Your Acupuncture Website

How to Get Started & Avoid Costly Mistakes

Factors to Consider

If you are a non-techy and prefer a web designer, or just want a hands-off approach, hire a one of Sitesell Service's Certified Webmasters. They are a reputable company with excellent customer service and support. You will definitely get a quality website that is search engine optimized and easily found by your customers. Although I will offer another possibility for having someone else create a website for you, Sitesell Service's will create an acupuncture website for you that is also a marketing and monetization tool. No company understand e-commerce and building a business on the web like SiteSell

Read my Squidoo article, "How to Build a Great Business Website in One Easy Step".

If you want to build your own acupuncture website, then I have found a couple different strategies and tools you can utilize as you see fit. No matter which approach you implement, plan on developing your acupuncture website to use as a marketing tool.

Acupuncturists are unfortunately slow to understand that a website is by far the best, most cost-effective, and most powerful marketing and passive income generating system they will have. Even if you do not use it initially for marketing or earning additional income, you still want to make certain it contains appropriate features and codes to allow you to do so in the future.

Please do NOT put your website in the sole control of another person. Even if it is a friend, spouse, or hired web designer. You should retain oversight and ownership. A trap that many acupuncturists fall into is "doing a trade" for their business website. I have heard too many horror stories and strongly discourage you from trading acupuncture services for web design services. It's okay to arrive at an arrangement, but pay each each other based on a predetermined contract which delineates time and end result.

One last note before we begin going through the ways to get started on your very own acupuncture clinic website, whether you are hands-on or hands-off you must write your own original content. This means you not only have to write your own bio including educational background, experience, professional organizations, and any other life endeavors that makes you unique, but you have to write about your own perspective of and experience with acupuncture and Oriental medicine. Your website is an opportunity to share who you are and must be in your own voice.

Having said that, I am going to recommend a website company that does 90% of the content writing for you. This is for those rare cases where you are absolutely unable to write all your own content. The good news is, this excellent acupuncture website building company allows you to change the content to "make it your own" when you are ready.

Ways to Get Started on
Your Acupuncture Clinic Website

Without a doubt if you want a good looking acupuncture website but do not want to spend a lot of time or money, you will want to talk to Michael Edson at Acupuncture-Websites.com. I had the pleasure of talking with Michael at the recent AAAOM meeting in Portland, OR and was pleased to meet a humble, generous, knowledgeable, dedicated, practitioner who is committed to helping acupuncturists get a properly designed website to promote and market their acupuncture practice. He really "gets it" when it comes to search engines and proper coding. But there is a problem with these websites. Read on.

There is a nice selection of Free Acupuncture Website Templates to choose from. There are limitations to fonts and colors, but just about anything can be customized for an additional fee.

NEW!! UPDATED! Set-Up Fees Eliminated!! The cost is extremely reasonable (trust me!) at $250 per year (about $20 per month), without any set-up fees. This is for a basic 12-page "brochure-type" of website. You are required to write the content for the following pages:

• Your Mission Statement / philosophy (home page)
  
• About Your Practice
  
• Contact Information

• About Acupuncture
  
• Conditions Treated
  
• What to Expect
  
• Frequently Asked Questions
  
• Preparing For a Visit
  
• Initial Visit
  
• How Herbs are Used
  
• Is Acupuncture Covered by Insurance?
  
• NIH/WHO Acupuncture Consensus Statement

Look at all they do for you! Michael and his team will work with you via phone and email to get your website up as soon as possible. You have the option to do your own editing and you can add "ecommerce" to your site at any time for an additional $10 per month fee.

The only concern I have is that search engines regard the same information on every acupuncture website as "duplicate content" and then "penalize" your website by not listing it when people do searches. In other words, your website ends up in limbo where no one can find it. For this reason I recommend writing all your content and replacing the pre-written pages with original material over time.

The most important thing is that you know yourself and what you want. This is a great way to get started and you cannot beat the value. Click Here for more information or visit www.Acupuncture-Websites.com.

Personally, I would hire one of SiteSell Services certified webmasters to write original keyword focused content and build I website that I knew would be a successful marketing tool!

2. Do-It-Yourself website design:

My first choice should be obvious to you by now, SiteBuildIt! has the best price and product.

The way I see it, to build your own website you have two choices:

1. You can get an integrated all-in-one website design and building package.
   
2. You can get all the individual parts to meet your specific website design and building needs.

For an all-in-one integrated package, I highly recommend Site Build It. (Here is their homepage which goes through all they offer in great detail. It provides a good reference point when you are researching web design tools and programs.) I did not know a single thing about building a website when I started this one in March 2007. I just followed the step-by-step Action Guide and voila! Site Build It is a great price at about $25 per month ($299 / year) without any set-up fees. This includes your domain name, hosting, Newsletter capabilities, auto-responders, RSS, mini-blogging, and more tools than I know what to do with. Read my very biased review of Site Build it in "The Best DIY Acupuncture Website Software".

If you want to collect tools to build your acupuncture website, you are probably familiar with HTML and have skills in web design. Below I have listed some resources to consider. I recommend comparing the "sum of the parts" with what is included in the Site Build It package, which allows you to download your own HTML as well as use their step-by-step Block-Builder.

Purchasing what appear to be inexpensive parts (such as domain name, hosting, web design tools, templates, blogging capabilities, RSS, shopping cart, et cetera, et cetera) can add up to a lot more than purchasing a comprehensive all-in-one- package. So do your homework, and compare.

Having said that, here are some great resources that may suit your needs. Don't be afraid to shop around to get the best deals:

GoDaddy: Domain Names, Hosting, Web Design templates, software, and tools, shopping cart, and lots of ecommerce tools, but very little web design support. I do not have anything bad to say about GoDaddy. They provided us (meaning my husband because I was too intimidated with "uploading ftp" and all the HTML coding to be involved) with great hosting for a few years. Whenever we had trouble uploading our site from Microsoft Publisher, they provided great technical support. I still have our clinic website domain name with GoDaddy, but it redirects to our Site Build It clinic website.

HostGator: Good Hosting with various levels to choose from. Their hosting plans range from the "Hatchling", "Baby", and "Swamp" and you can choose based on your needs. They are reasonably priced and reliable.

WordPress: A powerful software package used to Blog. Many people have turned their Blog into an effective business website. I do not recommend having a Blog only, but it can be a valuable addition to your acupuncture website. Most agree that a Blog is a versatile way to get an immediate presence on the web. Note: Make sure you utilize WordPress.org instead of the WordPress.com version. Check out more info & video tutorials to Blog with Wordpress.

Yahoo! Search Marketing: A useful small business marketing tool to help you find and drive targeted traffic (e.g. people looking for acupuncture related information or service) to your website.

Google's Overture: gives exact numbers of searches in the previous month. It's finicky and can take some time to load, and re-load. And re-load. Patience, Grasshopper.

Google's Adwords Keyword Tool: This is a powerful free tool to help you identify the words that people are searching for on the internet. It gives "low", "average", and "high" indicators for search volume. THis is critical information to have when writing your content! Although it does not give exact numbers, it's still extremely useful. If this link does not work, you may need to sign up for a free Google account in order to use it. It's easy to do.

Search It!: is another very powerful tool for checking everything from keyword search volume, competition in your niche, monetization models, domain names, and a bunch. Some of the features only work if you are a Site Build It owner. Full use of Search It is included on the Site Build It computer building package.

Wordtracker- The Premier Keyword Research Tool for Search Engine Optimization: Go to the "Free Trial" Tab and take it for a test run. This tool gives exact numbers, but requires a payment after the free trial ends.

1ShoppingCart: When you are ready to add ecommerce to your website look at 1ShoppingCart's affordable, powerful and secure online shopping system.

AWeber: An extremely powerful auto-responder and newsletter tool to help you consistently and professionally stay in touch with your patients. This is a fantastic and easy way to market your practice. They offer a free trial period so you can take it for a test drive before purchasing. It is really amazing and will have you thinking about Chinese Medicine auto-responder e-courses in no time!

Beginning Your Business Online (BBO): BBO Institute was created by Matthew Glanfield. He is a guru in the field of inexpensive and effective techniques to get customers to your website or sales page. Sign up for his Traffic Club for free and you'll see some great training videos on what NOT to put on your website.

Article Marketer: As an acupuncturist you are a natural educator. You can write articles and use Article Marketer to submit them to thousands of directories. One article can send hundreds of visitors to your website over and over again. This saves you tons of time and allows you to build your business by attracting more targeted niche traffic to your website.

This is by no means a complete list of every tool that will help you build, create, design, and market your acupuncture website, but it is a good start. As with everything listed on this website, do your research to make certain that the product or service is right for you before purchasing.

Still Stuck? Ask For Help

I answer every inquiry myself. I therefore require that you provide your full contact information, including email, mailing address, and phone number. This is simply to weed out solicitations (yes, I get them!) and those who are not serious about needing help. I value my time and your time. If you do not hear from me within 3 business days please try again being absolutely sure that your contact information (phone number & email) are correct.

Investing in a Website is Tricky -- Request Help
Your Website as a Marketing Tool
What You Need to Know about Website Marketing
Return to the Top of Your Acupuncture Website