10 Massage Website Essentials

October 25, 2009 Julie Onofrio Massage Websites

Here is my list of 10 Massage Website Essentials for getting clients from your website:

Start with keyword research to choose the best domain name and plan your site. This will help search engines find it but also will be giving people what they want. Start with using the free Google Keyword tool to see what people are searching for. Start with searching for ‘massage, your city’ to see what comes up. Brainstorm other words such as stress, fibromyalgia massage, injury massage and think of other words people might use to find you.
Use the keywords strategically in the file names, descriptions and keyword meta tag of your website. Learn more about how to use keywords and formatting your webpages.
Write at least 30 pages of content. Don’t worry about having to write scientifically or to be a good writer. Just write the way you talk to people. Explain things like how muscles work, how massage works. It is also a good exercise to write articles like that to help you when you do speak with clients and potential clients.
Look for other ways to have your website bring you income. Promoting other products where you get a percentage of the sale is called affiliate marketing. There are many good companies and products that are really complimentary to a massage business. I promote the Theracane, Traumeel and Books through www.amazon.com and also a stretching program. I also use Google Adsense on some of my top traffic pages for miscellaneous keywords like muscle spasm, muscle tension. You don’t want to use Adsense on your services page or home page where your most wanted response is to get people to call for an appointment or sign up for your email newsletter.
Email newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with clients and potential clients educating them as to the benefits of massage, how and what massage can be used for. Clients coming in for back pain may not realize that massage can help their plantar fasciaitis too. You can also use the newsletter to announce special offers and to get people to ask you questions about what they need.
Your website needs what is called an xml sitemap on it. This is a special file that you can get created with free software or it comes automatically with Site Build it! or you can install it easily on a wordpress blog. This special file will be updated whenever you add a new page or change a page or rebuild a page. You then submit your xml sitemap to the various search engines. Just submitting your url doesn’t do much anymore because of the incredible number of websites out there all competing for listings. Here is more on (from one of my other sites) how to submit your xml sitemap to search engines.
Have your contact info on every page – phone number or contact form so that people don’t have to hunt around for it when they are ready to call or make an appointment.
Use twitter to place a feed on your homepage and/or appointment page to let people know that you have a last minute opening or to let people know your schedule each day or each week.
Get your site listed in the Google Local Results. When you do a search for massage, your city there is usually a section at the top of Google that says ‘Local results’. Just click on it to get a list of the full results and then at the bottom click on add your business.
Your website is an interactive tool to engage potential clients and educate them but also to find out what they need or are looking for. Having statistics is usually a regular service provided by webhosts. It will tell you each day how many people came to your site and what keywords they did use. You can take advantage of that and use that info to provide more info on that topic. You can find out what people want to know more about. Giving that to them is all part of the process of building trust with viewers of your website.

You get all of this information and the complete tools to make this all happen with Site Build it! I have yet to find any webhost or website service that teaches you all of this and provides the tools for making it happen. They have special software to help you brainstorm keywords and plan your site. They automatically create an xml sitemap on your site and update it at your request. They have a system that you can collect people’s email addresses and create an email newsletter. They teach you how to write for the internet and how to research keywords to writer about. They teach you how to research and find affiliate programs and also integrate other streams of income into your website. You can also learn about how to create a website on another topic and create a niche for yourself and another income stream. All this and they haven’t raised their rates since I began in about 2002 with them and they keep updating their tools and resources every day. If you can’t figure something out you can find more help in the forums.

Purchasing a Site Build it! website building system is an investment in your business. Let me know if you have any questions or if you want me to take a look at your current website and give you some feedback on how you can get it working for you. If you need more help you can also take an online class with SBI! to help you every step of the way.