How To Get More Traffic To Your Website

August 28, 2017/in Business, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy, Social Media/by David Gaskin

Getting more traffic to your website isn’t voodoo.

It doesn’t take a miracle and it’s not rocket science either.

The secret ingredient – which isn’t that secret – is to give people a good reason to visit your site.

Combine that with a strategy and a consistent approach and before you know it, you’ll begin to see more visitors to your website.

This article will show you, in 3 key areas, how you can go about getting more traffic to your website.

These 3 areas are:

Optimize Website Content – Increasing traffic to your website starts with optimizing the content on your website for both people and search engines
Connect on Social Media – Being active on social media plays a major role in developing a consistent stream of traffic to your website
Leverage Content Outreach – Reaching out to the key influencers in your industry will further grow your website and attract new audiences

So now that you have an idea of what we’ll be looking at, let’s dive right in!

Optimize Website Content

The first leg of increasing traffic to your website is to make sure the content on your website is optimized and performing at its best.

Here are some things you should consider:

Set Up Analytics on Your Website

Getting more traffic to your website starts with having in place an analytics and tracking system.

Without one, you have no way to measure the amount of traffic to your website.

Luckily for you, this system already exists and it’s free!

You’ve probably already heard of it: Google Analytics.

Google Analytics will give you both the insights you need to know what’s working and what’s not, as well as a clear picture into your current traffic numbers.

Some of the more important metrics to pay attention to in Google Analytics are:

Users – The number of unique visitors to your website
Bounce Rate – How frequently people “bounce” off of your website and back to the search results page
Sessions Duration – How long people spend on your site
Top pages – Which pages receive the most traffic
Pageviews – How many pageviews your content received
Exit % – The percentage of people actively exiting your website from a particular page

As you begin to analyze these metrics and compare them to actual pages on your website, you’ll start to realize valuable information that you can use to tweak and refine your traffic growth strategy – which leads to the next step:

Develop a Content Marketing Strategy:

Having a plan in place will make it much more likely that you’ll see success as you strive to increase your website traffic.

Here’s what should go into an effective Content Marketing Strategy:

The goal of the strategy – What are you hoping to gain with more website traffic? Do you want more people to subscribe to your mailing list? Are you trying to sell more products? Start your strategy off by defining S.M.A.R.T goals.
A definition of your audience – Knowing who your audience makes it that much easier to send the right message and reach the right people for your business.
The types of content you intend to produce – This could be blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, e-books, a combination of all or some.
What is your edge? – How do you plan to add value and separate your content from your competitors? What makes your content unique and valuable?
Frequency of posts – How often do you intend to post new content?
Getting your content out there – How do you intend to reach people with your content? (We’ll be taking a closer look at this later on)

You may find your strategy changes over time; your goals may change or you might discover new insights about your audience.

That’s alright and is to be expected.

The important thing is to remain focused on your goal yet remain flexible enough to course-correct as required.

Keywords

Now with a way to track website traffic and a strategy in place for getting more visitors, it’s time to look at the actual content itself.

You may already have a good handle on the topics that matter most to your audience.

If that’s not clear to you, you can turn to tools such as Google’s Keyword Explorer, another free tool that lets you see the search volumes for a particular phrase or keyword.

This is a great tool that will give you a sense of how many people are searching for a particular phrase and what the competition is like for that keyword.

For additional ideas, try plugging your candidate keywords into Google and scrolling down to the suggested searches section:

These are related search terms that Google also gets high volumes of search queries for that may give you additional inspiration about what content to produce.

Write More Compelling Headlines

People have short attention spans. That means you have to hook them quickly!

One of the most sure-fire ways to do that is to write catchy, compelling headlines that people just can’t help but click on.

Here are a few quick tips for writing catchy headlines:

Use numbers in your headlines (“7 Tips to Reduce Belly Fat”)
Create curiosity (“How I Managed to Quit My 9-5 Job and Travel the World”)
Use compelling language (“The Definitive Guide”, “The Secret to..”)
Add something in brackets (“The Top Cities in the World to Visit [Infographic]”)

Keep your headline length below 70 characters to avoid them being cut off by Google and other search engines/devices.

Great headlines alone aren’t enough to create sustainable website traffic.

Write Better Content

Without content to match, you might get visitors to your website but they’ll quickly “bounce off.”

Without content to match, you might get visitors to your website but they’ll quickly

Here are some things you can do to keep readers sticky to your page:

Perfect your introduction – Learn how to write a good introduction that hooks your readers early on and entices them to read on.
Use shorter paragraphs – Shorter paragraphs are easier for readers to scan and digest. A good rule of thumb is to try to keep your paragraphs under 5-6 lines, ideally 2-3.
Provide data – Real facts are much more compelling than opinions and speculation. Surround your content with data and link to it with images and descriptive link text.
Use multi media – Images and other multimedia are a great way to break up chunks of text and engage readers further.
Proofread – Typos and other inconsistencies weaken credibility, so make sure content is error-free before you hit the ‘Publish’ button.

Link Internally

If done right, linking internally to your own content is great for SEO and the User Experience.

From an SEO perspective, it increases time-on-page. It also promotes loyalty and increases the odds that your content gets shared on social media.

When linking internally, make sure you:

Use descriptive link text – Descriptive text not only tells visitors what they can expect to find if they click on the link but also indicates to search engines the content of the link.
Link to relevant content – Don’t link for linking sake but instead link to content that will augment the User Experience and enhance the value that you’re already providing to your readers.
Don’t overdo it – A page full of links looks spammy and takes away from the impact that good internal linking can have; it also cheapens the SEO power with every additional internal link you add.

Employ Basic SEO Best Practices

You don’t have to be an SEO expert to execute on some of the basics.

Including these tips will ensure that the search engines know how to understand your content:

Have one main heading that includes your keyword phrase, usually the h1 heading
Include the keyword phrase in the URL of your page, remove any stop-words like ‘and’ or ‘the’ and separate words with hyphens to make sure the URL is the most search engine-friendly it can be
Include your keyword phrase or semantically similar words in the meta description of the page and somewhere within the first 100 words of your content
Remain on topic and put secondary keywords into secondary headers as content unfolds
Link internally and externally throughout your content when it makes sense to do so from a value-added perspective

Track Content Traffic

Remember when you set up Google Analytics on your website?

As you publish your content, make it a habit of checking in every week or so to see how your content is developing.

Take a look at the metrics we mentioned above and see how your content is faring.

Sometimes you’ll find that one piece of content, in particular, is receiving the most amount of traffic while another isn’t doing as well.

In cases like these, don’t get too precious about the content that isn’t doing so hot.

Instead, think about what you can do to leverage the traffic you’re already getting.

Make Sharing Super Easy

It probably goes without saying but your content should be easy to share.

In the next section, we’ll be talking more about social media but remember that it’s critical that you include social sharing widgets alongside all your web content.

Build Up Your Mailing List Subscribers

Email marketing has one of the highest success and conversion rates versus all other content marketing.

That said, developing your email subscribers can have long-term rewards for your business.

One way to gain more subscribers is by using what’s called a Lead Magnet.

This is essentially the exchange of something valuable for the visitor’s email address.

You’ve probably encountered these a thousand times, usually in the form of an offer to receive a free e-book or a special piece of content.

Lead Magnets can supercharge your mailing list subscribers so consider what you can offer readers to sign up for your mailing list!

Connect on Social Media

Now that we have a solid handle on how to approach creating content and strong methods in place for ensuring our content will hit the mark with both people and search engines it’s time to spread the word on social media.

Identify Your Key Social Media Channels

Each social media network has its own set of characteristics, each attracting uniquely different audiences and demographics.

Depending on your business and which market you’re looking to attract, the social media channel you choose to focus on will vary.

Ideally, the best way to learn which social media channel you need to be on is to ask your audience.

In case you don’t have that info handy, here’s an overview of the types of audiences the major social media networks attract:

Facebook is the dominant social media platform with a majority demographic ranging from 18 to 49 all the way up to 65. It sees a daily 1.15 billion active users and leads the pack among all other social media platforms.

YouTube gets more viewers than any cable network on TV. It attracts users between the ages of 18-34 as well as a large portion of people aged 35-49. As YouTube is owned by Google, your content will benefit from being tied into the Google search engine algorithm.

Instagram is the fastest growing social network. Geared more towards images and videos, Instagram tends to have a younger demographic (with most of its users under 35). If you have a business that can make use of this heavily visual platform, then this might be a strong fit for you.

Twitter is perhaps the most over-saturated and transient social network, leaning more towards being a social feed than content posting platform with more than 50% of its users never posting an update. Twitter is most popular among millennials and people under 35.

Pinterest has a wide spread across age demographics ranging from 18-64. Interestingly enough, this visually-oriented social network is made up of about 80% women.

LinkedIn is unique in that it is mainly geared towards professionals and B2B. It has a significant amount of active users so if you’re targeting business professionals, you shouldn’t ignore LinkedIn.

Develop Your Social Media Followers

Now that you’ve identified which social networks you should be targeting, it’s time to develop your social media followers.

Developing an audience on social media takes time and a commitment to sticking to and executing your Content Marketing Strategy but here a few a things you can do to maximize your efforts and speed up the process:

Fill out your social media profiles completely and be consistent with your company image
Link to your social networks from your other social networks
Include social links in your email signature, website, and published content
Share and engage with other people’s content
Post your content regularly
Engage with your social media followers

Maximize Your Post for Each Platform

As you begin to post content to social media, it’s important that you maximize your efforts by optimizing the way you post to each platform.

For example, if Twitter is one of the social media platforms you intend to be on, you will want to understand how to use hashtags effectively and the syntax for targeting users and key influencers on the platform.

Each platform offers its own unique set of characteristics so once you know which social media platforms your business should be on, do your research and find the most effective way to post your content.

Stick to a Schedule

When it comes to social media, there is something to be said for when you choose to post your content.

For example, the best times to post on LinkedIn are in the mornings before work, at noon, and after work midweek, Monday to Friday.

Each social media platform is different, so do your research to discover the best times to post.

Photo by: geralt

Leverage Content Outreach

You’ve optimized the content on your website and are now connecting to your audience on social media.

The next step to really take your website traffic to the next level is to connect to key influencers in your niche and get your content published on industry-leading websites through guest posting and content republishing.

Doing this puts your content in front of large, highly-targeted audiences. It also helps your website rank better on Google by linking your website to these publications.

Republish Your Content on Larger Websites

Large content publications generally have huge content needs and are actively looking for content to post to their website.

Here’s how you can get your content on these large publications:

Step #1: Find websites that accept and/or republish content

Websites that accept content will have pages detailing their guidelines for content republishing and guest posting.

To find these pages, start by searching Google for your industry keyword plus “guest posting”, “write for us”, or “submit an article” (many other variations exist, so you’ll want to employ smart search tips for finding guest blogging opportunities).

Step #2: Choose content you are going to pitch to these websites

Once you know who’s accepting content, it’s time to figure out how you can add value to these publications.

In the beginning, it’s easier to pitch an original piece of content than it is to pitch content that already exists on your site, so it’s a good idea to start off by understanding the publication that you’re targeting.

Are there opportunities for your content? Is there a gap in their content that you can fill with your knowledge or expertise?

Also, familiarize yourself with the tone and style of the publication so that your content will be a more natural fit for their audience.

If you find that your content isn’t a great fit off-the-bat, you can always tweak your style a little bit to match.

Step #3: Pitch your article

Once you know what content ideas you’re bringing to the table, it’s time to pitch them to the publication.

Pitching your ideas is where the rubber meets the road, so it’s important to bring your A-game and to do it right.

Here are some tips for crafting a winning pitch:

Write an engaging subject line – Content editors get boatloads of pitches so stand out by crafting an engaging subject line
Know who you are pitching to – Do your homework and find out who you’re pitching your idea to and, if possible, address them by their first name in the pitch
Understand their readership – Large publications are in the content business, so make sure you’re giving them stuff their audience will find valuable and be sure to include in your message how your contribution will benefit their readers
Include options – Your first idea may not be accepted, so have 2-3 additional ideas to offer in your pitch
Be patient – It may take up to a week before your pitch gets seen so don’t be too eager to follow up right away

Step #4: Prepare your content

Once you get the green light from the publication that your content idea has been accepted, it’s time to prepare your content for publishing.

Here are a few pointers:

Review the content and publication guidelines of the publication to make sure that you are following them correctly
Include at least one link back to your website in your content; aim for 2-3 links to your own content if it makes sense to do so
Provide your professional bio and a headshot along with your finished content

Conclusion

We’ve now broken down the three key elements to getting more traffic to your website:

We looked at optimizing the content that is already on your site so that it connects better to your readers, creates engagement and more social shares, and does well with search engines from an SEO standpoint.

We talked about using social media to find the right audiences for your business and stimulate more visitors to your website by making the most out of the content you post.

Finally, we discussed how connecting to large content publications in your industry can provide you with huge boosts in terms of website traffic and SEO and how you can find and approach these publications about republishing and guest posting opportunities.

All that’s left to do now is to get to work.

Good luck!

Tips For Writing Amazing Massage Therapy Blog Posts

July 11, 2016/34 Comments/in Business, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy, Social Media/by Jamie Johnston

The first one took me hours.

I mean loooong hours to write.

I hired a professional writer I know to help me get into this whole writing thing, read books on it and even debated taking some classes.

My professional writer friend gave a great piece of advice when he looked at me and said:

“Jamie, writing is like a muscle, you have to use it and develop it to make it strong”.

Blog articles still took me hours to write, I wanted them to be perfect (but honestly not one of them ever has been).

However as time goes on things got a little easier, sort of like a new workout program. At first you’re sore all week, then a month later you’re getting a bit of a high after each workout and the pain goes away. But just like that workout, it’s usually better if you have someone coaching you and helping you.

So here are some methods to help you start getting some blog posts out for your clinic.

Getting Started With Massage Blogging

Before you get going, make sure you are setup to be distraction free and in a comfortable space.

Choose whatever you like best, computer or pen to paper. If it’s pen to paper you prefer, get yourself a really nice smooth writing pen to make it as enjoyable as possible.

If it’s keyboard you prefer, do your best to stay disconnected from the internet so you’re not tempted to constantly check Facebook, twitter or play angry birds.

I always like to have a really good cup of coffee and put some music on.

I know some people like to put on some hip-hop or reggae, but for me it’s George Strait.

Okay, now that you’re set let’s get going.

Telling Your Story

While blogging is a great way to educate your patients, the real thing you want to do is entertain them.

Tell them a story, tell them your story.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, I try to start every post off with a story as it is a great way to intrigue a reader (and hopefully keep them reading),

A good example is the post I wrote about dealing with someone who has had a stroke. I started off the post talking about a real life situation where I helped a friend of mine who suffered a stroke. It’s effective because it gets the reader involved and adds more weight to the post than me just simply saying: this is what you will see.

“It was around 1am Monday morning, when I realized there was an issue.

That night, something seemed different but nobody else really noticed. Standing with his arms crossed almost supporting one arm with the other, our conversation seemed confused as he constantly gazed at the floor.

As we walked to the First Aid shack for a coffee, I asked how he was feeling:

“not good”

How was the weekend?

“I don’t remember, apparently I didn’t show up to work on Friday”

Did you leave the house to go to work that day?

“I remember dropping the kids off at school Friday morning, but that’s really the last thing I remember”

As we kept talking, his slurred speech became more noticeable. When he relaxed, those crossed arms became one crossed arm and one seemingly limp arm. Looking into the eyes and face of this normally strong, athletic man there was something missing. His left side was almost motionless, wilted.

Can you lift your arms above your head for me?

The right arm went up, left one didn’t move.

Can you kick your legs out for me?

The right one kicked out, left one stayed put.

We need to get you to the hospital.”

Seeing how this person moved and was reacting to our conversation paints a better, more realistic story than me just explaining what the symptoms of a stroke are.

So if you were doing this as a post for your clinic, using a real life experience of how getting a massage has helped you in the past, or how you have helped someone else with a particular condition. It will make your reader engage and think “yeah that’s exactly how I feel”, now you’ve hooked a potential or current patient who recognizes you as the professional and the Massage Therapist who can help them.

Always try to lead with a good story.

The Disney Method For Massage Therapists

One of the toughest things about writing is how hard we are on ourselves.

If you’ve ever tried to write anything there is a constant voice in your head saying:

“that was terrible”

“no one is going to read this”

“you’re like the Adam Sandler of serious writing” (okay maybe that one is just me, but you get the point).

This happens to everyone when they start trying to write, it’s our internal editor and it’s harder on us than anyone who reads our writing.

The hardest thing to do is turn off that internal editor, but to start that’s what you have to do, you can edit after you’ve actually written something down.

The Disney Method is how Walt Disney used to come up with ideas and he made it a three phase process.

It consists of:

The Creative Phase (or dreamer phase)
The Realist Phase
The Critical Phase

Once you start to practice this, it can make the whole process of writing a blog a lot less daunting and time consuming.

1. The Creative Phase

Pick a topic, it doesn’t have to be fancy, pick something about massage therapy you’re passionate about and know a lot about, it’s a good place to start.

Just start writing.

Write with reckless abandon, like there is no chance anyone is ever going to read this.

Turn off that internal editor and just let whatever thoughts are in your head pour on the page or the keyboard, whatever your choice is for writing.

Be the most creative you can be, don’t worry about spelling, grammar, mistakes or anything and for god’s sake don’t hit the delete key. Use whatever tone comes natural to you because at this point it doesn’t matter, just let it pour out.

In the example I gave about the person having the stroke, when I sat down to write that, it was full of swear words (I kinda have a mouth like a sailor) because I remember that night and couldn’t believe my friend and mentor was in that condition.

It was a rough and I mean rough draft.

But that’s fine, you can clean up anything you write in the next phase, but you have to get that first draft out.

2. The Realist Phase

In the realist phase you want to make sure your story flows.

You’re going to go through and edit that rough draft with very broad strokes to make sure your story makes sense. Don’t worry so much about grammar and spelling at this point, just see if sentences need to be changed to give the story some real body.

Does a sentence work better a few paragraphs up or down?

Does a paragraph need to be moved?

Just shape your story to make sure it flows in a logical sequence and put the big pieces together so it makes sense to your reader.

In the stroke article, the story was the introduction, then the body of the post was video that gave instructions on how to deal with a stroke in your clinic. Go through your post and make sure the story ties in to what you can do for your potential patient with whatever topic you picked.

Now your potential patients are starting to put together how you can help them and why they should be coming to you for treatment.

3. The Critical Phase

Now it’s time to rip things up.

Go through and get ruthless with your editing.

Sentence by sentence trim what isn’t needed. Line by line slash what isn’t needed.

Take out any and every word that isn’t needed.

See if you can take as many words as possible out of each sentence without changing it’s meaning or tone.

When people are reading blogs they skim through them, it’s rare they get read word for word (seriously, you aren’t reading these posts word for word!?).

Go through and take out the word “that” wherever possible along with phrases like “in other words”. And don’t ever say things like “in my opinion”, we know it’s your opinion, you’re writing it.

You get to be creative in the first phase, but now is when you need to be critical (but don’t be super hard on yourself, remember writing is a muscle).

This is also a good place to go through and add any research you think is applicable that you have done for the post. It’s always good to add some kind of research into a post to give it legitimacy, especially if you’re writing for patients, it will reinforce you are the professional.

When adding your research to a post, you don’t have to use specific referencing styles, you can just add hyperlinks in the appropriate text of your article.

It’s a blog, not a research paper.

Photo by: fancycrave1

Coming To Conclusions

Now that you’ve gone through and edited things and the post is looking great, you’ll need to come up with some sort of conclusion.

A conclusion is a great way to wrap up the post and highlight the main points.

The conclusion is also a great way to leave an impression on your reader. Always try to leave them with a smile on their face, it will make them want to come back for more. This is how I wrapped up that post on dealing with strokes:

Later that morning I went to the hospital to check on him. As I walked in the room he looked at me and shouted to the nurse:

“Hey nurse there’s the little jerk that sent me in here” (they had him on some pretty good stuff)

“You should thank that little jerk, he saved your life”

I’ll be honest, that took some editing because the language he used was a lot stronger than “little jerk”, but you get the idea. While it can be tough getting into blogging for your massage business on a regular basis, if you start making it a practice it will get easier. If you try writing and you get stumped, take a break and go do something else, go for a walk, play angry birds for 15 minutes, just get a break. It’s amazing how much your ideas and writing can change with even a 10 minute break. Also, don’t be too hard on yourself if the first one takes you a bit of time. Set a timer for 20 minute time intervals. Use each interval to go through the Disney method to be the creative, the realist and the critic. See how your article looks after each time interval and continually build it up until you’re happy with it. Feel free to share your posts in the comments below when you try it. Hopefully before too long we’ll be able to get a guest post on theMTDC from you.

Why YOU Should Blog For Your Massage Therapy Business

July 4, 2016/16 Comments/in Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy, Social Media/by Jamie Johnston

Sometimes I just sit here staring at the screen, trying to write.

It’s tough.

Blogging is tough.

In fact it may be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The first time I hit “publish” it scared the bejeezus out of me and still scares me a bit to this day.

However as they always say, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

The thing is, everyone should be doing it and using blogging as a tool to promote and advertise your massage practice. We live in a generation where information is currency and it’s valuable currency.

As I said, blogging is tough but it CAN be done.

Most of you reading this right now are probably thinking “you just finished saying it’s hard and plus, I’m not a writer!”

Well, guess what? None of us are writers.

Very few people who started a blog sat and thought to themselves “yeah I’m a damn good writer, this is what I should do”.

Most people who got into blogging had something they were passionate about and decided it was time to start a discussion on their passion.

But there are some other reasons why you should start blogging, especially about your massage practice.

Marketing Your Massage Therapy Practice

Any time you decide to market your practice you should be looking at the ROI (return on investment).

There are a few platforms now where you can set up a free site to start your blog (wordpress, wix, weebly to name a few). Down the road you may want to invest money into a site and developer but the free ones can at least get you started.

So really your biggest investment is time.

Here are some stats from Writtent’s 45 Reasons to Blog that might convince you to get started:

Small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog. (Source: ThinkCreative)
Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors (Source: HubSpot)
B2C companies that blog get 88% more leads per month than companies that don’t (Source: HubSpot)
71% of survey respondents say blogs affect their purchasing decisions (Source: HubSpot)
60% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site. (Source: CMI)
78% of chief marketing officers think custom content is the future of marketing. (Source: Hanley-Wood Business Media)
Brand engagement rises by 28% when consumers are exposed to both professional content and user-generated product video. (Source: comScore)
90% of consumers find custom content useful, 78% believe that companies behind content are interested in building good relationships. (Source: TMG Custom Media)

Looking at that list, the big ones that stand out to me are that blogs affect purchasing decisions, consumers feel more positive about a company after reading their content and consumers believe that companies behind content are interested in building good relationships.

Think about what those three things alone can do for your massage therapy practice.

Now google other Massage Therapists in your area and see who is actively blogging. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

That’s right, barely anyone is doing it because it’s hard, or some have a couple of posts from 2013 and then gave up.

So imagine that if you started doing this consistently and your blog started having the above affects in your local area. All of a sudden, they’re purchasing from you, feel more positive about your company and want to build a relationship with you.

There is no other marketing scheme that is going to do that. Yellow pages, billboards, bus stops, signage, none of these things actually contribute to building a strong relationship with a potential or current patient, it’s just noise.

Establishing Yourself As A Massage Therapy Expert

Whether you’re a new grad or been in business for sometime, you need to establish yourself as an expert in your community.

It takes a bit of a mind shift to start thinking like this, since most of us are pretty humble people. However you need to get over the imposter syndrome and start putting yourself out there (here’s some tips on getting over imposter syndrome).

Pick whatever aspect of massage therapy you know the best and start writing about it. Do research on the topic, pick your favourite aspects about the topic and know them inside and out.

For instance, let’s say you like doing pregnancy and infant massage. Come up with a list of every issue you can possibly think of dealing with pregnancy and write a story associated with that, and how massage therapy can help.

When people in your city or town who are pregnant start doing searches for local healthcare providers, they are going to come across your blog. As long as they can relate to your stories, they will come seeking you over any other therapist in town because you have just answered a majority of their questions and gained their trust.

In my case, I was pretty confident I knew more about first aid than your average Massage Therapist. I also knew I had a ton of stories I could use to convey my message and relate it to therapists on how to handle medical emergencies in their clinic.

So that’s what I started writing about.

Now I’m actually traveling around teaching first aid courses to other practitioners.

The reality is, there is at least one topic you know and you probably know it better than most other therapists.

Start with that.

Becoming a regular blogger also makes you stay on top of your game. When you’re writing and researching topics regularly, that imposter syndrome will start to fade and you will start to feel like you are becoming an expert.

You never know what other Massage Therapists may end up learning from you as well in this whole process.

You just need one topic you’re passionate about to start, then you can start to branch out into other topics as your confidence builds.

Photo by: geralt

Differentiating Yourself

This is another important aspect of what blogging can do for you and your business.

It makes you different.

When someone is doing a search for a therapist, there are no end to the options. Blogging can help make you the BEST option.

Say you work in a clinic with several other therapists. A potential patient goes to the website to book in and sees all of your profiles, there has to be something that makes them want to book in with YOU.

Blogging on a regular basis gives you this opportunity and it is just that, an opportunity.

It gives you the opportunity for your target patients to become not only engaged with you, but to keep wanting to come back to you. If you set things up properly and use social media and email subscription services properly, you will be able to stay at the top of your patients mind.

There is no other marketing effort you can make that will do that.

It provides the real opportunity for you to build a following, to build your patient base.

For those of you who are clinic owners and are thinking you don’t want your people doing this, you should be encouraging this.

In fact I’d be encouraging everyone in your clinic to write one blog post per month for your clinic, plus writing one for their own personal sites.

If you’re worried that if one of your practitioners is blogging and could “steal” patients away if they moved, you have to change your thinking. If a patient really likes a therapist, they’re probably going to move with them anyway. If you try and restrict the patient from knowing where the practitioner is, they will do their own work to find out.

It took me two years to finally launch this blog. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do the work, it’s that I was afraid to start putting myself out there. So far some people have called me out on things I’ve written because they didn’t agree, but it hasn’t happened near as much as I thought it would. There’s nothing wrong with other people having a differing opinion than yours, in fact it’s a good thing. It will help differentiate you. While blogging is a lot of work, the rewards from doing one are immeasurable, especially if you’re using it as a marketing technique for your massage therapy business. You’ll be surprised at the opportunities that start coming your way. Don’t just try to sell, try to inform your potential and current patients, trust me they’ll thank you for it. If blogging is something you’ve been considering but haven’t started, get over your limiting beliefs and jump in. Just be consistent and you’ll start to find your voice. And who knows, maybe soon I’ll be taking a course you’re putting on!