The power of the Web increases year on year and today no practitioner can really afford to be without a website. But whether people arriving at your website are browsing, have arrived via a pay per click campaign or have responded via an advertisement, keeping them on that site is important.
When a visitor arrives at your home page they literally spend a few seconds before they decide whether it is of interest to them. If you’ve ever dropped something small whilst on a beach you’ll know how hard it is to find it amongst all the granules of sand. But imagine dropping a small black pebble on a flat white surface. It wouldn’t be very hard to locate. That’s the kind of impression you have to be aiming for as visitor encounters your home page.
The layout of a home page has to be visualised on the basis of a two way communication… the visitor and you. If you started speaking to a stranger and launched into a discourse on eight different subjects then their affinity for you might well lower fairly rapidly. So your text on that home page has to be friendly but sequential, leading them through to a higher interest and affinity for you and your practice.
A common mistake practitioners make is to write a long, technical text on what their therapy is all about. Of course you have to outline the therapy principles or different services available but the key thing is to explain what that means in terms of benefits for the prospective client. For instance telling someone that your form of massage may free up frozen muscle areas and allow slowed lymph circulation to circulate better, is a lot easier than going over the history and development of the massage system used.
VIDEOS
Recent website analysis has shown that sites using video or video spokespeople on their homepages have 40% more visitors remaining on their sites, leading to an increase of new business from the Web of 9%. Below are some links to examples from the States.
http://www.managochiropractic.com/
http://www.demosschiropractic.com/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2857036/best_chiropractic_care_orange_county_ca_92688/
OTHER INCENTIVES
Offering new clients incentives to visit your practice, like discounts on first visits or even a free session can also increase you conversion rates from your site. If you have testimonials from your clients that they will allow you to publish, these too can be a fantastic promotional tool to make that speculative visitor pick up the phone and contact you.
A website design that does not look too busy, is easily followed by the eye and has simple text extolling the benefits of your practice can increase your client base hugely. Harnessing the Web to build a flourishing practice should now be part of any practitioner’s marketing plans and doing so properly will generally lead to expansion.