Massage therapy has a wide range of uses from soothing injuries and boosting blood flow to reducing stress and relieving pain. It’s also one of the most popular small business choices in many locations around the UK.
But how do you attract new customers and raise your profile in your local area?
While social media sites like Facebook can be a great choice, nothing works better than building an attractive website that ranks highly in local listings. Here’s our quick guide to getting the basics right.
1. Planning and design choices
The biggest mistake most businesses make when creating a website is jumping straight in and throwing content up immediately. You should take your time and plan your approach. Ask important questions such as:
- Who is this site aimed at? Understanding your audience is key when creating any content. For example, your massage business might be focused on pregnant women or relief from sports injuries for amateur athletes. Your content needs to be tailored for them and not simply generic.
- What do I want it to achieve? The primary reason for creating a website is to attract new clients. But a website is also great for building trust and authority which are both important if you provide therapeutic services.
- What elements do I need to include? This goes beyond simple services and the about us page and should cover everything from the colour scheme, layout, branding and language to the images or videos that you want to include.
Our top tip: One of the key design choices for all websites nowadays is making sure that you have a template that works for a wide range of different devices. More than half of people access information from the internet through their mobile phones so you need to pick a design that looks attractive on a smaller screen. Check out our post on why mobile design matters.
The better you plan and visualise your new massage therapy website, the easier it will be to put together and maintain.
2. Choose the right images
Images and videos make a big difference in how engaging your website will look and whether visitors take that additional step and call you to make an appointment. The good news is that there are plenty of sites like Canva where you can sign up for a small monthly fee and access professional images in a whole range of categories including massage.
One mistake that we often see on websites is images that are pixelated or poorly taken. If you are planning to use photos of yourself providing massage, then it pays to hire a professional photographer who knows what they are doing. The extra one-off cost is well worth the money.
3. Keep it simple
Another issue we often see with websites is content that is far too long and over-complicated. There can be hundreds of words of text and lots of different ideas all pushed onto one service page. This is often driven by a desire to include keywords and rank highly in search engines.
While this is important, so is making sure that anyone visiting your site can see what services you offer and how they can book an appointment.
Our top tip: Avoid unnecessary waffle and keep your website easy to navigate. For a small business, all you need is a home page, about us, services (types of massage and other things you provide) and a contact or booking page. Over-complicated navigation and too much text will just frustrate your visitor and may even put them off from booking an appointment.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t include detailed content. But it needs to be relevant and important to the person visiting the site. Ideally, you should be looking to outline the type of massage that you provide, what its benefits are, what qualifications you have and what happens during a typical session. Check out our guide on the top tips for creating engaging content for therapists.
4. Focus on local SEO
SEO can be a complicated business. Most people think that it’s all about keywords but it’s so much more than that. Things that affect your ranking on search engines also include how quickly your site downloads, the number of people who link to you and, for many businesses, the location where you are operating.
If you search for a service like a massage therapist on Google, on the first page of the results you’ll see a map with pins in it identifying local businesses. Below that will probably be a few standard entries for businesses in your area. The reason for focusing on local SEO is that you want to be on that first page – most people searching will only view this and not click on other pages.
The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do to make yourself more visible online. Check out our post on how locally focused optimisation can boost your client base.
5. Add a blog
Adding a blog to your website does a couple of things. First of all, it allows you to target certain keywords and hopefully rank for them on search engines like Google and Bing. Secondly, it allows you to expand your service pages and engage potential customers in different ways. It’s a great way to boost your authority and gain trust.
While your service pages should be straight to the point, your blog posts can explore a wide range of subjects in more detail. Check out our post on the benefits of blogging regularly here.
3 great reasons to partner with healthhosts.com
If you’re thinking of creating a new website or redesigning an existing one, it pays to partner with a team that understands your needs. At healthhosts.com, we work closely with a wide range of different therapists to help them develop cutting-edge sites that draw in more clients.
- We’ve got more than 20 years of experience helping therapeutic businesses of all types.
- We offer a range of different web design and reliable hosting services that act as a one-stop shop for all your requirements.
- All our sites are built with search engine optimisation in mind making it easier for you to get noticed online.
Want to find out more? Contact us today to book a consultation call and talk to our professional team.
