Recently I have been getting emails by PT’s who have their own website with questions about how to generate website traffic. Some of these PT’s are in private practice or offer physical therapy continuing education courses.  I thought it would be a great idea to answer some of these questions here on the blog.

Basically there are many ways you can drive traffic to your physical therapy website. I won’t go through all of them because there are just too many to cover. However I can give you the 5 most effective ways you can start generating traffic to your website that you can use right away. These tips will help increase exposure to your website online and bring in either potential referrals for your clinic or attendees for your PT ceu course.

SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the most effective and popular ways of getting traffic to your website.  By using the right targeted keywords in your website, it can position your website high on the search engine result pages. This makes it easier for potential visitors to see your website and know more about your PT clinic or ceu course.

You can optimize your website for maximum search by choosing keywords your target audience is typing into Google to find your services. For example, if you are a physical therapist with a focus on pediatrics in the Atlanta GA area then you would optimize your site using local keywords like “Atlanta Pediatric Physical Therapist” or “Pediatric Physical Therapy In Atlanta”.

Having two to three main keyword phrases per page should be enough to start driving the right amount of targeted visitors to your website. Below is a screenshot example of someone typing into Google “Atlanta Pediatric Physical Therapy” and the listed results that come up on the first page. You want to have your private practice be one of the first few results listed so a potential patient referral can stumble onto your site early when doing a search for your services.

Placing your keywords in the right place also plays a vital part in the optimization of your website. The best places for your keywords are in the title tags of your website pages, inserting them into your meta tag keywords and meta tag description of all your pages and most importantly in the content of your website pages.  If you are not sure where all these these things belong or don’t how to optimze your website, then you may have to ask your webmaster.  I do offer in-depth SEO training for physical therapists in the
PT Marketing Academy where I explain how to optimize your website for search in step by step video tutorials.

Now what you don’t want to do is stuff your website with all kinds of unrelated keywords. This hit or miss approach is not good SEO practice and it makes your website look super spammy.  When adding your main keywords to your website content make sure it reads well and that it provides value to your reader. Regardless if you attract visitors through good SEO, if your website content reads like crap then no one is going to stick around to read it.

Email Marketing

Sending email newsletters is a good way to keep your message and personal branding in front of your existing patients or email subscribers. With this type of marketing you are connecting with your audience and building a relationship through valuable content you provide to them. This is the best medium to show your expertise by discussing things related to their functional lives ( i.e injury prevention, back safety, postural awareness, etc ).

Some physical therapy newsletters I have read have strategically placed links to their website articles in the newsletter. This forces you to go back to their website.  This is a great idea because it drives the traffic back to your site and it gives your subscribers a chance to learn more about your PT clinic and the services you offer.

You can also encourage your newsletter subscribers to share your content with their social media community on Facebook and Twitter to drive even more potential traffic. Make sure to provide the right call to action buttons in your newsletter so subscribers can share your content with others.  People may forget to share your content after reading it. So giving them a little nudge from a strategically placed call to action button at the end can help get your content get passed along for others to read.

Social Media

Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube have tons of traffic in them already.  All you need is a virtual pipeline to funnel the targeted traffic from those social media websites to your own.  Below are a few things I have found to be the best way to utilize social media sites and to drive traffic back to your website.

The most effective way to use Social Media:

1. Create discussion groups. Get people talking by creating specific support groups based on the types of patients you see in the clinic. Examples would be groups catering to people dealing with post-op hip replacement, knee replacement, etc. As a PT CEU Instructor, maybe you can create a group around a particular treatment technique used in the clinic and offer case studies to the group. There are many things you can do to get the conversation going and effectively get people to visit your website for more information about you and your services.

2. Provide Q & A sessions for your online communities. By answering questions in your social community you are displaying your expert status in your profession. You will also be looked at as a resource for solid information. That is a good thing! Doing this builds trust and makes people want to learn more about you and your PT practice.

3. Reach out to potential referral makers in your local area ( i.e physicans, surgeons, pain clinics, etc ). The myth is that these types of referral makers do not use social media. Not true at all! They are there in full force looking to connect and create lasting relationships like you and me. So why not connect with these people on social media and offer ways to help improve their patient outcomes. Maybe you can provide an educational inservice at their office for their patients. The goal here is to connect and build a relationship first. Then offer to do something for them initially before asking for the referral.

4. Provide useful and valuable content specifically for your social community and ask them to kindly share your content with others. Articles and video that you create or that you find online that is useful to the community are great ways to build value in your community.

Using these social media tactics consistently will have people wanting to know more about you. This behavior typically drives people to your website to learn more about you.  It has happened to me many times on all of the social media sites I use and is probably one of my best targeted traffic referral source.

Paid Advertising

Pay Per Click or PPC advertising is one of the common methods of advertising a product, company or website. This can also bring a lot of traffic to your website. The only thing is you have to pay for it.

There are some pros and cons when using PPC advertising.  I personally like to receive free traffic but eventually you get to a point where you need to reach a wider audience. So paying for traffic is something you should think about as your need to acquire more online traffic grows.

So let’s talk about the pros of using PPC advertising to bring traffic to your website. PPC ads are like turning on the water facet. You pay the service provider and you get traffic almost instantly! Yes, it’s that simple! It’s probably the fastest way to bring traffic to your website almost immediately.  A good benefit to PPC ads when setting up your campaigns, you can  measure which set of keywords are effective in driving the most amount of converting traffic and then use those same keywords to optimize your website pages as we mentioned earlier.

The cons of using PPC ads include the fact that it can create a hole in your budget if you do not know what you are doing. You have to understand ad copy which is your advertisements verbal or textual content. Another thing is testing multiple ads against each other to see which ads are converting winners and which are the losers. It is a process that if you don’t know much about is best left for someone that does. If you are daring enough to try you can always start off with a small budget to play around with and learn as you go.

If you decide to try PPC Ads to drive traffic here are some places to start:

1. Facebook Ads

2. Google Ads

3. Yahoo and Bing Ads

4. Local Sponsorship Banner Ads. These can be websites that have a local presence in your area and offer banner placement on their website.

I will be providing more blog content on PPC ads in the future. I know it is an area that can seem intimidating but I feel you should have some working knowledge about how it all works.

Offline Marketing Tools

Traditional offline marketing tools are also effective in driving traffic to your website. Some marketers kind of moved away from this type of marketing because of all the hype with the internet and social media. However offline tools can still prove to be very much effective in driving website traffic and increasing the exposure of your physical therapy clinic or ceu course.

Below are some effective offline tools you should remember to stick your website url on to get people to come back and visit you online:

1. Post Cards

2. Business Cards

3. Company Letter Heads

4. Brochures

5. Envelopes

6. Company Voicemails. A simple line that states “you can always reach us through our website” is often effective.

So those were the 5 ways you can drive traffic to your physical therapy website. I go more in depth and explain in detail how to do all 5 traffic generating techniques in the  PT Marketing Academy.  I would advise you to take a look at if you want to learn more about marketing your physical therapy business.

Don’t feel like you have to do all of these things at once to start driving traffic to your site. I’ll admit that it can be a bit overwhelming and an uphill climb to conquer if you are not familiar with how to drive traffic to a website.  I would like to encourage you though to take action on one of these traffic generating techniques. Focus on one for now so that you can start building a steady stream of targeted potential referrals for your PT practice or attendees for your PT ceu course.

If you found this post helpful please share on Facebook and Twitter with the buttons below.Similar Posts:

• Why Online Reviews Matter For Your Physical Therapy Practice
• My Physical Therapy Marketing Predictions For 2011
• 5 Reasons To Start A Physical Therapy Blog That Attracts Patient Referrals Than To Have A Boring Static Website
• Improve Your Online Physical Therapy Marketing By Understanding Basic Keyword Research?
• Podcast: Physical Therapist Monique Serpas Reveals How She Uses Her Blog And Social Media To Connect With Her Patients

Who’s Looking for Your Services Online?

People in need of physical therapy services are searching for a good physical therapist and these days, they’re using nontraditional methods that have proven to be very effective.

More and more often, people are turning to the internet to find physical therapists. They’re using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, they’re searching on search engines like Google, and they’re looking to see what other people have to say about physical therapists in their local area that catch their attention.

They’ll do so by looking for, and reading, what other patients have to say about the physical therapist they see. If that physical therapist is you, you’ll want to make sure you have tons of raving reviews floating around about the PT services you offer.

Reviews Help Conversions

What will these tons of good reviews do for your PT practice? First of all, they’ll help build immediate trust between you and your potential patient. When a potential patient sees that other patients you’ve helped were very happy with the services you provided, they’ll trust that you can help them too.

This trust is one of the most important factors when it comes to converting potential patients into patients who follow up with you for your services. The more people trust that you can solve their problems, the more likely they’ll be to make that first appointment with you.

Reviews Are Good For SEO ( i.e Google Places, Yahoo Local, etc )

Third party reviews aren’t just good for building trust, they’re also good for SEO or search engine optimization. When your satisfied patients post raving reviews about you on sites like Google Places and Yahoo Local, they’ll use keywords that potential patients might use when searching for a good physical therapist.

The search engines will see the keywords used in these reviews and will use them to bolster your website’s rating in the search engines. This way, when potential patients search for a physical therapist in your local town, your name is more likely to be at the top of the search engine result pages.

Giving Patients A Nudge To Write Reviews

So, now that you know how helpful third party reviews can be, how do you get your patients to write great reviews about you that other potential patients will read? Your patients are busy people so when you ask them to write you a review, make the process as easy as possible.

One of the best ways is to have a card printed with instructions for writing you a review. It can be on the back of the appointment reminder card you give your patient at the end of their session and can say something like, “If you’ve received excellent service, please take a moment to go to (www.name-of-review-website.com) and write a short review.” You’ll also want send them a follow up email or call them on the phone and politely ask if they’ve had a chance to write a short review about the services they’ve received from you.

Promote Your Reviews

Once your patients start writing raving reviews about your physical therapy practice, you’ll want to be sure to promote these reviews on the internet. Doing so will help your rankings in the search engines as well and it will get the word out about you and your practice faster and to even more potential clients and patients.

Sites like Facebook, LinedIn, Twitter, and other social media sites are great places to promote your reviews. When you mention you got a great review from someone, make sure you link to the site where the review is posted so it will be easy for people to click through, read, and then call you to make an appointment.

A Short Review About Reviews

Potential patients are looking for you online. One of the most popular things they’re doing to find the physical therapy services they need is to read what others are saying in the form of third party reviews.

Third party reviews help you build immediate trust and turn potential patients into patients who use your services. Third party reviews will also help increase your ranking in the search engines. So, make it as easy as possible for your patients to write you a review.

Once a patient has written a fabulous review about you, make sure to promote your review through social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. If you haven’t already started harnessing the power of third party reviews to build your physical therapy practice, there’s no time like the present.

If you found this post helpful, please share with others on Facebook and Twitter.Similar Posts:

• The Advantages Of Listing Your Physical Therapy Practice With Online Business Directories
• My Physical Therapy Marketing Predictions For 2011
• 6 Reasons Why Your Physical Therapy Business Should Be In Google’s Local Business Search Directory
• Improve Your Online Physical Therapy Marketing By Understanding Basic Keyword Research?
• 5 Reasons To Start A Physical Therapy Blog That Attracts Patient Referrals Than To Have A Boring Static Website

2011 will be a great year for physical therapists in private practice if they go beyond their usual ways of marketing and advertising. When I say “Usual Ways” I’m referring to relying on yellow page ads, newspaper ads, radio advertising and other traditional means of marketing. These mediums are slowly becoming less effective in reaching the audience you want to target. Hopefully in 2010 you were able to avoid some of the physical therapy marketing mistakes that could have prevented you from seeing healthy profits last year in your business.

Moving forward into 2011 as my reader, I don’t want you to become one dimensional in your marketing efforts. An example would be to heavily rely on physician referral marketing as your only marketing strategy. What if the physician that refers to you one day decides to refer to another clinic? Do you have other marketing streams in place you can tap into? Hopefully you see where I am going with this and stick around to see where I want to take you.

In 2010 many physical therapy private practice owners have discovered new ways of marketing to potential patients using the internet. Some have obtained new patient referrals through their website using effective search engine optimization strategies that I teach on this blog. Others have done it using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. One thing is certain is that using the internet as a way to obtain new patients and clients for your private practice will be something you cannot ignore moving forward into 2011.

How you market your physical therapy private practice in 2011 will determine the outcome of your future revenues and your overall profits. So below I have a few marketing predictions I feel will emerge in 2011 and that can position your physical therapy practice to receive some healthy profits in the future.

1. Mobile Marketing – Statistics have shown more people own a mobile phone than they do computers. People use their mobile phones as location devices, to receive text messages, search for local services in their area, and much more. What better way to get in front of your audience then through the device they use everyday! As a private practice owner you can send appointment reminders via text message, mobile coupons for cash based services, and create a mobile version of your website for those seeking out your services locally. This is only scratching the surface! There are a lot of things you can do with mobile devices in terms of marketing that can really help impact the growth of your private practice. More to come on this hot topic in future blog posts!

2. Online Reviews – More users are looking to online review sites like Google Places and Yelp to read what other patients have to say about their physical therapist. This is why it’s important to get your patients to write raving reviews about the PT services you offer. Good reviews written by your current patients will help build immediate trust between you and that potential patient who’s searching for a physical therapist. When a potential patient sees that other patients you’ve helped were very happy with the services you provided, they’ll trust that you can help them too.

3. Better Website Content – It is important that your website have quality content that provides the right information for your patients and to the public. Providing resourceful articles and informative videos helps potential website visitors view you as a trusted source of information and an expert in your field. The information you provide on your website could be a major pivotal point for a local website visitor to pick up the phone and call your office for an appointment.

4. Local Marketing – Optimizing your website for local keyword search terms will be vital to how people find you online. For instance, if your practice focuses on pediatrics and you are based in Marietta Georgia, then you want to make sure your website is optimized for the keyword phrase “Pediatric Physical Therapist in Marietta Georgia”. Placing your website in the local online directories also increases your visibility to the local community about your services.

5. Ebook Style Newsletters and Exercises Sheets – If you haven’t noticed, the sales of the Barnes and Noble Nook Reader and Amazon Kindle were a hot seller this past Christmas. This is a strong indication that users will soon choose these devices to consume books, magazines, and web content. I see plenty of opportunity here for you, the private practice practitioner, to create content like newsletters or exercise sheets for your patients to be viewed on these devices. Why not go with them when they are on the move? Creating content for them to use in these “on the go” devices is a great way to brand your physical therapy practice and stay in front of your existing patients that use your services. You will also get a lot of cool points for being on the cutting edge of technology.

6. Better Strategic Use of Social Media – Social Media is probably one of the best free marketing and advertising tools online you can use to promote your physical therapy services. It is the most simplest and cost effective way to introduce your services to a mass market without squashing your marketing budget for the year. Strategic use of sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can really help you to reach out to more people and spread the word about your physical therapy services. Just keep in mind it takes time to see a return from using social media. Most of your time will be spent building relationships and providing value to your existing patients and those who inquire about your services. If you view it more as a communication tool vs a sales tool then you will have better expectations about the time spent using it and the returns it can provide to your private practice in the future.

Those are my marketing predictions for 2011. I will expand more on some of these topics in future blog posts. If you have any predictions of your own or want to share what your physical therapy business will be doing different this year, please share your comments below. Would love to hear from you!

Similar Posts:

• Why Online Reviews Matter For Your Physical Therapy Practice
• Improve Your Online Physical Therapy Marketing By Understanding Basic Keyword Research?
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• The Advantages Of Listing Your Physical Therapy Practice With Online Business Directories

Are you still using the Yellow Pages to promote your physical therapy clinic or private practice? It is a known fact that physical therapy clinics and private practices have been listing their services in the Yellow Pages business directory for decades now. But very few people use the Yellow Pages these days. Now everyone Googles the things they are looking for or need. So it is safe to say now the majority of search for services take place online. That’s why in previous blog posts I have stressed the importance of creating an online presence for your physical therapy business.

Having an online presence and listing your physical therapy business in online directories should be considered part of your physical therapy marketing strategy. It is a natural movement to a medium that is more relevant today and what majority of people are using.

I will outline some of my top reasons why you should list your physical therapy business in an online directory:

1. Exposure on search engines: Most people use Google to search for services and very often if you are searching for something local, Google shows the local listings as part of the results ( see image example on left ). If you list on Google Places, then your listings will be shown if Google thinks they are relevant to what the user is searching. I took Google’s example, but this will work with any search engine. Listing your services in a business directory increases your chances of putting yourself in front of potential patient referrals or clients for your PT practice.

2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits: Listing on directories gives you valuable links back to your business and increases your online presence. This will help boost your website search engine rankings. There is also a greater chance of your business appearing on search engine result pages because most online directories are viewed as high authority sites in the eyes of the search engines.

3. Inexpensive: Listing on online business directories is quite inexpensive and in some cases it is absolutely free. So there is every reason to get your business listed in these directories today. There are not to many free advertising mediums that can offer a good return like online business listings. Can you think of any?

4. User reviews: There are a few directories that let users review your business based on their experiences with you. This can be a really great asset for someone who has built a good reputation and has people willing to write reviews for them. I know when I am searching for a service and come across a few business listings, I look at the reviews to see what feedback people have left. It has a tremendous impact on deciding whether or not to use the service I am reviewing.

So when you create a listing, you want to get a few people to write reviews for you. In time you will have a number of reviews for your physical therapy business for users to look through. If you have several reviews on your business listing it naturally attracts people to your listing because it shows social proof of others experience with your physical therapy clinic or private practice.


Now that I’ve told you some benefits of listing on a online business directory, let me list some you can get started creating your physical therapy business listing with today.

1. Google Places
2. Yahoo Local
3. Bing Local
4. Yelp
5. Yellow Pages
6. City Search
7. Ask City Business Listings

I don’t want to overwhelm you, so I’ll leave you with just 7 top directories. There are many more that you can take advantage of once you are done listing your business in the ones above.

So my advice would be to devote an hour or two a day to create a listing for your physical therapy practice or clinic. Then you can reap the benefits of your business listing for a long time to come.

If you have some thoughts or suggestions on online business listings that have worked well for you, please share them with the rest of the readers here in the comments below.

If you found this post helpful in any way, please help me to re-tweet to your Twitter followers or share with your friends and colleaues on Facebook. Many thanks!Similar Posts:

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• Why Online Reviews Matter For Your Physical Therapy Practice
• My Physical Therapy Marketing Predictions For 2011
• Improve Your Online Physical Therapy Marketing By Understanding Basic Keyword Research?
• 5 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Physical Therapy Website

Here is a video I did using a whiteboard to explain a few traffic generation techniques you can use to drive traffic to your physical therapy website. Just remember these techniques only work if you take consistent action and begin implementing them.

Please let me know if you find this helpful in the comments section below.

Similar Posts:

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• How To Select An Unforgettable Domain Name For Your Physical Therapy Business

If you haven’t noticed or payed any attention to the latest trends in the tech world, blogging has evolved quite a lot in the last few years. It has become a key part of Web 2.0. In fact, if you’re a super geek like me you probably are familiar with the more popular blogs like the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Gizmodo, that have a huge user base, and are much larger than most websites. If not maybe you noticed sites in our own industry, like Advance For Physical Therapy starting to use blogs to manage more of their own content.

Why all the blog talk you ask? Well if your planning on building a website anytime soon for your physical therapy business, you may want to think about which direction you should be headed in.

With that said, I want to give you 5 reasons why you should consider starting a blog that can potentially generate patient referrals for your physical therapy practice versus having a boring static website. This can also be applied to those that have a physical therapy product and want to generate more buyers or if you have a physical therapy continuing education course and are trying to increase attendee enrollment.

So here are the 5 reasons to ditch your boring static website and get going with a new blog:

1. A blog is a more personal medium than a website: When your patients read your blog posts, they feel as if they are listening to your voice. They form a much deeper connection with you as they read more about what you write and learn more about you. The content on a static website can sometimes feel like it has no “voice”. It can come off like canned jargon with no personality. In my opinion static websites are dry, boring and can lose its appeal with your visitors.

2. Search engines like blogs: This is a known fact in the blogging community! By their very nature, blogs are updated frequently with new content, and search engines love websites with new content. Search engines, like Google, devour them like a slab of roast beef. Keep the content coming and you will have no problem having your content picked up by the major search engines.

You also have a lot of latitude about what you can write about, and can often leverage your patient’s common interests. I recently did a podcast interview with Monique Serpas, a physical therapist who blogs about injury prevention, conditions treated by physical therapists, descriptions of treatment techniques, and other helpful information mostly catering to the patients she treats in the clinic.

If you listen to the podcast, she mentions that she provides preventative tips, she references earlier blog posts she has written and uses the right keywords that is relevant to the search engines and her patients. Monique was able to do this all while providing valuable content to her readers. It’s a great combination that attracts patients and the search engines like bees to honey!

3. Interaction and community: Blogs are a lot better for interaction because they have a comments area below each post where people can leave comments. As a reader you can then respond to these comments and leave your opinion about the topic being discussed in the post. People are usually motivated to leave comments when they read something that strikes a chord with them. You as the blogger can respond to these comments and slowly build a community of loyal followers who will begin to like know and trust you based off of the interaction you have with your readers.

4. Blogging technology has come a long way: You can build a very professional looking blog with the technology that is around these days. I actually prefer using WordPress which has many benefits over the other blog software  I have come across.  In fact, you can achieve all the features of a static website using a WordPress blog.  I have seen a lot of websites that look like static websites but were actually built using WordPress. So if you don’t like the blog look, you can build a “static-like” site using the powerful features  of WordPress and still get all the search engine benefits that comes with having a blog.

5. Repeat Visitors: If your blog content is compelling and provides value to your readers, they will come back hungry for more. This is great because it increases your traffic and gives you a higher chance of converting your reader into a patient referral, a buyer for your physical therapy product or having them become an attendee for your CEU course.

Providing quality posts and content is a recipe for repeat visitors and website traffic. It’s very hard to get repeat visitors with a static website because there is no real reason to go back and visit. The blog content, interacting through comments, and the relationship readers have with the blogger is what drives blog readers back to a site. This can be a powerful physical therapy marketing strategy and what you ultimately want to achieve if you have a blog online.

Hopefully I have given you a reason to ditch the thought of creating a static website and move towards creating a blog. As I mentioned before, a blog will help you drive a lot more traffic to your physical therapy business and this could translate into increased revenues and growth in your private practice, physical therapy product or CEU courses. 

If you want to create a strong presence for your physical therapy business online, getting started with a blog is a move in the right direction. I cover a lot of how to set one up and promote it in the PT Marketing Academy. I will even host it for free! You can go here now to enroll and get started.

If you have a blog or a website for your physical therapy business and would like to share your thoughts on this topic, leave your comments below to share with everyone else.Similar Posts:

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Local search is one of the least talked about features of Google but it is one that is gaining popularity very rapidly.

Local search is catching on because search engines are getting very good in recognizing when people are searching for something locally. In most cases these local business listings are shown on top of the other search results. Do a search for “physical therapy rehab and (put your zip code)” and see for yourself which are the search results that Google will serve you on the front page. Is your physical therapy business listed there? If not keep reading on!

Local search is also catching on because of its ease of use, large number of results served, a Google map of the local listing being searched and the ability to read reviews about that local listing.

Do you remember the last time you opened up the Yellow Pages to look for a local business? Most people will tell you they are using phone books in their home as step stools to get into hard to reach areas. Everyone is using Google for search. This is a known fact. People are looking for all types of services online from haircuts to auto mechanics and of course physical therapists.

It is in your best interest to have a Google Business listing for your physical therapy business so that you appear on top when people search for such services. If done correctly, this can mean a large number of potential patient referrals, clients or customers without ever having to pay the typical cost associated with using traditional advertising .



Let me take you through six powerful benefits of listing your physical therapy business on Google’s local business search listings:

1. People are searching for your physical therapy business online: This is so basic it goes without saying but I need to say it anyway. A large percentage of searches on Google pertain to local search and out of these searches a good number of them can translate into new referrals, clients or customers for your business . If you are not present on Google’s local business search listings, you are missing out on a lot of new patient referrals, clients and customers. Think about that.

2. Results are near the top of the page: Study after study of search engine users show that they scan a triangular area which includes the area of the first result and then gradually diminishes as you go down the page. Most people never go beyond the first half of the first page. Putting your business listing into Google’s local business directory ensures that your listing will show up in the area where people have the maximum chance of noticing it.

3. Easier than getting on the first page of Google: In most cases getting a business listed in the directory and appearing on the first page for a local business search term is easier than paying high fees to an SEO consultant to have your website appear on the first page for a general search term. When you have your listing listed through Google’s local business search directory you still enjoy the benefit of a large number of views without having to go through the struggle of getting on the first page for your website and paying high fees to an SEO consultant to do it.





1. Google Provides A Map Of Your Business Location: Google will show a map of your business location to web users and even provide them with directions to get to your doorstep. Now that’s powerful! Your front office secretary can focus on coding and billing while Google handles the directions to potential new patient referrals and clients.

2. Google’s local search Listing is free: You don’t have to pay anything to get listed in Google’s business listing. There is absolutely no investment involved and the listing is working for you 24hrs a day all year long. This is a no brainer for anyone with a tight marketing budget.

3. Reach a large number of potential referrals or clients locally: The best part about this is people who engage in local search obviously have a need that has to be met. So when someone calls your physical therapy business through a Google business listing , there is a high chance that person contacting you needs your service and is ready to come through your door almost immediately.

If you take action on including your physical therapy business into Google’s local business search listings, you will enjoy the benefits of getting targeted local patient referrals and potential clients. Most importantly you will have done this simple inclusion of your physical therapy business into Google’s listings at no cost to you. This is a great marketing strategy for your physical therapy business and something you should consider doing soon.Similar Posts:

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• Why Online Reviews Matter For Your Physical Therapy Practice
• Improve Your Online Physical Therapy Marketing By Understanding Basic Keyword Research?
• The Benefits Of A Facebook Fan Page For Your Physical Therapy Business And How To Create One
• 5 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Physical Therapy Website

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link.

Monique Serpas is a physical therapist practicing in a general outpatient setting. She also writes for her blog called “Geaux To Physical Therapy” which serves as a platform to educate her current patients or anyone who would like to learn more about physical therapy.

She writes mostly about injury prevention, conditions treated by physical therapists, descriptions of treatment techniques, and other helpful information her patients and readers may find beneficial.

I was very excited to have found her and wanted to share her story with other PT’s who maybe considering taking the plunge into blogging and social media. Especially since blogging and social media will be one of the ways you will need to market your physical therapy business online today. Show Notes

• Monique shares what encouraged her to start her blogand how she embraced the technical challenges to get it started. 
• We learn the benefits of her blog to her patients and her online readers that seek out her information.

• Monique explains how she leveraged social mediato connect more with her patients, readers, PT’s and other healthcare professionals. 
• We learn what impact blogging has had since she got started and the attention she is receiving in the online world and in the clinic.

• Monique breaks down why blogging should be part of your marketing strategyif you want to get noticed and brand yourself in your area of expertise. 
• She shares her thoughts on the impact blogging and social media will have on the physical therapy profession and for PT’s who are in business for themselves. 

Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 38 Minutes - 17 MB] Similar Posts:

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If you didn’t know already Facebook is one of the top social networks in the world. They average over half a million new members joining every single day and currently have over 400 million members. Those numbers are amazing! That is enough members to populate a country the size of the United States don’t you think? Imagine the connections that are being made on a daily basis.

Facebook has helped many people reunite with family members, old friends, colleagues, and even business associates. What’s even more interesting is that very few physical therapist are not taking advantage of Facebook’s popularity to grow their physical therapy businesses. Well that is going to change because I’m here to share with you the benefits of having a Facebook Fan page and the steps you need to do to create one today. Let me break down some interesting statistics for you about the average Facebook user:

• Currently there are more than 400 million active users.
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day.
• The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each week.
• More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day. ( That is a lot of fans!)
• Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month. (One of those pages could be yours.)
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans. (Some of those fans could be yours.)

These Facebook statistics should not be ignored. Facebook offers many ways for your physical therapy business to interact with your local online community and the best way to do it is by creating a Facebook Fan page. I will take you step by step on how to create a Facebook Fan page for your physical therapy business but first let me highlight the benefits of having one:

1. Explain You’re Business: People join your fan page because they want to know more about your physical therapy business. This is the place where you can highlight what your company is about and how it can serve them. Do this by posting quality content articles on your fan page wall that is relevant to your physical therapy business. Add photos of your staff and place of business for fans to see. Post the expertise level of your staff in specialized areas of physical therapy. Send out informative and funny physical therapy videos so fans can connect with you more. Most importantly hold discussions on your fan page to engage in conversation with your fan members.

2. Announce Events And Updates To Your Fans: One of the greatest features of fan pages is you can send updates or announce events whenever you have something planned. For example, if you are having a learning event at your clinic or announcing a new product soon to be released then you can announce it on your fan page. It is a great way of building a list of interested users for your product or potential referrals for your private practice.

3. Interaction: When your fan page reaches a critical mass of fans you will find that they are interacting with each other and giving you great feedback and word of mouth advertising. This is invaluable and although it takes a little time to build, once done it is the greatest asset you can have.

Now that you know the benefits of creating a Facebook Fan page let us look at the step by step tutorial below to create your own.

1. Visit the Facebook Fan page website and select “Create Page” http://www.facebook.com/pages/

2. Enter your business category and the name of your fan page.

3. Enter your Facebook Account Information. If you don’t have an account you will need to create a new one.

4. Congratulations! Your Facebook Fan page is created. Now it’s time to customize it.

5. Start entering information about your physical therapy business to share with your fans.

That’s about it folks. Real simple steps to create your own Facebook Fan page. If you would like more in depth training on creating and promoting your Facebook Fan page, you can enroll in the PT Marketing Academy. We have live online workshops that show you how to create and promote your Facebook Fan page for your physical therapy business. Please leave your comments below if you have any questions about this tutorial. Re-tweets on Twitter and social bookmarking are always appreciated.

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Picking a domain name is the first step to creating your online presence.  It is also what you will need to tell your patients, clients, & customers how to find you on the web. In this video tutorial I will give you some tips on how to choose a domain name your patients,  clients & customers will remember even when telling their friends.   You can watch the video above or view the slide presentation below.

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