Complementary Therapists > Online Marketing

Online Marketing for Holistic and Complementary Therapies

Online marketing is playing an increasingly important part of any serious marketing effort. Nowadays the vast majority of your potential clients are searching the Web for the solution to their difficulties. Your clients are using their computers, phones and other electronic devices to search for providers of complementary and holistic therapies.

If you are serious about your marketing efforts for your holistic practice then the development of a meaningful online presence is an absolute must. Any online presence should be multifaceted and deeply rooted. What this means in practice is that

(1) you should register your services with the many free directories that are out there
(2) develop a space on the web that is solely dedicated to you and your services.

To many people the latter means building their own website, however we always caution potential clients against that.

Why You Should think Twice Before Developing a Dedicated Website?

Superficially there are a number of attractions to having your own site;

you get to pick a name that you like (if the one you want is available).
you have total control over the look and feel of the site
it opens up a window into the world of the Internet
you will get lots of visitors to your site
some site visitors will become clients

This is all very fine in theory but the realities are usually profoundly different. We are constantly coming across complementary and holistic therapists that have paid very significant sums of money to have their websites created, pay high ongoing hosting and maintenance charges to their webmasters, and yet receive almost no site visitors.

Why is this? In our experience it is because quite often the practitioner and his or her webmaster lose sight of the reason for having a website in the first place.

Your website is a marketing tool just like your poster that you tacked on to the notice board in your local Centra or Superquinn.

Quite rightly you put your best design efforts into your poster so that it will catch the eye of potential clients. But you also know that if you leave it in the boot of you car then no client will ever see it so your design efforts will go to waste.

To avoid that you make the effort to go to the supermarket and place it in the most prominent position available. Then you hope that a potential client will see it, like what they see and read, and then contact you to book a therapy session.

A Website is Just Like That Poster

The cardinal error made by therapists and their web designers is that they put all their efforts into creating a visually attractive site but put hardly any thought or effort into how they will get people to see the site. In fairness, not all web designers are guilty of this but a frighteningly high proportion know very little about how to get Google interested in their websites. In most cases their websites might as well be in the boot of the car with the posters.

Creating a successful website involves two distinct aspects 1) creative design, and 2) search engine optimisation - or SEO. The latter is the the expertise and techniques used to get the website up the search engine rankings. The ultimate aim is to have the website appear on the first page of Google search results for relevant search terms. Using the horse & cart analogy - SEO is the horse without which, the Website design cart will go nowhere.

Very few people are experts in both disciplines. At Complementary-Therapists.com we are not world-beaters when it comes to design but we do know a thing or two about getting found by Google (SEO).

Boutique Listings on Complementary-Therapists.com Rank in the Top Ten

We have over ten years Internet experience and have achieved high rankings in a number of disparate areas. While Complementary-Therapists.com has been around for a couple of years it is only now that we can have absolute confidence in our ability to achieve and sustain high rankings.

Without giving away any trade secrets the passage of time is an important element in what we do. Now we are totally confident of the claims that we make about rankings. Every therapist listing in our directory appears in the top ten Google search results for targeted search terms.

Our listings are hand crafted to meet the specific needs of our listed therapists. That's what we mean by boutique. Here are some screen shots of sample listings for just a few of our clients. Try searching for some of the terms yourself.

The following is a comparison between building a dedicated website and taking out a boutique listing on this site. But before that we should say a few words about the free website services that are available out there - don't waste your time. There are a number of reasons why we say that, but the main one is that they simply don't rank with Google. Without high rankings you won't get any clients visiting your website.

Category	Dedicated Website	Our Boutique Listings
Initial Set-up Cost	Estimated minimum of €400 and at that cost it almost certainly wont be optimised adequately for Google	~~€250~~ €150
Upfront Payment	Usually required	None
Annual Maintenance Cost	Probably not less than €100	€50
Charge for changes to site / listing	Most web developers charge by the hour so expect to pay a minimum of €30 per hour every time you want a change made.	FREE
Google Rankings	Can be hit or miss and more often it's miss	Top ten or you have nothing to pay
Free Notice Board	Not applicable	Yes
Accepts online payments for Gift Certificates	Yes but this usually drives the costs up further	Yes (for minimal extra cost)
Free after-sales Marketing Advice	No	Yes

Online Marketing Summary

Anyone that is serious about marketing should have a meaningful presence on the Internet as a core part of their marketing mix. By not having an effective Web presence you are definitely missing out on real opportunities to acquire new clients. However it is simply not enough to put up a website. Your website must be created in such a way that it achieves the high Google rankings for your chosen search terms.

By taking out a listing with us you will have a meaningful web presence and at the very affordable cost of just ~~€250~~ €150 . And after the first year the annual cost tumbles to just €50, or less than 14 cents per day. Consider this an investment in your practice that will pay for itself many times over.

We promise to make the listing process as simple as possible for you without drowning you in technical jargon. Don't delay - contact us today to book your listing.

Still not sure? Then why not try our short interactive Q & A Survey