If you are a therapist, coach, healer, helping professional, health and wellness consultant- you are inundated with information on how to push your product or service out there- how to utilize social media, how to build your list, how to incentivize your audience, how to arrange information on your website to create a call-to-action, how to operationalize your niche…
Right?
And so you do all of that.
And then you hurry up and wait. TICK TOCK. And wait.
I don’t hear anyone really talking to us about the hard facts- the real information that let’s us know what numbers mean our website is getting “sticky”- that we might actually see business building from our web presence- when all that social media effort might begin to pay off, when we might see an increase in clients and customers…
So I am breaking the silence.
First, you need to know what your website statistics are- how many people visit your website on a daily basis? 1? 10? 50? 200? 5000? How about unique visitors to your website in any given month? And how do those numbers compare to others in your field or line of work?
You can compare website traffic to get a basic idea at SimilarWeb. Compare your website to someone in your profession- or a site you go to frequently for information. Compare your website to someone you consider “successful’ and look at the rank.
I have been blogging and building an audience via social media at Online Therapy Institute for over 5 years while also maintaining my website here. It does takes time. Dont be discouraged. It takes time AND consistency though. Blog regularly, offer your audience information, ask your website visitors to sign up for your newsletter.
Here’s the skinny~
From my observations both as a private practitoner and co-founder of an organization that offers online courses- and from someone who has blogged regularly (on average 3 times a month or more), who tweets daily and has gained over 20,000 followers, is active on Facebook personally and professionally, has built a Linkedin group to 2000 people, and has at least 1-5 people signing up daily for more information about products and services~
You need at least 30-200 unique visitors a day to your website or your Facebook page or your Linkedin group-whereever your primary online presence starts- before you will begin to see any traction. That is approximately 1000-5000 unique visitors a month. And you need to know how those people are finding you. Google Analytics is what I use to track and I can see how people land on each page. Was it from a Facebook post on my business page? Was it the tweet with a link to my blog? Did they search a particular term? Did they go directly to my website by typing the specific URL?
Know your audience
It also helps to know your audience. For instance, people who are interested in my essential oils efforts are finding me and following me primarily on Facebook and Pinterest, while people interested in continuing education and certification about online therapy are finding me on twitter and Linkedin. And if you already have a following- for instance, you have several hundred friends on Facebook or your Twitter following is growing, introducing a new service or product can be eaiser than starting out all brandy-new on the internet.
Therapists, coaches, healers
If you are a therapist, coach or healer in private practice, blog every week. Build your reputation, maintain an online professional presence and send that blog post out to the driveways of social media such as twitter, linkedin, facebook and pinterest. And if you are a business builder through network marketing such as Young Living Essential Oils wanting to build an online community to sell, the Four Year Career still holds. It will take time but you can build it!
Most of all, engage your audience! Talk. Write. Display your passion. Be authentic.
