To attract visitors to your website, follow one or more of the following suggestions:
- Email Signatures: If you haven't done so yet, be sure to set-up your email signature to include a link to your website. Rather than a boring www.yoursite.com. You may want to spice your signature up. For example, your signature may say something like, "Find Out if Acupuncture Can Help You, visit yoursite.com"
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the goal of SEO is to make a website come up higher in the search results of major search engines. Each major search engine has a unique way of determining the importance of a given website. Some search engines focus on content or verbiage. Some review Meta Tags to identify who and what a web site's business is. Most engines use a combination of Meta Tags, content, link popularity, click popularity and longevity to determine a site's ranking. The procedure of website optimization ensures that a website has all of the necessary ranking criteria to appeal to individual search engine needs. As an acupuncturist you will want to reach potential patients who are searching for terms related to your name, your practice, your geographic region, as well illnesses or conditions that you treat. For example, if you are located in Seattle, Washington and specialize in pain management, you may want to do the following:
- Have a page titled "Acupuncture for Pain Management by Seattle Washington Acupuncturist"
- Include meta keywords and descriptions that relate to pain management (pain management, back ache, acute pain, chronic pain, Head, Neck, Shoulder & Back Pain, Carpal Tunnel, Fibromyalgia, Sciatica, Arthritis)
- Then you will need to be mindful of how you write the information on your webpage, ensuring that keywords and phrases appear two times per paragraph. Also you will keep in mind that headings, titles and links should incorporate keywords. You will want to limit yourself to two or three key words/keyword phrases per page.
- You must absolutely avoid any tactics that search engines may consider spam!!!!
These are just a few ways to improve your search engine rankings:
- Promote Website on Print Collateral: Display your website address on ALL of your marketing materials, including business cards, patient intake forms, brochures, letterheads and anything else that you give to the public.
- Promote Your Site on Several Industry Specific Sites: Acufinder.com, Acupuncture.com, and Acusites.com to name a few, as well as more general sites Google and Yahoo.
- Promote Your Site at industry events and talks: When introducing yourself to groups, you can end your introduction with something like, "To learn more about acupuncture and Chinese medicine, please visit me at www.yoursite.com". OR; "For access to full notes from this presentation, please visit my site at www.yoursite.com."
- Email Marketing: E-Newsletters and direct-email campaigns are an excellent way to boost website traffic. A successful email campaign requires action oriented copy and a well-targeted email list. It's important when implementing an email campaign that you adhere to anti spam laws. To build your email list you can do the following:
- Ask all of your patients for their email addresses. Also ask it they know of two others who would be interested in receiving emails with health tips and advice relating to acupuncture or Chinese medicine.
- Invite people to sign up for your newsletter from the homepage of your site
- Invite people to sign up for your newsletter in your e-signature
- Promote your newsletter online and on the websites of complimentary businesses (herbalists, massage therapists, or. . . )
- Sticky Content: A truly successful acupuncture site is "sticky". In other words, it's has such great content that visitors "stick" to it. Sticky behavior includes visiting a web site again and again, thoroughly reading a web site, rather than landing on the homepage and leaving, telling friends about the web site, and bookmarking the web site. Content managed web sites are best for this in terms of programming and maintenance. So, how does an acupuncturist make his/her site sticky? Easy. . . regularly publish informative, interesting and useful articles about acupuncture and Chinese medicine. You can write articles yourself, you can find free articles online at various sources, and you can ask colleagues in non-competing geographic regions if they are willing to provide you with free articles (that you take credit for) in exchange for you doing the same for them. Another thing that you can do is invite visitors to send you questions, then post answers to their questions on your website. Or you can hire a professional service to help you find free acupuncture related articles.
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About the Author:
Written by Monique Danielle, owner of Acusites.com -- Custom web design by a seasoned professional for as low as $150.
