Have an Internet Presence
According to experts:
The Internet is not going away. In fact, from every indication, the Internet will continue to get more pervasive in our lives as time goes on.
Already, 78% of people look to online first when seeking out a professional service. What this means for private practice is that those who know how to create a successful online presence will get the most referrals.
In more practical terms, this means that if you don’t have a successful online presence, you could be missing out on over half of the potential referrals to your practice.
Who can you trust to help?
After working with many companies who offer Internet expertise, I have found that the advice and services of my colleagues, Joe Bavonese and Mel Restum of Uncommon Practices are among the best for those in the healing and helping professions.
Joe and Mel are therapists and Internet gurus, spending many hours to learn and train with the best marketing experts around. Then they adapt this for those of us who have service and helping as our main bywords.
Joe contributed to the chapter about websites in my books and helped make it relevant and very useful. I presented with him at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium a few years ago, to good reviews.
Click here to see their free videos and other web-based services.
Joe and Mel
A few Internet tips from Crisis-Proof Your Practice: Chapter 9
Best tips when registering a domain name
- Shorter is better
- Dot com (.com) is better than dot anything else (.net or .biz)
- Make it easy to spell
- Go for something unique and distinctive so there is no confusion with anyone else
- Use keywords in your domain name (example: counselingsilverspring.com) instead of Lynngrodzki.com
Best general tips to remember include:
- Don’t wait too long to get your website up and running. You needed to do this yesterday. It can be simple and imperfect. It will evolve over time
- Don’t overspend on a fabulous logo or design. While good graphics are nice, they are not what determine conversion (turning website viewers into paying clients).
- Do make it information rich. Add content to your website – articles, assessments, book reviews, anything that would be of value to readers and help you talk about it: “There is a great article about this on my website, why don’t you take a look at it?”
- Do figure out the objective of the website. What do you want readers to do when visiting your website? Phone you? Email? Subscribe to your newsletter? Determine the overall objective and make sure that each page leads the viewer clearly in that direction. Each website also needs a “call to action” – a clear invitation to take the step.
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