Having a nice expensive website is nice but it doesn’t do you any good if Google and the other search engines are not able to find your site. To get the best results you need to have you site on the first page of Google and other search engines as most people don’t go beyond the first few pages of results.
There are many things you need to do to make that happen. You or your website hosting company or designer can do some of these things:
First choose your domain name based on the keywords that people will be searching for you through. You domain name should be some combination of your unique selling proposition - what you do or what benefit sets you aside from other massage therapists out there. Usually some combination of the keywords -massage, your city are what will work best.
Create about 30 pages or more using other keywords that people may be interested in or searching for.
Write pages on each technique or method you use such as deep tissue, cranial sacral therapy or other therapies. Most people don’t have a clue what the difference is and may not even care for the most part as long as you can get the job done.
Write articles on the various diseases and conditions that you work with like fibromyalgia, stress, sports injuries or whatever. Site resources and research to validate what you are saying. Use the pathology section or the medical massage guides I am developing on www.thebodyworker.com
Create an xml sitemap for your site. You can just do a search for create xml google sitemap and use the software you find. I have used this http://gsitecrawler.com/ .
Submit that xml sitemap to the search engines as I have explained here.
Create your pages using file names, keywords and descriptions that match your keywords. Here is more information on how to do that.
If you are in a competitive area and still aren’t at the top of the search engines, you can work to get backlinks to your site using one of these methods I outline at www.workless-playmore.com
Once you get your site to the top of the search engines getting people to click on it and make the call to become a client or get more information is a whole other story. That is where the writing of content comes into play. The content you write about will show that you are an expert in massage. Don’t worry if you are not a writer. Just start writing down all of the things you would say to people on the phone or in sessions.
Use Make Your Words sell as I mentioned the other day to help you learn to write sales copy.
It does take a fair amount of work to set up your website and to write an article or two a week, but once it is set up all you need to do is to send out a email newsletter once in awhile (as often as you can) and write a few short articles a month. It is the best form of targeted marketing because people are looking for massage already. When they find your site on their own they also are more open because you haven’t done any advertising to get them there. People come into advertising knowing that there is a catch and are skeptical. When they find you themselves on the top results of Google they have more reason to believe that you are a trustworthy and reliable massage therapist as you have taken the time and made the investment in creating a website that gets found!
These people are already interested in massage and the chances of them calling increase signficantly compared to just sending out mailers blindly to people who have never had a massage or are even interested in it.
All of these things I am talking about I learned from using Site Build it! to build my website. They also have more tools and software that work behind the scenes to get your website found. They have an action guide that teaches you every step of the way how to take your massage business online and even teach you how to make money from the website itself.
There are other hosting companies and package websites that you can use and do the same things that I mentioned here, but unless you already are a programmer or have lots of website creating experience, I would surmise that it will take you longer to succeed. To learn more about Site Build it! and what it can do for you you can read more at their page on Selling your Services online. Or if you have any questions please contact me or one of the people at Sitebuildit! (you can email them or call them).
Learning how to write and talk about your massage practice is one of the biggest challenges for massage therapists. Most just want to do massage and don’t want to or think that they can create websites and marketing materials for their massage practice. The thing is that without doing some of these things to promote your massage practice, you won’t have any people to give those massages too! Marketing is just a very simple matter of telling people what you do and what massage can do so they can decide if it is for them.
One of the best things I have ever read on the whole topic of marketing is “Make Your Words Sell”. It is a free Ebook put out by Ken Evoy of Site build it! It is quite a long ebook but well worth the read. Every section I read I couldn’t wait to implement some of the things on my websites.
The biggest revelation I got from the ebook is about using the benefits of massage and learning to create a sales message from those benefits. OK you are cringing with the word sales in there… You don’t want to be a pushy sales person. You don’t have to be. Sales is just learning to get what you want and what you wand most likely is a massage practice that is booked solid for a few months in advance.
Here is a standard list of the benefits of massage taken from massagetherapy.com.
Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion.
Assist with shorter, easier labor for expectant mothers and shorten maternity hospital stays.
Ease medication dependence.
Enhance immunity by stimulating lymph flow—the body’s natural defense system.
Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.
Help athletes of any level prepare for, and recover from, strenuous workouts.
Improve the condition of the body’s largest organ—the skin.
Increase joint flexibility.
Lessen depression and anxiety.
Promote tissue regeneration, reducing scar tissue and stretch marks.
Pump oxygen and nutrients into tissues and vital organs, improving circulation.
Reduce postsurgery adhesions and swelling.
Reduce spasms and cramping.
Relax and soften injured, tired, and overused muscles.
Release endorphins—amino acids that work as the body’s natural painkiller.
Relieve migraine pain.
Well their list of the benefits of massage is a little better than most but they still are not really getting to what the real benefits of massage are.
Let’s take them one by one:
“Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion”…… So What? Who cares? Why would anyone want to improve range of motion?
Only someone with low back pain would care about relieving it. Actually most people in pain use the reasoning…it will go away soon - or I am just getting old so I have to live with it. Not many people know anything about how the range of motion can influence back pain or even know why they need their rom improved. I would guess that many don’t even know that their rom is limited.
Why do people want to be out of pain? To be more productive. To be happier. To enjoy their families more.
That is the true benefit of reducing back pain and increasing the range of motion.
So when you get down to the real benefit of massage you can talk about that in your writing for your website, brochures and other marketing materials.
“Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.” So What???
What would it mean for them? Why would they want their muscles stretched or exercised?
The thing is you have to find out what the benefits of YOUR massage services are - not just these standard benefits. What makes your massage stand out from everyone elses? Why do people come to you in the first place.
You can read more about how to Make your words sell and to turn the benefits of massage into selling points for your massage practice.
One of the first steps in creating your marketing plan for your massage business is figuring out why you do massage? For what purpose?
In the book “The Answer” by John Assaraf and Murray Smith they ask the following questions:
What does success look like to me?
What is it I love to do that lies at the heart of my dream business/job?
What feelings do I want to experience as a result of my dream business? Because of my dream business I get to feel _____________________
Because of my dream business, I arrive at the end of the day feeling________________________
Why did you become a massage therapist? Some come into the field wanting to help others because massage has helped them in some way. Or people want to help others because it feels good to help others. Some may be drawn to massage because it is a much more meaningful type of work. Whatever your reasons for becoming a massage therapist - there are always deeper reasons for becoming a massage therapist that you may or may not be conscious of. Some may come to the field just for the prospect of making a lot of money.
Helping in particular is one of those things that usually has a much deeper reason for wanting to help others. Knowing your motivations and needs can be helpful in creating your marketing plan as well as helping you to be a more effective massage therapist.
In “Becoming a Helper” by Gerald Corey there is a long list of possible reasons why people may think they want to help. Some of those are:
the need to make an impact- wanting to make the world a better place, may want to know that they are important.
the need to care for others - When people are busy caring for others they don’t have anyone attending to their needs and they never learn to ask for what they do need.
the need to be needed - it becomes rewarding to have clients say they feel better because of the help you have given them. It isn’t wrong to be needed but when you must feel needed by your clients it can influence your work negatively.
the need to provide answers - to be looked up to as an expert and know the answers to people’s problems
While having these needs is normal and a part of being human, knowing more about what feeling you are wanting to create to fulfill these needs can help you make business decisions and personal life decisions based on those needs.
So back to the question asked in the book “The Answer” - What feelings do you want to experience as a result of being in business or working as a massage therapist?
What meaning does doing massage have for you? What do you want to get out of it? What will it provide for you?
What most people want is of course some form of love, attention and appreciation.
Another of the things is of course a nice living. We do need money to live on. It can provide security and money for you to pursue your dreams.
When you know that and honor that need the relief you can get from knowing that can free up more energy to help you create that exact thing for yourself. It can also help to show you just what your limited beliefs are that keep you from having what you do want.
Why are you in business? Why are you doing what you are doing?
One of the biggest controversies in the massage profession has to do with the licensing and regulation of massage therapy. There are 38 states in the US that require massage therapists to have some type of licensing. Each state differs in the amount of education, classes and definitions of massage therapy which makes it very confusing to understand. The non-licensed states also have varying requirement to practice massage with the biggest problem in CA where each city has different requirements.
The groups that advocate licensing state that the reasons for wanting licensing are to protect the public from harm, create more professional standards of education, reduce the number of prostitutes doing massage to name a few. The thing is that there is no proof that massage has caused significant harm to people. Keith Grant has done an initial survey of medline on the cases of harm that are done to massage clients. How much harm can be done in doing massage? What is the definition of harm? Is it harmful to have a massage therapist who says they are doing deep tissue massage when it is really swedish massage? Is it harmful when a client leaves feeling more sore than when they came in? Will any amount of education really influence the massage therapists skills and reduce the ability to do harm?
If there were a high degree of harm being done, wouldn’t our liability insurance rates reflect that? And how much harm do over the counter drugs do? I just recently had a friend who had excruciating back and abdominal pain for over a year and it turns out it was an over the counter drug causing it. Is that harmful?
What list of side effects could be created to inform the public and teach the public to take responsibility for what happens in their massage?
The number of hours of education varies greatly as well as the topics of courses. I for one started in 1987 doing massage after having 250 hours of massage school. I was the last year of students to become a massage therapist at that number of hours. The number of hours of training was going up to 500 hours in a few months and for no reason at all as far as I could see - no testing to see if it was needed… no research…no case studies, no statistics that showed that having more education would help create a more successful massage therapist. The one thing I did notice was that once they did raise the number of hours, the massage schools increased their hours of training to exceed that 500 hours so that they could get more grant and loan funding for students. I would love to see if the number of students/graduates jumped at that exact time! The thing is that we have no information on what it does really take to be a successful massage therapist. It is more than just doing a good massage. You also have to be a business person. But massage can be learned in a basic 100 hour massage class. Keith Grant also has some information on that topic in his white paper “Issues in Massage Governance” (pdf). He also noticed the same coincidental increase in the number of hours and the number of grants/loans. He also talks about how people learn and sites that people learn better in smaller training programs and the preferred method is apprenticeship programs. There are a few states that do allow apprenticeship programs to be counted as massage training - WA State being one of them. It was actually the whole reason I started this website -www.thebodyworker.com but the thing is that you can only teach one student at a time unless you want to make it into a formal school, which doesn’t make it profitable.
This is the only information that I have seen that gives any insight into the issues that we are dealing with. If there are some other studies, information, proof that more hours of education are needed to be a successful massage therapist then I would love to see it.
CA also has the highest number of massage therapists despite them having this licensing problem. I think that most can become a massage therapist with 100 or 250 hours of training - correct me if I am wrong. So is it the number of hours of training that make a successful massage therapist?
The thing is that when people hear that after taking 1000 hour training classes I think that they somehow think it to mean that they didn’t need to take that many hours or that it is implied that they aren’t knowledgable or that more training is not beneficial. It could be beneficial to people who take it but it is not needed to be a successful massage therapist - that is all that it is saying.
The idea that massage therapists need all this medical training etc is really not true. It doesn’t mean that it could help to have extra classes and training. It does not mean that more training can give you more confidence and skills but they are just not needed to do a basic relaxation massage which is also very therapeutic. After 20 years of doing massage and learning structural integration, triggerpoint therapy and many other things I actually am going back to studying the affects of touch on healing. I once thought as an overzealous massage student that if everyone got a massage once a week (now I would say 3 times a week!) there would be world peace and now I would add - a great reduction in the number of diseases and health conditions that are on the rise.
So I actually don’t care much about licensing these days anymore despite this long post. I just write to hopefully inform someone and to inspire others to seek the truth. I am more than open to hearing any more on this topic, but quite frankly - I just want to do massage! (and write about it!) I sometimes get tweaked and think I should join AMTA or get ABMP more involved especially when I think about the state of insurance billing for massage therapists here in WA State - which talk about a mess! That’s a whole other category here.
So do you think you could do a really great massage just having 100 hours of training just on doing massage? I have lots of friends who have that number of hours because it used to be that number a long time ago. They are all still in business but it seems the more recent grads with 1000 hours can’t seem to make it. What does it take to be a successful massage therapist? Is it the number of hours of training? Is it some secret method? Is it just about the person and who they are and what they want in their lives?
Having a website for your massage business is one of the most important and easiest thing you can do to create a steady supply of clients for your massage business. With todays economy challenges, your ability to find clients depends more and more on how you differentiate your business and educating clients. One of the best ways to do that is by using a website and not just any old website - it has to be one that is content and information driven so that you can connect with your visitors and build their trust.
You can also find out how many people are actually searching for massage in your area by using Searchit!( just follow the directions and play with it a bit as it is a bit confusing at first) and using the first search brainstorming and then choosing the Google Keyword tool, the US Yahoo Keyword selector tool and the wordtracker search. Like ’seattle massage’ shows
A website is one of your best methods of finding new clients because when they are searching for ‘massage your city’ they are already interested in massage therapy. They most likely already know that they want a massage and understand the value of massage or else they wouldn’t be looking for one. What they are looking for also is a solution to their problem and when they find your website that informs them of a solution to their problem you will get people coming to you rather than having to go door to door or doing direct mail pieces that are just going out to random people who may or may not be even interested in massage let alone want to get a massage. People who are searching for massage don’t have to be convinced that massage is what they need. They just have to find your website informative and professional.
To get found by a search engine there are many things you need to do with a website. If search engines and especially Google can’t find your website it isn’t doing anyone any good. To begin with you need to choose a domain name that reflects what you do and where you do it - like my clinic site www.massageseattle.net . Naming a website with those most often sought after keywords makes it easier for search engines and people to tell what you offer. Other names could work but you will need to put more into it to get found for your main keywords which will most likely be your city and the word massage.
Creating pages on your site using more keywords that people are searching for most often is the next step. The keywords are what make the internet work. Site Build it! will help you research what the best keywords for your domain name and site are with their keyword software called Brainstromit! It goes out and researches how many people are searching for the keywords and then checks to see how many people are using those keywords and determines the profitability potential of each of those keywords so you can then use the best keywords in your pages.
To create a page you choose a keyword such as ‘massage seattle’ and use that keyword in the metatags (keywords and description and title and file name of the page.) SBI! explains it all and will even help you create better pages using their page analyzer but if you are using other software you can do some of the same thing. Just start with naming the file name with the keyword -www.massageseattle.net/massage-seattle.html -the massage-seattle.html is the file name. Next put the keywords in the first few words of the Title of the page and in the keyword section, the description section and also in the headline of your page. That is one of the things that search engines look for. Also putting the keyword in a link from the page can help but may be more difficult to do sometimes.
So start with creating a basic 8 page or so website with all of the basic information like your rates and services, location and contact information as well as a bio about you and your work etc. This will be sort of like your basic calling card type of site. Once you get that information on there you can start putting your website address on all of your mailings and business cards as well as any signs around your office etc. Creating this basic site may be enough to even get you to the top of the search engines if you are in a small enough town.
If you are in a larger town where there are many more massage therapists competing for the top search engine results and there are many massage therapists to choose from the next thing you need to do is to use the website to educate potential clients about massage and what it is that you do. This is done by writing short articles on many various topics about massage. It doesn’t have to be a term paper or you don’t even have to know how to write. You just have to start writing down all of the things that you usually say to people when you are talking to them on the phone or in person. You can write about various diseases and conditions by going to the pathology and massage guide sections on my site www.thebodyworker.com and reading some of the best websites and articles on the topic and using that information for an article. Writing articles you can also write about a topic that you know a lot about or deal with most often in clients. Like I somehow always get people with headaches, computer stress and fibromyalgia. Even though I don’t actually think of these as my specialty, they are topics I have researched a lot in order to be able to work with these people more. As I wrote in my post a few days ago in “The Answer” - choosing a specialty or differentiating yourself from others will give you a path or direction for your marketing efforts. If you don’t differentiate your service the only thing you have to differentiate yourself from others is price and prices will always be lower by someone else. Working for less money than you need to make is one of the surest ways to burnout.
I only recently started building my massage practice again this month. I was only working 2 days a week for the past 2 years or so and I recently decided to add a 3rd day. My website always got me at least one call a week but for the past 3 or 4 weeks since I have been adding articles, I have been getting 4-5 calls a week. I at first thought it would take me 3-4 months to build that extra day and was almost looking forward to still having a free day during the summer (if it ever will get here already!) but now I am already booked for the next 2 weeks. My goal is to be booked a few months out like Paul Ingram of Vancouvermassage.ca. Paul’s main page says this:
Unfortunately, I am unable to offer my services to new patients. I no longer maintain a waiting list, because the wait is too long. However, my telephone consultation service is still available, and my tutorials published on SaveYourself.ca are valuable resources which, in many cases, are more useful than an office visit.
His article writing has been an inspiration. Even though I know that this is the basic premise of SBI! it can be done using any hosting if you know how to do all of the above search engine optimization.
My other site www.workless-playmore.com actually explains everything you need to do to get your website found by search engines and what you need to do to get the clicks and convert those potential clients into actual paying clients.
