I Really Could Use A NAP

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Admittedly, I would enjoy the standard use of the term ‘nap’ right about now, but here I refer to some industry jargon; a company’s NAP is…
* Name
* Address
* Phone number.

My name is Rich, I’m the guy who looks at most of your websites to help you promote them, and I could really use your NAP.

As simple as it is to include set of information may seem, this often is overlooked. I have talked to people who complained nobody contacted them through their website, only to see the website had no contact information! A more common issue is that the NAP information is provided, but not consistently. Ensuring that your business is easy to search for is especially crucial in this day and age, with so many businesses in so many databases. Not using consistent NAP information can create variations of a business’ online identity, which makes it harder, in some cases impossible, for search engines and other sources to verify your information.

Name:

I’ve already addressed the importance of consistent use of your (and/or your business) name in the blog article, What’s in a Name.

While clearly your business name is important, it is also important to use it consistently. If you go by William Shakespeare, don’t have half your promotion read “Bill Shakespeare.” If you run AwesomeCo, don’t have a sign that says “Awesome Company, Inc.” This will likely confuse people and work against you.

Address:

While crucial to most business promotion, business addresses tend to be the most commonly omitted piece of information in websites and other online promotion. Most weeks, roughly 10% of the client websites I see are submitted without addresses or phone numbers. Sure, on a selfish level, this makes my job harder. But when you consider my job is to promote our customers’ businesses, it means that customer is making it harder for me to promote them! I spend a lot of time working with customers just to figure out if this information was omitted due to privacy concerns or simply forgotten.

Sometimes, a business owner gets preoccupied with online promotion and forgets that the point of any promotion is to get and keep more clients. If your end goal is someone to come to your office, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to get there. There are several reasons why your address is crucial:

1) Your address is uniquely yours.
In addition to your name and phone number, the address is one of the unique bits of information that makes your business distinct and notable. Having your address listed on your website helps search engines, not just to specifically connect to your location, but to generally establish that you exist. It also helps to distinguish you from businesses with similar names; Chopsticks Restaurant on Hawthorne Blvd. (a family friendly eatery in South East Portland) is not to be confused with Chopsticks Karaoke Bar on Burnside (a fairly rowdy place in North East Portland), for instance.

2) Your address helps describe your business
Sometimes your physical location is worth noting even if clients don’t come to you. For instance, even if you do home visits, or exclusively counsel people by phone or Skype, the state you are certified in might be relevant because of licensing concerns or insurance reasons.

Another example might be cultural. Even if my schedule or lifestyle means I want to consult with a doctor or talk to a therapist via skype, I likely want to find someone who has some basic understanding of my concerns. One client was a counselor who lived in a small town in Alaska, who specialized in online therapy for others who lived in small towns in Alaska. In addition to his training, he specifically understood the climate, the unique situations of Alaskan daylight (or lack thereof) and other factors of a specific sort of lifestyle. An equally qualified counselor in New York City who might do online counseling focused on people who have a hard time leaving their apartment

This is less common of a concern than the others, but worth noting. In general, more kinds of information you provide about yourself, the better.

3) If you don’t share your address, let people know
Sometimes I contact a client because they don’t publicize their address only to realize that they only do house-calls, Skype counseling, etc. These are valid business models, but if your website doesn’t say this, your potential clients may not realize how your business works.
* If you do house-calls, office visits, etc, make sure to denote that you come to your clients and what the terms are.
* If you do counseling or consultation by phone or Skype, make sure to note if you do this exclusively, or in conjunction to office visits. Make sure that a client knows how to go about this process.
* If your main duties are more likely to be giving lectures or workshops about your field than seeing clients in an office, make sure this is clear on your website.
* If you do see people at your office, but prefer to keep the location private for whatever reason, make sure that the lack of address is decided. You don’t need to say “since I work from home, I keep my address hidden”, but instructions such as “Call or email me to set up an appointment at my office in…” and provide at least a general area, “downtown Akron” or “Central SE Portland”, etc. While not as precise as an actual address, a neighborhood or general location can still go a long way to help with search engines. At the very least, it’s best to include your city, state and zip code. Whatever your situation is, your website should be able to answer a client’s questions and give them the means to contact you.
* Also, if there is some reason you keep your address private, make sure you’re actually keeping it private. Be careful when filling out forms, you wouldn’t want to fill out any form with your address without carefully reading what the form is for.

We do cross-check to make sure any publicity we do matches the information on your website, but you’re your own best line of defense, and not every company pays as close attention to such matters. In my job duties, I see a lot of private information people willingly put online, not realizing what they were getting into.

4) Your address is how people find you.
Some of our customers have told me that they don’t want to have their address on their website, because that would limit clients to the surrounding area. While this makes sense in theory, it is actually not he case. Most services in the healing arts are more likely to attract local attention; unless you are already known on a regional or national level, you’re unlikely to get cross country interest unless you work in a very specific field.

If your work is such that you travel to clients or work remotely, you should definitely indicate that on your site, but it’s no replacement for having your physical address listed. Search Engines and potential clients both are trained to look for location in a specific format, and having an actual address in a standard format, ideally on your sidebar. It’s a quick, simple way to make your business easy to find and learn more about.

On the most obvious level, your address is where you are. If clients want come to see you, they need to know where to go. Some of our customers think it’s enough to have clients email or call them for directions.

Also, consider how people look up information online. More and more, search engines are tailoring their results to a user’s location even if a user doesn’t specifically include that information in their search query. As more and more people turn to online directories, Google Maps, and location based apps on their smartphones to learn about businesses in their area, it’s crucial that people know you’re in their area. If I want, say, sushi for dinner, I don’t look for sushi as a general concept online, I want to know where I can get sushi nearby. This is impossible if the restaurants don’t list their addresses.

Phone

I personally don’t see this come up as a concern nearly as much as names and addresses do, but the information above also applies to phone numbers. If, for some reason, you have multiple phone numbers, keeping on consistent for all promotion will help keep your information straight. While toll free numbers are useful, conventional wisdom is that a local number can be more helpful for listing purposes, as it ties to a specific locale. That being said, I have yet to see a toll free number be problematic when I create listings for a customer.

One issue with phone numbers, and for that matter, email addresses, for businesses with multiple practitioners is to make sure you have one all-purpose mode of contact information. For instance if AwesomeCo is made up of myself, Tim, Ryan and Taylor, we could very well have unique phone numbers and email addresses for each person. While useful, this can be confusing to a prospective client, how would they know which person is best to call? In cases like this, I advise that there be one phone number, and a general email address such as “info@” or “contact@”, be used for promotion. Even if all contact goes to, say, Tim, the client feels like they are contacting a business, not a random part of it. This also helps if Tim leaves the company later on.

In Summary:
Little things can make a big difference; taking the few extra minutes to double check that your basic information is correct, consistent and clear can end up with huge effects, like a minor difference in what direction you start a long journey. And with that, I might take that other nap I mentioned.

Rich M – PhysicalTherapistSites Listings
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

What’s In A Name?

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William Shakespeare

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”– even if you called it a daisy, “that swirly pink thing on the plant over there,” ros, rosa, roos or, in Indonesian, “bunga mawar.” However, if you were searching online for a dozen roses, it would really help if you knew you to call roses by name. Likewise, if you wanted to sell roses, it would really help if you advertised them by name.

Since you’re not promoting rose bouquets, but a service-oriented business, it helps to have a name. Since many of our customers are single-practitioner offices, many use their given name as their business name, but this may still lead to complications. For many of us, we get a name, we stick to it, and maybe we add some titles to it afterwards. But sometimes there are complexities and subtleties to consider.

To make sure that you’re presenting a consistent image, both to clients and to search engines, you must be consistent about your personal brand; your name!

My uncle Bob’s full name is Robert. And yes, most of us still know Bob is short for Robert, but if you’re looking for “Bob Collins” under “R” for “Robert,” you might have some issues. Likewise, it may take some people a second to realize who Richard Cheney is, even if they remember Jack Kennedy and can guess who I mean when I refer to Bill Shakespeare. But, when I had a roommate I called “Jim,” I’d forgotten his birth certificate said James when his aunt called looking for Jimmy. Your best practice is to be consistent. You can be William, Will, Willy, Bill, or call yourself Billiam, but choose one for everything you have your name on. This is especially important to consider with common names. If your business card lists you as “James Jameson,” your website as “Jim Jameson,” and you answer the phone with “This is Jimbo,” you run some risk of confusion, especially when someone is looking things up alphabetically.

Titles

For the most part, titles in business promotion do not refer to Mr./Miss./Mrs./Ms., but to “Dr.” or other professional titles. Usually you don’t need to add Mr./Miss./Mrs./Ms. unless your name is considered gender neutral to most people in your area and you wish to avoid confusion. If you have multiple titles, you may or may not wish to list them all. Whatever you chose to list yourself as, it’s best to be consistent for all business promotion.

Name changes

If you anticipate changing your name, for whatever reason, consider starting to promote your new name ahead of time. For instance, if you’re just signing up for online promotion, and know your wedding and connected name change is next month, it will be better in the long run to either hold off for the month or simply start using your new name for this context. Once people see your name a certain way, they tend to repeat it that way. It’s much easier to be consistent with the one term you’d prefer.

In most cases, you’ve been using your old name for a while, and people know you by it. It’s everywhere: in print, online, etc. One solution is to simply include all relevant names in initial references. For instance, if Jane Doe marries John Smith, and takes his last name, she might have text on her website such as:

Jane Doe Smith does such and such. Mrs. Smith also does this and that.

-or-

Jane Smith (formerly Jane Doe) does such and such.

The specifics of how you do this depend on the name change, of course, and can be done a number of ways. The general idea is to allow anyone looking for Jane Smith to easily see that Jane Doe who they found is indeed the Jane Smith they’re looking for.

Your name vs. Business Name

Most of our customers have small, often one-person, businesses. When a man named “Dr. John Johnson” has “Dr. John Johnson” (or “Dr. John Johnson, LLC”) as the business name, drjohnjohnson.com, this is easy enough to work with. If however, Dr. John is the owner and sole employee of “Cityville Services, Inc,” he needs to consider which name is used to promote his practice. Either one is usually fine in terms of business promotion, but the goal is to make it easy for his clients to connect the business he runs with the business he promotes.

Regarding business names, one of the biggest mistakes made by small businesses is the false assumption that people (or search engines, directory listings, or whatever) can and will connect different names. If John above refers to his business as “Cityville Services, Inc.” on his website, but takes out ads for Cityville Service Co., he’s functionally advertising a different business. This is especially worth noting if you have “Inc.,” “Corp.,” or “LLC” etc in your name. In terms of promotion, whatever you decided your business name is, you will do yourself a disservice if you are not consistent with exact repetition of the business name.

In summary, my advice to you is to stop and think a bit about what your “brand name” is. Of all the ways you can refer to yourself, which works best when you think of yourself as a company? Pick that one. If you’ve already picked a name, stick with it, check on it, make sure it’s what you are referred to online and in business situations. It’s one of many situations where just a few extra minutes can mean big long-term payoff.

Rich M – PhysicalTherapistSites Listings
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

How To Stop Your Computer From Getting The Flu

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Security and Your Computer
Protecting your computer from viruses and other malware (malicious software) is absolutely essential if your computer is ever connected to the Internet. Luckily, there are a few simple behaviors you can engage in as a citizen of the Internet to help protect yourself, and there are a number of excellent free options for antivirus software that can help protect your computer and keep your mind at ease!

Please note: PhysicalTherapistSites is not affiliated with any of the programs or services listed, and we are not equipped to help customers troubleshoot specific issues regarding viruses. If you suspect your computer has been infected please contact your computer manufacture for proper virus removal. All advice in this article is merely a suggestion and intended to be provided as a resource; your experience with any particular piece of software here may differ. Additionally, some of the software listed may only have free options available for personal home computers, and may require a different license if you intend to use the software on a business machine. Individual users are responsible for ensuring they are compliant with the licensing agreements for any software they choose to install.

Anatomy of a Virus
Viruses and other malware can take many forms. On one end of the scale, there are viruses that are merely nuisances. I once encountered a virus that merely scrambled the letters of every tenth word typed on the infected machine – annoying, but not the end of the world. Similarly bothersome, there are currently a number of viruses going around that are inserting random advertisements in place of existing content when the user views websites. These advertisements are not actually present on the website itself, but rather only viewable on the infected computer.

On the other end of the severity scale, there are viruses that can give someone remote access to your machine, allowing him/her to access all of your secure files, or steal your financial information, or entirely disrupt the functionality of your computer.

Prevention is the best medicine
An hour spent setting up antivirus software on your computer can prevent countless hours lost down the line on virus removal, not to mention the potential for data loss, stolen private information, and general grief that accompanies virus infection. Without a doubt, the best way to handle your computer’s security is to focus on prevention of viruses, instead of virus removal after the fact.

There are two key components to avoiding virus infection and malware: behavioral protection, and software protection. Software protection is what most people consider when they think of computer security. It comes in the form of specific software that is designed to detect and eliminate potential security risks to your computer. Behavioral protection is behavior that you as a computer user can adopt to limit your potential exposure and infection from malicious software.

We are essentially urging caution when we speak of behavioral protection. The creators of malicious software rely on a variety of ways to spread their software. One of the most common current ways to spread malicious software is through social engineering. That is, through tricking or manipulating the user into acting in a way that installs the virus on their own computer, or spreading the infection further. Social engineering takes many forms. A prevalent tactic is to infect a computer through pop-up windows. A window will pop up and claim that your computer is currently infected with a virus, and instruct you to click on the virus to download antivirus software. These pop up windows are not actually detecting malicious software on your computer, rather they are trying to scare you into clicking on the message, which often times will contain malicious software itself!

Many social engineering schemes are often conducted via email. A user will receive an email from one of his or her contacts, typically with a vague subject line (e.g., “This changed my life!”), and generally nothing in the body of the email except a link (or a file attachment). Clicking on the link (or attachment) will typically install some type of malicious software on your computer, and it will also typically hijack your email and send the exact same message you received to all of your contacts. These tactics are often successful and spread rapidly because they leverage a user’s trust in email sent from the address of a known contact.

The moral of each of these anecdotes is to promote caution. Even if a message you receive is saying your computer is infected, this does not automatically make it so, and if you receive a suspicious message from someone you know, err on the side of caution and confirm with him or her before potentially risking your computer’s security. Healthy skepticism is one of the key behaviors in promoting safer computer use.

In regard to software protection, there are a significant number of options available for antivirus software. In fact, there are so many available that it can be difficult to determine what software best fits your needs. We have collected a brief list of some of the more popular options. While a number of the options we have listed below offer paid versions (which typically contain advanced functionality, or a more robust feature set), as of the date this article was written, all of them offer a free option.

(Apple aside: I have commonly heard the notion repeated that Macs cannot get viruses. While it is true that there are safeguards that are built into Mac operating system which offer some protection against typical viruses it is inaccurate to say that they cannot get viruses, and this attitude can lead to dangerous complacency when computing. As a Mac user, your best defense is the behavioral caution urged above. Because of the added security inherent in the Mac OSX operating system, you are at less risk for a true virus infection, however Mac users are just as prone to social engineering schemes. Because there is a relative dearth of options available for the Mac OS, I have made special note of the software that have free Mac versions.)

Microsoft Security Essentials
Microsoft Security Essentials is a very viable piece of antivirus software. It is relatively lightweight in terms of system resources, so it can run more effectively than a number of its competitors on older or slower machines. Additionally, the free option explicitly allows for the software to be used in small businesses on up to 10 PCs.

As a word of caution, there is malicious software on the Internet that is intended to mimic the look and feel of Microsoft’s antivirus software. It is important that you download this software from Microsoft’s site directly.

avast!
avast! offers strong detection rates, and a more robust feature set for the free version over many of its competitors. At the time of writing this article, avast! currently has a paid version of its antivirus software available for Mac, and has a beta (before the official release) version of its free antivirus software for Mac. avast!’s free version is likely to be a compelling option for Mac users.

Antivir
Avira’s Antivir has a decent feature set for the free version, and boasts a very powerful detection rate.

As with Microsoft, there is malicious software that attempts to trick a user into thinking it is Avira’s Antivir. Please only download Antivir from Avira’s site.

AVG
AVG’s free option has a good record with detection rates, however it is fairly lacking compared to its competitors in terms of its feature list. Additionally, AVG has been known to identify other legitimate antivirus software as potentially malicious.

PandaCloud
PandaCloud is an interesting choice as it stores its detection library online (hence the “Cloud” moniker). I have found PandaCloud to be particularly effective on netbooks and other machines with limited system resources.

Sophos (Mac Option)
Sophos is one of the most “traditional” antivirus options available for Macs. It is reported to have good detection rates and is easy to use.

ClamXav (Mac Option)
ClamXav is another popular Mac option. It can be set to be passively monitoring files as they come in, or you can use it to scan specific files you are suspicious of.

Conclusion
We hope that this article has helped illuminate the need to actively secure your computer against the threat of viruses and other malicious software. To reiterate, it is crucial to maintain active computer security while accessing the Internet, both through effective antivirus software and through personal caution. Protect yourself and protect your clients, and enjoy a safer, faster experience on the web.

The primary focus of this article has been on the security of your personal computer, which is the first line of defense against viruses and malware. But how can you be sure that the server hosting your website is not a vector for malicious software?

If you operate your own website, make sure that your web provider is keeping up to date with all important security releases for your hosting environment. Server security is a complex and technical topic, so the best thing to do is to talk to your website provider about what security measures they are taking.

PhysicalTherapistSites, has taken measures to ensure that our websites will not become a vector for the spread of malware, and that both our providers and their client’s confidential information will remain protected. Our servers and hosting environment are in a protected data center, and we ensure that all information is always protected by the latest security updates and industry best practices.

Chris C– PhysicalTherapistSites Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

Your (Google) Place in History

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Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Understanding Google Places Listings.

When you sign up for our free Automatic Search Engine Listings (ASEL) service, we submit your information to over a hundred different online listings and directories. Many of these listings are used to create more links to your website, thus increasing your standing in search engines.

Unless you have a specific reason to keep your office address private, we also create listings on directories such as Yahoo! Local and Bing, which your potential clients use to look for businesses. For the most part, all you need to do is accurately submit your information, and we’ll take care of the rest.

One listing that stands out is Google Places. A Google Place is a business listing connected to Google Maps. You may be familiar with the red “balloons” or “upside down teardrops” showing business location on Google Maps, which open up a “word bubble” with more information about the business. One reason we pay extra attention to Google Places Listings is because Google is by far the most commonly used search engine (1), so this one listing is considered by many to be the most important and single most useful listing you could have.

Google Places Listings show up in searches using the Google Search Engine, which is what most people think of when they think “Google”. Please note that when we say “listing” we specifically refer to the directory listings like you would see in your local Yellow Pages, not the results when you do a Google Search.

Another reason we pay extra attention to Google Places Listings is that Google requires more work to verify them. Most directories allow any trusted account to create and edit listings without much additional effort, but Google’s notoriety makes Google Places the first target for spammers, scammers, and other ne’erdowells. In order to confirm that every business shown on Google Places is a real “brick and mortar” establishment, Google sends a letter containing a PIN (Personal Identification Number) to your office. While it seems strange for the company behind many of the most popular online tools to use “snail mail,” this means that Google will know that the address is real, physically exists, and is connected to your business.

Our Process

When a customer signs up for ASEL, we search for any existing listings on Google Maps; some of our customers create their own listings, others may have had listings created via another service they have worked with. Some listings are created “organically” by Google itself.

Organic listings often contain data drawn from other directories or online resources, so unfortunately, if you have old or incorrect information in one online source, it may be repeated. If we find any existing listings, we’ll let you know, make any obvious edits (like adding a link to your website) and check with you if the existing listings need further editing. While we do what we can to help our customers address any errors found, we may have little to no control over information on websites that got your information from other sources.

If we don’t find a Google Places Listing already online, we create one for you with as much detail and information we can, based on your ASEL submission and the information from your website. The best way to help us help you is to have as much detail as you can about your practice on your website, ideally on your sidebar.

Once we create the listing, we prompt the letter from Google according to Google’s verification process. You should get the letter within three weeks, although the letters often arrive much earlier. When your letter arrives, you’ll see instructions about log in information. Don’t worry about any of this, it’s all been taking care of! These instructions are for us, but since we do this so often, we’re already well aware of what needs to be done. Simply contact us via our toll free number, or email us at Verifications@PhysicalTherapistSites.com, and make sure to include the PIN with any message. We’ll use the PIN to get your listing online and send you a link to the listing when it’s up.

Some Frequently Asked Questions.

Can’t I just create my own listings?

By all means! Some of our customers prefer to create their own listings, or have had listings created for them by someone they know. We’re offering this a a free service, but you certainly don’t need to take advantage of it.

How can I edit a listing once it’s online?

As long as you are a PhysicalTherapistSites customer, we will make any Google Places Listings you request (within Google guidelines, of course). If we created your listing and want any changes, just tell us what edits you’d like us to make. However, if we did not create the listing, it often is easiest for the business owner to edit existing listings.

Google Places Listings may be edited in different ways, depending on how the listing was created and if you have a Google Account. Unfortunately, these methods vary considerably and it’s impossible to provide general advice. The most complete way to edit a Google Places Listing is via a Google Account and following the directions below, at Can I claim my Google Places Listing with my own Google Account?

I don’t want my office address made public, can I still have a listing?

Google Places requires an exact street address, unless your business is based on a coming to your client’s location. If you have a delivery/house-call radius, or can provide a list of locations you travel to, we can opt to hide your physical address. Otherwise, if you don’t have a “brick and mortar” location, Google will not verify the listing.

While there are ways to submit to other listings, the best way to have maximum promotional exposure is to have a physical office location you’re willing to promote.

Why can’t I just have Google contact me at home?

Google will only use the public address and phone number for your business to verify your listing. This prevents someone else from claiming your listing, for instance. Google doesn’t know that your home or other billing address is connected to your office. If we could opt to have the letter sent to other locations, we’d simply have all letters sent directly to us.

What if I have more than one office?

Once you submit ASEL, our Directory Listings staff checks your website to see if there are multiple offices, and creates a Google Places Listing for each. Each physical location would have its own listing, which means it requires its own PIN.

If you have information for all your offices on your website and submit ASEL, that should be enough for us to create as many listings as needed. The best way to help us help you is to have as much detail about your office locations and other contact information on your website, ideally on your sidebar. If you open new offices after your initial sign up, please let us know.

Do I need to verify this Google Places Listing?

Not at all, only if you want to take advantage of the extra promotion that having a Google Places Listing provides!

Google Places Listings are very useful tools, which is why we create them for our customers, but this doesn’t mean you have to verify yours. While we suggest that you do verify it soon, you can also leave it alone and verify it later. You may also request that we delete it, or you may create one from scratch using your own Google Account.

Can I claim my Google Places Listing with my own Google Account?

Yes! After you have validated the listing by sending us the PIN, You may “claim” that listing with your own existing Google Account. Google Accounts are free to create, if you use Gmail or other Google services, you have one already. The steps for claiming the listing are somewhat counter-intuitive, so please follow the directions below carefully!

After validating your listing, log onto http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter using your existing Google Account. Select Add another business and enter the office phone number in the listing. You should see your office information appear. Click the “Edit” button to the right of your listing.

Alternately, you can claim your listing if you are logged into your Google Account (many users are logged in already by being logged into the email account connected to this Google Account). Then, go to your Google Places Listing. You can find this on either http://local.google.com/ or http://maps.google.com/ and searching for your business name and zip code. Click on Edit this place and a window will pop up saying “This place has been claimed in Google Places and can only be edited by the owner…” Click on Google Places and when the screen changes, choose “Edit my business information.”

Either way, this will bring up your listing information, but you’ll notice that not all the information shows. Don’t worry, any information submitted to the listing is still on the publicly-visible listing itself. (We warned you this was counter- intuitive!) Any edits you make at this time will show in the public listing. You may need to re-select at least one business “Category.” Click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page, and Google will ask you to prompt another PIN letter. After that, you have the listing in your own account.

If you do claim a listing we create for you, please let us know.

I received a letter from Google, but I can’t log into the account.

Not to worry! We’ve already done most of the work for you, so you don’t need to worry about logging in to validate anything. Just call or send an email with your business name and PIN to Verifications@PhysicalTherapistSites.com. We’ll take care of it from there.

How do I know if I have a listing online?

You may have had listings created before you joined up with PhysicalTherapistSites. Many businesses have listings created by other companies, or by the search engines themselves. You can see if you are already listed by searching for your business name and zip code via http://maps.google.com/.

Rich M – PhysicalTherapistSites Listings and Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

Quiet, Please! (Why We Discourage Autoplay Sounds On Websites)

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Like photos, contact forms and maps, music and videos on your site can be great “enhancer” features. When placing music on a site, you have the option as to whether to have the website automatically play the music, or play the music only when the user clicks the “play” button.

While you should always be looking for ways to make your site more dynamic and engaging, it’s important to be mindful of changes that might provoke a negative reaction. Sometimes, what seems like a good idea at first turns out to be counterproductive. Consider, for instance, some arguments against autoplaying music…

* It’s making a lot of assumptions: forcing autoplay on anyone who checks out your website assumes at least the following:
1) That the browser has the required capability to play the files without crashing.
2) That the person on your site has your taste in music.
3) That this person is not already listening to music (and here, consider how many people listen to music on the computer while they surf the web)
4) That the person is in a situation where nobody else will be disturbed by the sudden noise. In reality, the sound may disturb coworkers, bosses, or other people on a bus or library.

If your website causes browser problems, garbles someone’s in-progress musical experience, disturbs people working nearby, or causes them any grief, they’ll immediately close the website, likely never to return again.

* If this was a good idea, it would be industry standard. Think of a major business you like and respect and go to their website. Does music play? Is there a sudden greeting from the founder? Probably not. Google and Amazon spend a lot of time researching what works and what doesn’t. If music embedded on a website set to automatically play worked, these companies would have it. They don’t.

About a decade ago, many websites started adding autoplay sounds, only to learn this is not a good idea. Certain companies still try: an ad company started adding autoplay commercials on entertainment websites, only to have the fans of those websites boycotting the products being advertised. While some websites do still have autoplay content, these are media-centric sites such as YouTube where the viewer is clicking to a link, expecting to hear music and/or watch videos.

* Experts don’t recommend it. It’s not even that most experts don’t use it, it’s pretty much unanimous. In fact, when researching the topic, I couldn’t find anything in support of automatic sounds on a website. Most writing on the subject was written as if anyone reading already agreed and just needed some help explaining to clients why the idea is so bad. For instance, the article: “How to Convince a Client their Site Doesn’t Need Music”. While the article does say that music business websites are an exception, it uses strong language about the idea, and features the quote “Users expect web pages to contain useful information, not carry a tune.”

However, as a former music reviewer, I’d note that most music industry sites don’t have automatic play. Most bands, record labels, etc. have many options to listen to songs and videos, but they give an option.

Remember, your website is a tool. Both for you to promote your business, and for a potential client uses to learn about your business. The more useful and user-friendly this tool is, the more it will be used.

Rich M – PhysicalTherapistSites Listings and Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

Getting Noticed in a Crowd: Competing in a Crowded Market

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Crowd being turned back at Coliseum (LOC)For many of our customers located in densely populated areas, making their business known to potential clients is their greatest challenge.

A practitioner in Grangeville, Idaho is not likely to have direct competition in their area of specialization. However, in San Francisco or Manhattan there are probably hundreds of similar businesses which anyone can choose to patronize. How does a professional get their business noticed among the clamor of online ads/business listings, and advertisements in newspapers/magazines/bus stops?

Make More Noise

One approach is to be more noticeable than other businesses by advertising more intensely. If you out-bid other advertisers for Google AdWords placement, you can get priority placement for your ad in search listings and websites. If you spend more on newspaper and magazine ads, you can make yours larger than those of other services. You can pay for preferential placement in business directories, above the free or lower-cost ads.

Make a Different Kind of Noise

When Deadline Express Couriers in New Zealand wanted to emphasize that they make their deliveries on-time, they had a billboard literally explode at the end of a countdown. 3M boasted about their security glass by displaying large stacks of money behind the glass in a bus shelter. While advertising like this is probably way outside of your budget, these publicity stunts might be inspirational in dreaming up a campaign that is practical for you. Can you think of a hook that people would remember and associate with your business?

You, Tubed

A free form of advertising you can use is the YouTube video site. Online videos which anyone can play and which might turn up in Google and other searches are a very effective marketing tool, a way that you can get noticed in a crowd. A video that is humorous enough or interesting enough can become “viral” so that other Internet users are promoting the video, doing your marketing for you. When using this tactic, the video should nonetheless represent your business professionally. The result may be the opposite of what you intend if your business is associated with a laughable gimmick that doesn’t have anything to do with your service. Videos can be easily made using a low-cost digital camera (many of them have video recording capability) or video camera. Once the content is transferred to a computer (and the manual for the camera should tell you how this is done) it can be easily uploaded to YouTube. Some types of video you might create and post on the site for anyone to find: a video tour of your office, a personal introduction to your business, or snippets of conversation with satisfied customers. You might for example stage a conversation with an actual customer about how much they appreciate your service. The customer could be given discounted service for helping you market your practice. The videos can also serve you other ways. A video could be embedded in your website or you could email a link for a video to an individual when the video can illustrate something you want to say much better than text or still images.

We Can Help

Included free with every PhysicalTherapistSites website subscription is our comprehensive set of tools and assistance for Search Engine Optimization and marketing your business. It takes time and commitment to become very visible in some of the more densely crowded markets, and nobody can guarantee #1 placement in search engines. However, we can get your business in front of many sets of eyes and maybe even help you make your business more recognized than your toughest competitor. The website templates are optimized to encourage prominent placement in search engines. We show you how to customize the content with the terms that are likely to be searched by a person looking for your service. We create listings for you in many online directories including Google Maps and Yahoo! Local. To learn more about what we can do to give your business prominence in your market, just contact us!

Brian S – PhysicalTherapistSites Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

Getting Affiliated: Amazon Associates

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We are asked quite frequently about “affiliate” programs. As an affiliate, your website can feature items or services for sale which a visitor to the site can purchase, and when any are purchased you receive a small commission. The relationship benefits all parties involved: the company offering the affiliate program receives exposure which doesn’t cost them anything until an item is purchased, you earn a commission on the sale, and your website visitor has found something they might not otherwise have known about.

Should I Affiliate?

When deciding whether to use an affiliate program, there are two questions to consider.

Are there items I can present for sale on my website which might be of interest to my visitors? If you are a sports physical therapist, there may be books that you recommend that have information about reducing strain and injury in sports activities. It may even make your work easier if your clients have read particular books. You may also have “required reading” for your clients, and this could be a great way to give them access to the books online if they would like to order them.

Does my website receive sufficient traffic to make it worthwhile? Does my website receive sufficient traffic to make it worthwhile? If one $15 book is purchased from your site per month and you receive an 8% commission, this is $1.20 per month of income for you. You may decide that this isn’t enough to justify spending any time creating your account and widget. However, if you have items that you would like to recommend, it may be worth your while to add the widget just to be informative for your website visitors.

Choosing an Affiliate Service

If you have decided to sell products on your site for a commission, the next step is to choose a company with an affiliate program. There are many to choose from, however if you are a health care professional it is unlikely that you will market products for Art.com (art items) or zZounds (musical instruments and DJ equipment).

Most of our customers who use affiliate marketing are using Amazon Affiliates. When you sell Amazon items on your site, you receive a 4% to 15% commission. The percentage you receive depends on several factors, such as how much you sell and the type of item. You can choose to have Amazon pay your commission by direct deposit into your bank account, or have them send a check or Amazon gift certificate.

The most popular affiliate program and the one that we recommend most highly is the Amazon Affiliates program (also called Amazon Associates). To set up an account, just sign up here. Once you have an account you can create a “Widget” of recommended products that can be embedded on your website. Amazon has a number of widgets options available, so just find the one that best presents the products you’d like to recommend! Once you’ve created a widget, you’ll be able to get the code to embed it on your website.

Important note: if you are a resident of certain US States, Amazon does not make available the Affiliates program to you because of the state tax laws regarding online sales. The affected states list changes from time to time, so check the online Operating Agreement (last paragraph of section “2. Enrollment”). At the time this article was posted, the excluded states were: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Adding the widget Code

Here’s a tip about adding the snippet of code for the Amazon Affiliates widget to your site. When viewing your site’s code (using the “Source” button feature, if using our website service), you will probably get the best results if you add the code snippet before or after all of the other content. It may in your case be important to add the widget someplace in the middle. Example: you would like to have an introductory paragraph, then the widget, then some graphical links. It should be all right to add the code in the midst of the existing code, if you do not add it within any “tag pair.” A “tag” identifies the beginning and end of a component in a website. A <p> tag indicates the beginning of a paragraph, and </p> the end. A table begins with <table> and ends with </table>. Notice that the opening tags begin with < and the closing tags begin with </. If you do not add the widget code between the beginning and ending tag of a component, then the widget should work well with the rest of the page. TherapySites customers can, if there is any doubt, just send us the code for the widget with a description of where the widget should go in the website.

Note that some widgets may need customizing before they will work well in the website. If the widget is too wide, it will either widen the website’s page or part of it will not be seen. We can usually modify a widget to fit your website’s template, although in many cases we must know your Amazon Affiliates login so that we can customize the qualities of the widget in the account where it was created. Just let us know the end result you are trying to achieve, and if at all possible we will help you get there!

Another interesting note about affiliate widgets and TherapySites websites: with our service, we provide quite a bit of Search Engine Optimization and website promotion assistance at no extra cost. We create business listings for you in many online directories, give you tools to optimize your site for the highest possible rankings in search engines, and we even help you through the process to set up search-engine-friendly content on the site. All this will lead to more traffic, and more resulting affiliate sales for you.

Brian S – PhysicalTherapistSites Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

Google AdWords: Is it for Me?

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If you have read our other articles, you know already that your website will be discovered by Google and other search engines automatically. The website will then appear in a list of search results for terms that are in your site. Did you know that you can also get your site to be listed ahead of all of the others in Google and some other search engines, by bidding on ads using Google’s AdWords service? Your ad can be at the very top of results, the first seen of any listing, if you out-bid other advertisers.

The service can actually be very inexpensive. You choose the length of time you want your ad “campaign” to continue running, and the amount of money to budget. You can control the amount budgeted per-ad, set a spending limit for the ad campaign, and even set a daily budget maximum. When you specify a higher cost per ad, then your ad will appear more prominently for the same target terms than ads which are bid at a lower cost. Note: you can pay less for an equivalent position by creating a high-quality ad, linking to a high-quality site. The Quality Score page should tell you everything you need to know about this.

How effective can this be for your business? Let’s try some simple math. Suppose you have run an AdWords campaign and spent $50. You may have spent the $50 over 3 days in an advertising blitz for an upcoming special offer, or over a month to gradually build your customer base. If you have just two people patronize your business as a result of the ads they saw, and over the life of your business you earn $500 in fees from them after your expenses, then you have made $450 from the one AdWords campaign. Longer campaigns or multiple campaigns spread out over time can have much more effect. It is up to you how to budget the pace of the ads (so that you do not take in too many new customers in a short time span) and the cost.

You can choose “Pay Per Click” so that there is no charge to you unless your ad is clicked by a viewer, or use “Pay Per Impression” so that you pay a lower amount each time your ad is displayed (whether or not it is clicked).

You can also specify the search terms to associate with your ad. If you are a Marriage Counselor practicing in Chicago, then “Marriage Counselor” and “Chicago” would be some terms you can associate with your ad. When search engine users input those terms, your ad appears.

There are some other areas of control possible with AdWords. You can specify local, national, or international placement of your ads. You can choose to have ads displayed also in Google’s partner networks AOL search and Ask.com. You can use rich media (animation) in your ads. You can have your ads appear in other websites which are relevant to your business, such as websites of other health professionals who have chosen to display AdWords ads.

Should I use AdWords?

Unless you have a full client load or your website is already receiving sufficient traffic that you are taking in as many new clients as you want, the answer is probably: Yes. Here are two circumstances where an AdWords campaign would be especially recommended:
New website: if your site is so new that the search engines’ crawlers have not yet discovered it to add it to their search results, or the site is still climbing the rankings and relatively obscure, then an AdWords campaign can jump you to the tops of listings regardless of your website’s visibility in the “organic” results of search engines.
Local competition: if you are competing with many similar businesses in your local area, it may be a challenge to get your site featured prominently in the first page of search results. If there are hundreds of websites for similar businesses in your area, only a small percentage will be featured in the first page of search results regardless of the quality of each site. AdWords can help you overcome the odds by allowing you to purchase your way to the top of results lists.

Getting Started

A recommended place to start getting oriented about AdWords is the AdWords Beginner’s Guide. If you would prefer to see an orientation for AdWords in a video, there is a great one here. When this video is finished, links will be presented to more videos for specific topics such as writing ad text or choosing keywords.

We agree that it can take quite a bit of time and effort to understand AdWords. A suggested progression: try the Beginner’s Guide and online videos mentioned earlier, then if you have any questions try looking up the information in the AdWords Help. If you cannot find an answer, Google gives several Support options that you might try.

AdWords and DentistSites

A DentistSites website can be an excellent complement to an AdWords campaign. We will help you create a website which has high-quaity content and optimized keywords to give you the best chance of success with AdWords and promoting your business in general. Whether you do not yet have a website or you are looking for a website service which includes Search Engine Optimization services, we can help you create a site with images, text content, documents, even multimedia that is relevant to your practice. With well-designed content, the website will be ranked favorably by search engines and your AdWords ads will get preferential treatment over ads linked to less-optimized websites.

The initial template content on your DentistSites website will already be populated with many relevant keywords when you begin using it. Then, you can easily customize the content so that your name, company name if different, location, service terms, etc. are all populated throughout the site so that search engines will strongly favor your site for those terms. This will give your site a higher Quality Score which will both improve our ads’ positions in search pages and reduce your advertising costs.

An example: here is the editor feature for setting the “Search Engine Title Tag” which is the text that most search engines will provide with the link to your site in search results, and it is the text that most browsers display at the top of the browser to describe the page.

This feature allows you to change, in a single edit, the graphical text at the top of every page of your site as well as the embedded tags (not seen on the actual website) which identify the site’s purpose to search engines.

Here you see the edited header (top area) of the site.

 

 

This editor feature allows you to change, with a single edit, the company information that appears on every page of the site. It is important for search engines and for marketing that any page be associated with your name and location.

 

The content is formatted on the site automatically from the information you enter in the form. You can also turn on a rich-content editor for the sidebar, so that you can make more types of changes such as editing text color or size, or adding an image.

 

Brian S – DoctorSites Support
Email any questions to Support@DoctorSites.com

Just What Is This Twitter Thing Anyway?

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So what is Twitter?

Twitter is an interesting social networking service which is a little difficult to define. While it is normally talked about in the same discussions as other social networking sites, it certainly isn’t the same as Facebook or Google+.

Created in 2006, Twitter was originally envisioned as a “micro-blogging” site and as a way to share short (140 character) messages, also known as ‘Tweets’, to large groups of people quickly and easily.

Say you want to go snowboarding, and you want to invite all of your friends to come. Instead of calling or texting each of your friends individually, you just tweet it out and any of your friends and family that are following your twitter will be instantly notified!

Great, how does that help my practice?

Twitter is a great way to send out messages to all of your clients, (or potential clients), and an even better way to promote your other Social Networking efforts!

Social Networking boils down reputation. That is the most important thing to remember when planning a Social Network marketing strategy.

For example, you just wrote a very well thought out and insightful blog that does a fantastic job of showcasing the fact that you are a leader in your field! But what good does that do if no one reads it? Tweet out a link to the blog and notify all of your fans immediately!

Ideally you want your tweet to be so informative, or at least interesting, that all of your followers “re-tweet” it to their followers. Then those followers “re-tweet” to their followers, and so on and so forth!

Before you know it, you’ve gotten your marketing message out to hundreds or even thousands of people, without costing you a dime!

How is that for a Return On Investment?

Oh, and a note on links. Since Twitter imposes the 140 character limit on tweets most standard links will far exceed that. A great way to get around that is to use URL shortening services. There are a few out there, but we prefer bit.ly.

For example, using bit.ly I turned:

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/

into:

http://bit.ly/3ScBfd

You do not have to sign up for an account to use bit.ly and the links you create never expire!

So how do I get started!

Starting a Twitter account is easy. Just go to www.twitter.com and click sign up! Then start putting your Twitter username, which will be something like ‘@ptsites’, on your business cards, website, the signature of your emails, and all of your other marketing material! This is the quickest and easiest way to start getting followers!

Stay tuned for another blog in the coming weeks on advanced Twitter techniques and best practices, and, while you’re signing up for your Twitter account, make sure to follow us as well!

http://twitter.com/#!/ptsites

Taylor H – PhysicalTherapistSites Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com

Questioning Your Website Content: Getting Back to Basics

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I’ve noticed on a few occasions that the customers who don’t have basic contact information on their websites are often the ones pointing out that they don’t get contacted very much.

When put that way, this problem might seem self-explanatory, but often we find ourselves reminding our customers the importance of starting from the basic and most important information:

Who, What, Where, When, Why & How?

These are questions that potential clients are usually going to ask, so thinking of how you answer these questions is helpful when putting your website together:

WHO are you?
• Are you using a consistent name, spelled the same in all instances?
• If you go by nicknames, or people might know your maiden name, etc, is this referenced at least once in your website content?
• Is/are your business name(s) and personal name(s) presented clearly as such?
• Are you using first and third person correctly (“contact me” when you’re a solo practitioner, “about us” when it’s multiple people, etc.)?
• Have you clearly explained your occupation, business, etc.? Your website should say more than just your name, it should explain who you are, and SHOW who you are.

WHAT sort of practice do you have?
• Related to who you are. I asked above if it’s clear what your occupation is, is it clear what business you’re in? Many small businesses start the conversation with an assumption that website visitors know what they do, and start saying “What I do is treat each client as the most important person” or “my technique is to show the client how they can help themselves after they leave.” This is great, but before you discuss details of your business style, make sure it’s clear what business you’re in. The above sentences should be said after it’s clear that the practitioner is a Psychotherapist, Yoga Teacher, etc.
• Be specific. What modalities do you use? What client base do you focus on?

WHERE are you?
• Is your location clearly shown in the sidebar of your website
• Is there a map and directions to your location, so people can easily find your practice?
• Even if you don’t want the public to know your exact address, do you indicate at least where you are based? Remember, most people look up for businesses based on their location. Someone in Chicago looking to try on hats is more likely to do a search for “Hat stores, Chicago” than “Hats”. Unless you put your address, or at least your city and state on the site, your site probably won’t appear in local searches
• If you don’t want/need people to know where you are, do you say why not? For instance, if you do online consulting or interviews by phone, is this clear and obvious?
• Are there nearby towns and cities that people might commute from? Any place that’s close enough to you to have potential clients should be mentioned on your site!

WHEN are you…available to talk to clients?
• Does your website make it easy for clients to know how to contact you to ask basic questions, to set up an initial consultation, make an appointment?
• Does your website mention when your appointments might be?

WHY are you the business the client should choose?
• What’s so special about you? No, really, what titles, awards, or recommendations have you gotten?
• What is unique about you that a client would pick you over another business? Think about your mannerisms, styles, techniques, trainings, influences…and back to who you are.
• Are you doing anything that makes it especially convenient to work with you? Think of your selling points.

HOW will this all work?
• Again, is it clear how a client can contact you, make an appointment, visit you?
• A client calls you, now what? Is there a step-by-step process for new clients? Is this process clear, or are you assuming your clients know how the business works? Is it easy for clients to ask you questions?

Of course, these bullet points are hardly the extent of the things you might consider, but hopefully, they’ll get some creative juices flowing. It bears repeating that one of the best things you can do to help your website; or any promotional tool, is to have a friend who is not familiar with your business take a look. If they didn’t know what your business was about, would they by looking at the site? Did they find the answers to all the above questions?

I hope this proved to be helpful! Remember, we’re here to help you make the most of your website, but it’s YOUR website.

Rich M – PhysicalTherapistSites Support
Email any questions to Support@PhysicalTherapistSites.com