Internet Massage Marketing

Just a quick update about my latest internet massage marketing project.

As you may be aware if you’ve been following this blog, I’ve been helping a friend of mine increase the size of her practice via the Internet.

She has a massage practice in NSW, Australia – Massage Newcastle | Newcastle Muscle Pain Solutions.

Anyway, I’ve been working on a website for her over the last 4-5 weeks and already have got her a front page listing on Google for the most relevant and competitive search phrase for her business – ‘massage newcastle’.

Already her phone is starting to ring and she is getting bookings. This is because I have built her a website that is not only designed to rank highly in the search engines, but also will effectively sell her massage practice.

This is something that I have fine-tuned over the years and I have gotten similar and even better results for my partner’s massage practice and also several other practitioners.

The secret to ranking well is firstly about domain choice. If you can get an exact match domain for your area i.e. massage + your city name + .com or .net or .org or with your country code e.g. .com.au or .net.au, then you are already well ahead. This is because Google is still giving considerable weight to exact match domains, although it has been pointed out by several  prominent SEOs that this advantage is beginning to wane.

The next step is to create your website and although I can’t get into my whole process within this blog post the essential thing to get across is a very appealing ‘special offer’ with time limit and glowing testimonials. You also need a very clear ‘call to action’ and make it easy for prospective clients to contact you.

You can see my work at: http://massagenewcastle.net. Also, check out the sitemap for a quick and easy reference to all of the pages I’ve created so far.

I will post another update soon. Just wanted to share the results so far, which have been nothing short of excellent, especially with the number of Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter ‘retweets’ the main page has received.

Talk with you again soon. Happy massage marketing!

Massage Newcastle | Newcastle Muscle Pain Solutions

Just wanted to give a shout out to my friend Jenny Penfold (also a massage therapist) from the Newcastle area. Her massage newcastle practice is absolutely thriving and for good reason too. She and he staff seriously know what they’re doing when it comes to alleviating neck and back pain.

If you’re ever down that way, her practice is called Newcastle Muscle Pain Solutions and is located in Wallsend, just 15 minutes west of the Newcastle city centre. You’re guaranteed to get a first class massage, you know the ones where you ‘know’ you’ve had a really good treatment afterwards. I’m speaking from experience too.

Their massage treatments draw on a whole range of specialized modalities including (but not limited to):

Remedial Massage, Deep Tissue Massage, Myotherapy, Trigger Point Therapy, Myofascial Release, Hot Stone Massage, Sports Massage, Pregnancy Massage and good old Swedish…and that’s not all of them.

Anyways, I’m helping Jenny to market her massage service over the Internet so she can expand and help more people. I’ve just finished building the home page of her website. Going to get this one ranked on the first page of Google as well for the keyword massage newcastle. Well, that’s the goal anyways. Google can be somewhat fickle these days.

Check it out and let me know what you think. Happy massaging!

A New Massage Website For My Friend

An old friend of mine and my partners who has taken a break from massaging to raise her 2 small children is now looking at starting back again and rebuilding her practice.

So, in order to speed things up and help her bring in new clients that much faster I took it on myself to start building a massage website for her. She lives in Townsville in Northern Queensland and so I managed to buy the domain with the keywords Massage Townsville.

This keyword is the most targeted in gets the most searches each month and therefore is the one that she will want to rank highly for in the search engines.

Anyway, it is still early days and although I’ve only created a ‘place holder’ website for her using WordPress, already she is ranking on page 2 of Google for her primary keyword phrase ‘Massage Townsville’.

This is another example of just how much weight Google gives to exact match domains or EMDs. It makes it that match easier for you to rank for certain search terms, without needing as many back links.

So the tip in this post for you as a marketer of massage is to set up a website using the exact match keyword phrase for the town that you massage in. For example, I also bought for my partner’s massage practice the exact match domain for Massage Gold Coast and she is now ranking at #1 for this term in Google and gets several new clients per week from this extremely low cost exposure.

Anyway, I hope this post gives you a little more insight and ideas for marketing your massage on the Internet. All the best!

Pregnancy Massage Gold Coast

If you don’t quite have the amount of clients and rebookings you need to be successful, then perhaps you should consider adding pregnancy massage to your menu.

My partner Tania has done this with her practice (she loves doing pregnancy massage) and lately it seems that she is getting more and more inquiries and bookings from pregnant women in all different stages. Her Pregnancy Massage Gold Coast website brings in quite a few clients each week.

I don’t know if you have noticed or not but there appears to be a real baby boom going on. In our growing health conscious society, this is fueling demand for qualified pregnancy massage therapists who are looking to massage as the solution to their aching lower back (and everywhere else). Plus, pregnancy massage is a truly wonderful way from Mothers to be to relax, unwind and actually connect with their baby.

Perhaps it would pay to take a look and see if there are any courses that you can do in your area that would allow you to offer this ‘in demand’ modality. In the current economic environment, you need to do what ever you can to set yourself apart from all of the other massage therapists trying to make a good go of it.

Good luck!

The Robotic Healing Touch

Now I know there is absolutely no substitute for the healing touch of human hands when getting a massage. HOWEVER, in this crazy paced busy modern world that we live in, it can often be difficult to get away for regular massage sessions, especially during regular business hours.

This goes doubly so for the massage therapist with a busy practice. We are often the worst for taking the time to book in and receive a massage after giving so much day in day out. So is there are more convenient alternative that can help bridge the gap between massage sessions. I believe there is. Massage chair pad products such as the popular Homedics shiatsu massager have really come along way in the performance of what many call ‘robotic’ massage therapy. Again, they’ve got nothing on intuitive, healing human hands but when it’s late at night and you just want a little kneading in your back for 15 minutes, they really are a lifesaver.

That being said, if you are a professional massage therapist who is reasonably busy, you really shouldn’t be going any longer than 2 weeks without getting a thorough full body session with another LMT. I know this can be challenging at times, especially if the going is good and you’ve got lots of clients coming in. However, you can only give so much (without getting back) before the quality of your massage suffers and your body starts to suffer.

Don’t do that to yourself. You want a nice, long, enjoyable and successful massage career right? You have to look after yourself along the way and follow the advice that you give out to your clients. Walk your talk.

NuSkin ageLOC

Just came across some ground breaking anti-aging products that all you massage, beauty and spa therapists out there should take a look at.

You would no doubt heard of a company called Nu Skin. Yeah, I know, they are a network marketing company but that is really irrelevant. What is important is the discovery they have made.

In collaboration with the world’s top scientists they have studied the aging process on a genetic level and found a major source of internal aging and have developed a product hat can neutralize it.

It looks pretty exciting, especially when you see the before and after pics. It is literally turning back the clock on wrinkles, lines, baggy eyes, saggy skin, stretch marks, cellulite and varicose veins.

That’s a pretty massive claim, I know. But seeing is believing. The product is called ageLOC and although it is brand new, I personally think it is going to be very big. I mean who doesn’t want to look young and healthy?

Anyway, for more info check out this ageLOC site at: Nuskin Australia.

Folding Office Chairs

If you’re just starting up your massage practice, you’ll want to get set up with some folding office chairs. These chairs are very affordable and come in a wide range of designs and colors to fit nicely in with the decor of your reception / waiting area, or in your massage room itself. Much cheaper than buying a couch and nice and portable too.

Clients like to have some where to sit down in the massage room too as they are taking their shoes off (and putting them back on again) and unless you have rack for their clothes to hang, they’ll be wanting to place them on their chair along with their personal belongings. It’s also nice to have a chair with wheels on it that you can sit down on when you’re giving your client a nice scalp massage.

Another great use for folding chairs are when you are out promoting your business at markets and festivals and the like. You’ll be standing up talking to people or doing massage but you’ll want to have some chairs for people to sit down while their filling their form (to enter your competition for a free massage, or some other lead generating promotion), or simply waiting for their turn to hop on the massage table or massage chair.

The best place to pick up your chairs cheaply and efficiently is to head over to Amazon.com. They have a huge range to choose from including folding office chairs, stacking office chairs, heavy duty folding chair and white folding chairs to name just a few. The great thing about folding chairs is that they are lightweight and portable and also stack away nice and neatly. Make sure you have a few in your massage practice.

Best Bath Towels

If you’re looking for the best bath towels that you can use in your massage in practice, look no further than Amazon.com.

Just do a search for best bath towels and you’ll be able to browse through hundreds of them and find the colors and textures that will most suit the decor in your massage room.

Keep in mind that you often get what you pay for when it comes to quality so if you want really great towels for your massage room, go for either Egyptian cotton bath towels or Pima cotton.

You also might like to go with a color as opposed to plain white bath towels. It’s much harder to see marks or stains on colored towels and they’ll look newer for longer.

Also, if you’re not aware of how much pesticides and chemicals they use when they produce cotton they use A LOT. So if you’re prepared to spend a little extra and want to go 100% natural and alternative, then you can also buy 100% organic bath towels, which are just beautiful. Nice to know that you’re really caring for your client’s health and well being by being conscious about what you place on their skin.

However, if you find though that you have a very busy practice and you go through a lot of towels (and laundering time and costs are stressing you), then hiring a linen service to provide you with fresh clean towels every week is a good way to go.

Again, this is a cost versus benefit thing. One thing’s for sure though is you can never have enough clean towels when you run a busy massage practice and it can be a real embarrassment if you’re ever caught short.

Best to keep ‘em well stocked.

Look Phone Reverse

Hey guys,

Just a quick post to let you know about a cool little service called Look Phone Reverse.

Ever have a cell number that you don’t recognize? Perhaps you’ve found a piece of paper in your bag with a number on it but no name. You can’t remember who’s it is but it could well be a massage client.

Rather than embarrassingly ringing up and asking who it is, you can simply head over to Look Phone Reverse and type in the number. Within seconds you’ll get a report back with the full name and address (and a few other details) of whomever owns that number.

Pretty cool, hey?

This is just one use. You can use it to track down old friends, old massage clients or to stop a stalker or prank caller in their tracks.

You can try it out for yourself by heading over to http://LookPhoneReverse.com.

It takes just a few seconds and is completely confidential.

Pregnancy Massage

A market that I believe to be largely ‘untapped’ by massage therapists is the pregnancy massage, or prenatal massage market.

I’ve talked to several MTs recently and what I’ve discovered is that there is a level of fear/discomfort about massaging pregnant women. The thing is, as long as you follow the contra-indication guidelines and have a very clear understanding with your clients re: the small, but potential risks, pregnancy massage is a wonderful modality to offer.

Of all the people in the world who could use a nice massage, I think pregnant women are right up there at top. The sore lower back and hips, the massive hormonal changes and emotions they go through – these beautiful mums-to-be need some TLC and lots of it.

As a male massage therapist (retired now) I have done quite a few pregnancy massages in my career, which might surprise you. I love doing them. Seeing my pregnant clients hop off the table (well not exactly ‘hop’) looking relaxed and refreshed…and ever so grateful is such a nice feeling.

I gave my massage therapist partner Tania lots of massage on the Gold Coast while she was pregnant with our son and he is just the most peaceful and happy little boy…and surprise, surprise – he LOVES to be massaged.

Actually my partner Tania enjoys doing pregnancy massage most of all, and she has built up a bunch of pregnancy massage clients just through ‘word of mouth’. These ladies talk to each other (breathing classes ring a bell?) and so you need to do very little marketing once you get a couple of them on the table. Provided they love your massage.

It’s not a hard massage to do. Nice, relaxing and nurturing with a little bit more pressure and friction in those sore and tight areas. The most important thing to ensure (beyond the standard contra-indications) is that they are as comfortable as they can be (use lots of pillows), and that your hands have a ‘loving’ touch…after all there’s a beautiful little baby inside who can feel and sense it all.

So if you’re not already offering pregnancy massage and you feel you’d like to, I’d certainly encourage you. Not only is it a really fulfilling ‘service’ but it is also considered a ‘premium’ massage and so from a business perspective it’s very worth your while, as they tend to have several massages throughout their pregnancy, at least our clients do/did.

Anyway, happy massaging those beautiful, smiling bellies!