3 Reasons Why You Should be Blogging

Although massage therapy is a profession that keeps you constantly busy with appointments, it's important to take time every week to focus on strategies to grow your business. This can range from continuing education courses, to taking an hour each week to call clients you haven't seen in a while, to expanding your online presence with a weekly blog post.

The last of these three business-growing strategies, blogging, is often overlooked as an opportunity to gain more clients. Perhaps it is the time commitment aspect, or maybe the importance of blogging is not clear as a marketing tactic. To help clarify the value of blogs for growing your business, listed below are three key reasons to consider starting a blog.

#1: Establish Yourself As An Expert

Blogging can help you establish yourself as an expert. When a potential new client searches for a massage therapist on Google, they are likely to get a few pages of results. Without prior knowledge of your business or a recommendation from a friend, it's difficult to stand out from the crowd and establish trust with the prospective client. Therefore, it's important to provide them with as much information as you can to attract their business. A professional website that lists your services, staff and location is a great start, but it doesn't really answer the question "why should I choose you?"

This is where a blog can add a lot of value. By keeping an up-to-date blog with healthcare tips, explanations of modalities in terms that clients can understand, and additional content, you can establish yourself as an expert in the field and start to win over the trust of the potential new client. Just like any other business, when it comes to choosing a service provider, you're going to choose the one that has demonstrated sufficient knowledge.

#2 Communicate With Clients

Blogging is an easy way to regularly communicate with clients. While a blog is a great way to attract new clients, perhaps a more valuable reason to blog is maintaining regular contact with your existing clients. The number one reason for repeat business (the key to a successful clinic) is providing great service. And while you may provide excellent service during the couple of hours per month you are with the client, there can be large gaps of time where you don't see them. With a blog, you can fill these voids and continue to offer excellent service by sharing helpful health tips, such as different stretches that will help with certain types of pain.

By maintaining this contact, and by providing helpful information, not only will your clients remain satisfied and book repeat appointments, they will tell their friends and family about your business.

#3 Google Loves Blogs

Google loves blogs. As was discussed in the first reason for blogging, when a potential client searches for a massage therapist, they are going to be presented with a few pages of results. While it's important to have a blog to set yourself apart from everyone else, if you're not on the first page of Google, the chances of your website being seen is quite low.

And this is the third reason blogging adds value – Google loves blogs. When Google sees a website that is constantly adding valuable content, they rank that website higher than those that aren't adding value. So every time you blog, you are adding a page to your website that can be found on the web, a page that has a specific topic that people are excited to share, and a page that can potentially help your website move up the Google search ranks.

With three great reasons to start blogging, how do you start? Once the person that helped set up your website has added a blog to your site, you'll want to dedicate about one hour per week to your blog (or if that's too much of a time commitment, you can even start with one hour every two weeks). Each week you'll choose a different topic to write about and post an article around 250 to 500 words. You can even mix it up and do a video blog every once in a while (displaying your personality with a video blog post is a great way to establish a connection with clients).

Once your content is ready you'll want to share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, and in your email newsletter. Keep in mind, blogging really is a long-term strategy for growing your business. In the first few months, you might have only one reader, but as you stick with it and constantly remind your clients that you have resources for them on your blog, you will attract more readers and more business.

This post was originally published in Massage Today.