A practitioner’s website- part 1 is a post where I talk about hiring someone to build and maintain your website for you.
Today I want to talk to you about the other option- building and maintaining your website all by yourself.
So another title for this post would be A Practitioner’s Website- Part 2.

Your spot on the web
As I mentioned at the beginning of part 1, having a website for your clinic is very important.
People hear a name, they Google it and try to find as much information as possible about that name, especially if they would like to get treatments from him.

OK.
So we know we need a spot to call our own.
What do we need?

Blog me baby one more time
Having a blog is a wonderful way to have our own place on the web.
You can do almost everything today with a blog platform, and in the examples I will give you here- it’s all there for you to start applying for the wonderful price of $0.00!
Just because there are a lot (and I mean A LOT) of blogs on the web, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one.
It does mean you should try to do it in a different way than others.

1. Blogger or Wordpress: these are 2 wonderfully easy platforms that I suggest to start from. Of course there are others, but these are so simple it’s almost a crime not to use them.
Blogger is powered by Google, therefore Google likes it. Wordpress is very Google friendly, so you don’t need to worry about that.
Both are simple, free and in less than 5 minutes you will have a blog in which you can add a text, links, photos, various gadgets and so on. Both have various themes to choose from and you control everything.

2. Content: one of the important things to remember once having a website, or a blog in this case, is a simple rule: “content is king”.
You need to have good content on your website, content that will bring you traffic (readers), content that will eventually bring you patients! The more relevant to your niche content you have, the more you will climb on Google’s search pages.

3. SEO: the next points I will talk about are all about SEO. There are people who make their living from SEO, I’m not suggesting you should become one. But there are basic things that you need to learn in order to be able to do at least a bit of SEO on your own.
The main website that needs to like you is Google. Why? Because it’s the most popular search engine in the world. Here are a number of ways for Google to like you…

4. Links: links, links, links, and lots of them! Your website should have a blogroll or a list of links, and it would be a very good thing if the websites you link to will have a link back to you. Remember that the links should be placed in websites that are on the same subject as yours. When someone links to your website, make sure they have a link that works.

5. Articles: places like ezine are not only a great source of links but also a great place to get exposure for yourself and for your website. Use it.

6. Key phrases:when writing your content, remember to use key phrases that will help you climb up the search result page. One key phrase that comes to mind- “Chinese medicine”. Be careful not to over use the key phrase in one article, Google is known for punishing people for over using key phrases just to get better results….

7. Forums: find forums that are about the subject of Chinese Medicine, or alternative health and so on. Try to answer questions as best you can, but not only to get patients. By answering questions and helping others you can create a good name for yourself. People like it when others help them without expecting anything in return- especially on the Internet. Being generous is important here.

8. Statistics: you need to know how many people entered your website a day, which are the most popular articles, how many are from around your hometown and so on. I use Google Analytics, I find it easy to use and fairly accurate. Many people use Alexa, but it is a widely known fact by now that Alexa isn’t accurate at all.
Stats are important when you want to start having affiliate programs on your website, if you want to write sponsored reviews on various products, or if you want to have ads on your website, such as AdSense and Text Ads Link to name 2 of many options.

9. AdWords: another important tool by Google. AdWords is a good way for you to market yourself on the web. You choose the words you want your ad to appear, you also add a link that can be a link to an article that you want to promote and it’s another way to get exposure.
A word of caution: it’s very easy to spend a lot of money on AdWords so be extremely careful with the amounts you set for yourself.
This can a a wonderful way to generate traffic to your website.
You should also consider Facebook, works some what the same way. I haven’t tried it (yet), but I see it more and more.

Please remember
You need to invest time and energy when you do this on your own.
You also need patience.
Sometimes these are good enough reasons to let someone do this whole thing for you.
It’s best to consider both options and decide after having most facts in hand.

Over to you
Of course, this is a very basic list of things.
If you have more ideas, more things that you think are important, by all means- write them down!
We would all benefit from it.