Creating a digital presence is a major project for anyone, but in single weekend UK physiotherapist Darren Brown registered a domain name, created a logo, built a website and integrated his Social Media profiles. When I asked Darren how he managed to achieve all of this he said, “I just followed the instructions”.

Darren is a HIV Physiotherapist who through his eight year passion has become a global authority on all things HIV and physio.  After years of repeated requests for more information from all around the world Darren realised a central location for his resources was required.  Hence the impetus to build a website.

Darren knew that no matter how inherently brilliant the content, a bit of ‘wow factor’ always helps capture eyeballs.  So he opted for the powerful domain www.hiv.physio.  It meets all the criteria of a great brand, being short, memorable, relevant, easy to say and easy to type.  Plus the exact match nature of the keywords ‘hiv’ and ‘physio’ increases the likelihood of the site ranking higher on any search.

Darren also cleverly turned the domain into his logo by placing the word “HIV” above the word “physio” such that the dot of the “i” works as the dot in his domain name.  Plus by using the red of the HIV awareness ribbon for the “HIV” acronym and the clinical blue of the word “physio” he has built a powerful image.  With this attention-grabbing single visual device Darren can say who he is, what he does and where to go for more information.

The website was built through an online program called Squarespace, where beautiful templates are provided so that Darren need only add the text and images.  And by simply connecting the website to his domain name, Darren published his website within hours for the world to see.

The final step was to update his Social Media accounts with the new website information and to utilise his fabulous new logo.  Darren’s Twitter announcement to his followers of his new website using just his logo and the words “I’ve decided to make a website” saw an extraordinary outpouring of delight.

People with HIV can have challenges with functioning in everyday life, and can experience disability due to the presence of HIV, side effects of treatments, or ageing and growing older with HIV.  Physiotherapists are well placed to help manage the functional challenges and disability that can be experienced by people living and ageing with HIV. And thanks to Darren’s outstanding approach of high quality content and clever branding it is likely that many more physiotherapists will learn how they can support people with HIV, and many more people with HIV will learn how physiotherapy can be part of their care.

Darren is an outstanding advocate for the profession and by using the .physio domain extension for his HIV physiotherapy information website he is helping the profession to stand out.