might feel like an abstract “thought exercise,” but I promise you it’s not! This profile is vital to getting your website copy written right.
2. Planning
If you’re a person of action (like me!), you may have gritted your teeth to get through the learning phase of copywriting, but it will all pay off, I promise!
The key here in the planning phase is to find out your ideal client’s pain points (what their struggles, desires, and needs are), and then take note of everything you learn for use in your copy.
To find their pain points, you’re going to take your ideal client profile and go seek those people out, wherever they already are, to do some serious market research. We’ll find them sharing their needs and desires in a number of places.
If you already have a client base, you’ll utilise surveys of your current clients to find out what they needed/desired when they came to you, and how you met their needs. You’ll also want to go through your online reviews written by past clients to get useful information there as well.
Create a Google Doc titled “Client Language” or “Website Copy Market Research,” and start copying and pasting the useful comments that you gather straight into it so they’re all in one place.
3. Writing
Now you need to get all the ideas about what your clients need down onto the page and piece together the puzzle that is your website copy.
It’ll be fun, I promise!
You’re going to start like every good writing project starts, with an outline.
You’ll create a Google Doc with an outline, with sections for each piece of your copy for the pages you’re writing.
For example:
Home Page
- Headline
- Subheadline
- Body Text
And so on…
Remember that the goal here is to use your ideal client’s needs and desires to form the way in which you attract them to your services. Their needs—pulled straight from their comments online and their testimonials/reviews of your work—is what you’re writing your copy from, and it’s SO much faster than trying to think of interesting things to say about yourself or your massage training.
Whether you have a web developer who you’ll be sending the copy to for uploading, or you’re creating your own website, having the entire thing in one Google Doc is helpful for ease of use. You can make edits, take collaborator comments, and much more all in one place. It’s much more robust than Microsoft Word, and it’s the only thing I use when writing my 1-on-1 clients’ copy.
4. Editing
Make sure you set aside ample time to proofread your website copy after it’s written!
This means not only editing for grammar and spelling, but also the flow and transition between ideas as well as the overall “tone” of the site.
Is the tone consistent? Are your thoughts logically connected? Do you provide proof where necessary?
5. Launching
You can now proudly hit “publish” and go celebrate! Pat yourself on the back, this copywriting thing is tough work!
You’ll be spending the weeks following your website launch working out the kinks.
Even with all the editing, you’ll do, you’ll probably find a link that’s broken or a small error here or there that needs to be fixed after it goes live.
Beyond these basic edits, I highly recommend following your analytics closely and possibly even A/B testing some of your headlines and graphics to see which ones perform better.
Free Tools I Recommend For Writing Your Website Copy
Grammarly
If you’ve ever been embarrassed by a spelling mistake that your spell checker in Word or Google Docs didn’t pick up on, then this is the tool for you.
Grammarly takes spell checking a step further with intelligent formulas to evaluate for complex grammar errors.
One of my favourite features of Grammarly is the web application, so you can use it in any web browser that you’re writing something in, from a Facebook post for your business to the back end of your Squarespace or WordPress site before you hit “publish.”
Google Drive
Since I’ve been referring to it throughout the post, you can probably guess that I’m a huge fan of Google Drive for keeping track of all my notes and copy documents in one place.
Google Drive is a small business owners’ dream because it’s an easy way to create and store documents and files of all kinds, as well as a great collaboration platform since Google Docs allows you to add collaborators to documents and view comments all within the document.
Even if something happens to your computer, you don’t have to worry because your work is stored safely in the cloud.
And even better, you can easily organize your Drive cleanly into folders and subfolders for all of your website content.
Pro Tip: Place all of the photographs and graphics for the site into their own folder, then you can share that entire folder with your graphic designer (if you have one) so they can easily drop in their files when they’re ready instead of emailing large files back and forth!
Closing Thoughts
Alright, it’s now officially time to stop procrastinating and get your website written (or rewritten) already!
No more excuses about your website being “good enough for now.” Your business deserves a facelift, and since most of your clients will visit your website before they come in to see you, your website is definitely the right place to start.
Feel free to add to the conversation—do you have a writing or marketing tool that you love that I might have left out? Question about the tools I use or how I organize my Google Drive? Share it in the comments!
