One of the challenges for many MT is getting people to your website so that they can learn about you and what you do. Part of getting people to your website requires that you have a general understanding of search engine optimization (SEO).
For some crazy reason, Google and other search engines think that when there are other sites that link to your site, it makes your website look like a much better site. Search engines jobs are to find the best results for their users so the more links that you can have going to your site – the better your chances of getting found by the search engines and getting new clients for your business! Getting links from other websites to your website is one of the easiest ways to get Google’s attention.
So take a look at your top competitor. Go do a Google search for ‘massage, your city’. Take a look at the first site that is listed in the results. (If it is your page, you can stop reading now! or check your listings with the other search engines too.) Click on the top listing. Then go to Yahoo site explorer and do a search for
link:the-exact-url-of your competitor.com
This will tell you how many other sites are linking to the top site. You will need more links than your competitor to get listed higher than their site in the search results – in other words to beat them and show up above their site in the results for when people search for ‘massage, your city’.
Your website needs to be on the first page of results on all of the search engines to even have a chance of getting clients – but the thing is when you do get listed at the top or on the first page and increase your chances of getting people to your website – here is the secret -
These people are already looking for massage! They already want a massage! They are your ideal client! You just increased your chances of getting a client! When they find you just through doing a search, they already trust you more! People are more skeptical to make the call for a massage appointment when they don’t know you and they find you through an ad or flyer! You have to do more work to get them to trust you to make the call for the appointment! When they find you on their own, it is the first step in building trust!
It isn’t so much about getting links that people actually click on and follow to your site although that helps. What happens is that when Google finds a site that it likes and then finds a link to your site, it will actually follow the link and scan your site! So the trick to all this is getting links from sites that Google and search engines already visit often and they like them ( as in they rank high when people search for things not like a Facebook like!)
Here’s what I mean:
My website Massage Career Guides gets about 500 people a day visiting the site. Google knows I am there and they visit often! So when their ‘bots’ or ‘spiders’ come and visit that website it scans through all of the pages and then follows the links that I have on various pages. So when you add an short article to my website, the ‘bots’ will find your site and increase your chances of getting found by the search engines.
The best place to do that is either in the types of massage section or the about massage section. In either of those sections, you can click on any of the links on those pages to the various types of massage or the list of what conditions massage can help with and you will find a form to fill out. Just write a short 400 word minimum article on that topic and put your website address. (I will make it into a link for you!)
For example: In the types of massage section – Write about the type of massage that you do. Just write the way you would talk about what you do – why you like that type of massage, why did you study it, what you know about it, what it does for you and your clients.
The other side of this is also that I am building the largest directory of the various types of massage and won’t stop until I have them all! The more articles massage therapists add, the better it will be for readers as they learn more about the massage to find out if it is for them.
There are other ways that you can get links to your website:
- Post on blogs (like this one)
- Post on forums
- Write short articles at places like ezinearticles.com or selfgrowth.com
- Pay a link service to add your links to free link directories. (Only add 100 at a time. If you try to add too many all at once Google knows and frowns upon it.)
- Add your own link to free link directories
- Pay for links at places like Yahoo Directory or other top ranking directories
Or better yet- here is a whole free guide to creating a link building campaign and getting those backlinks! It also includes a special link building service that you can sign up for to help you complete your backlinking projects!
The other little thing to know is that when you create the link at any of those places listed above – Use the Keyword directly in the link! like this – Massage your City (link not valid). Search engines only know keywords- the words people use to search with. It is what makes search engines work!
Got it? Then take action right now! How many links does your top competitor have? How many do you have to your website? How many will you need? How many will you plan on getting every day/week until you meet your goal?
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Thanks for all the great advice. I’ve kinda been using this site as my bible since i’ve started to promote my massage business online. Thanks heaps
This really helped me fully understand the whole “back-link” buzz. Thanks so much for spelling it out!