Nearly everybody in the world is online and they are actively searching to find the best products and services for their wants and needs.  Where once the advice of friends and family was enough for a referral, now it is taken politely and followed by a some online detective work themselves.

As a practicing physiotherapist himself our Managing Director Glenn Ruscoe developed a personal business website at www.glennruscoe.physio.

The website was built through the Website Builder and Hosting package available at www.dot.physio, where .physio domains can be registered.  Using a pre-loaded template Glenn simply clicked and dragged in his photos and text.  And within a few hours the site was online for the world to see.

Whilst it is lovely to have your own website, getting the structure and content right for it to become a patient generating machine requires some very specific strategies. You have all of 8 seconds to grab their attention to convince them to read on.  So it has to be good and it has to be about them.

Read that last bit again, “It has to be about them”.  Unless they can see that you can help them, they will switch off in droves. As tempting as it is to talk about yourself, and how clever you are, you must resist.  Talk about them.

If you go to Glenn’ site we would like to point out 8 essential strategies that he is using on the front page to facilitate a new patient:

  1. High quality professional images that are relevant and sparse (not too many of them).  Your goal is to get them to read; not admire the beauty of your site.
  2. A niche service.  Sure you can do lots of things but for marketing purposes target just one area. In Glenn’s case it is back pain.  On the About page you will see lots of other way’s Glenn can help people.
  3. A headline that addresses your niche directly.  The best way to do this is to aim to turn some people away, so that the people you want are convinced it is for them.  Glenn’s site is for people with back pain, not sports injuries or continence problems.
  4. A headline that also addresses their problem.  In Glenn’s case it is back pain, but it is also about avoiding surgery and drugs, and getting relief quickly.  By comparing himself to the market leading Medical profession Glenn is positioning himself as an alternative.  Remember people don’t know that they are looking for physiotherapy, they are too focused on fixing their back pain.
  5. The first piece of text explain how you can help.  Resist the urge to talk about yourself.  Address their concerns and how you can help them.  On another page you can talk all about your qualifications, courses attended and experience.
  6. Give away something for free to delight them and maybe even create some indebtedness.  In this case it is information in the form of a downloadable book.  Of course that information could have been on just another webpage, but when packaged up as a book it appears to be more valuable.
  7. A means to connect.  Notice that the capacity to make an appointment is there, but so too other options such as getting more information. The process of attracting patients needs to be seductive and if you go in too strong too early with “Make an Appointment Now” you may scare them off.  Glenn has even put in an email contact and offer for a personal phone call to progress them through the sales process.
  8. A final call to action.  You have to tell them what you want them to do otherwise they’ll likely just wander off somewhere else.

With clever use of marketing strategies your personal business website has the potential to become a patient generating machine.  But just as you would with a patient, continually re-assess and adjust your strategy accordingly.  The process is one of continual refinement.