Your website should be working for you (getting you the right visitors that turn into patients), so is it? If not, you’re likely leaning more toward hating your site than loving it. We want to help you fix that. 

If you love the way your website looks, but you don’t have access to it, don’t know how to make edits to it, or aren’t getting the traffic you need, then you’re gonna want to pay attention. Your website is a crucial part of your brand identity and, when done right, gives you loads of credibility. 

Let’s get you out of your love-hate relationship with your website. 

We’re going over:

  • The best way to ensure you know how to get into your website for those quick edits

  • Important things you must know how to do on your website

  • Why comparing your website to another isn’t helpful

  • Things to know prior to adding content to your site

  • And more

Your website should be an evolving piece of your marketing, so it’s vital that you can jump onto it and take action. Understanding why you need a well-working website will help you know how to design it. Grab your notepad and a seat, and let’s get to learning. 

Listen to the audio version:

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Show Notes:

  • [00:05:28] I had someone set up my website, and they deal with it. Do I need my login credentials?

  • [00:06:40] After my site is set up, how can I ensure I know how to make small updates to my website right away?

  • [00:06:55] What are some easy things I should know how to do on my website?

  • [00:08:48] What’s the best website platform for my clinic and me?

  • [00:09:40] Which platforms are the most user-friendly and have the best SEO resources? 

  • [00:10:02] In addition to my website platform, do I need to do anything else, or does SEO happen automatically?

  • [00:10:30] Why you shouldn’t compare the looks of your website to another’s and what you should do instead

  • [00:11:30]  Common reasons your website branding is off

  • [00:12:00]  What questions should I ask myself when creating website content?  

  • [00:12:35] Why understanding the data provided by Google Analytics important to website creation


What are other ways I can increase my online presence? Check out our free masterclass Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads.

Want to suggest a topic or guest? Please do so! I’m up for a challenge! Suggest a topic for an upcoming episode of the Propel Your Practice Podcast

 

Full episode transcript

On this episode of Propel Your Practice, we're asking, how do you really feel about your website? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you have a love-hate relationship with your website?

Hi, I'm Darcy Sullivan with Propel Marketing & Design. Welcome to this episode of the Propel Your Practice Podcast, where we look at actionable strategies and tactics you can put in place as a clinic owner to improve your presence online.

Recently, we decided to move to doing two podcasts per month. Right now, we're sitting in December of 2022. The two podcasts that we're covering this month revolve around the theme, does your website spark joy? 

And a quick little copyright disclaimer, Propel Marketing & Design and the Propel Your Practice Podcast are in no way affiliated with the Marie Kondo brand or books or anything like that. We just love the topic idea- does your website spark joy? 

In this episode, we're asking [you,] as a website owner, does your website spark joy?

In the next episode, we're asking, does your website spark joy for your website visitors? And not just your website visitors but your ideal patients.

Before we dive in today, I want to invite you to join in on a free masterclass I put together on the Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads.

You can find a link to sign up for this free masterclass in the Show Notes for this episode or by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn.

During this workshop, we do a deep dive into strategies to help you improve your online presence. Including your Google Business Profile, that's what used to be called the Google My Business listing and what controls the Google Maps section, along with how voice SEO plays a big role in today's search and where you should be focusing your efforts online for the biggest impact. 

Again, you can join the masterclass by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn.

But back to today's topic today. We're looking at your website and saying, does it spark joy? Does it make you happy to own your website?

We're looking at some of the most common frustrations I hear from website [ owners when it comes to their clinic's website and giving some suggestions on how you can handle these. And it all starts with people not feeling comfortable using their own websites. 

You know, websites these days are made with the simplicity factor.

That it's supposed to be easy for you to jump in and make changes. But oftentimes, people still feel very overwhelmed using their current website.

That's why whenever we work with a client on SEO or do a project for them, at the project wrap-up, we also take the time to jump into the clients- back into their website with them and show them how to navigate through the admin panel, how to make small changes to their website, how to add meta information like the meta page title and page descriptions.

And how to do common items that will make it a lot easier for you just to jump in and make small changes on your website rather than having to contact your website designer, waiting for them to get back to you. Or you submitting the list of changes that are needed, them getting back to you, and playing the whole back-and-forth game.

Obviously, there are times when it makes a lot more sense to have a website designer jump in and make bigger modifications. Or have a copy editor go in, and we write copy. But there are times when you just need to jump in and make some small changes. And I know that there are a lot of clinic owners out there who have websites, and they just don't feel that level of comfort in making edits to the website. So, I have a couple of tips for you when it comes to that.

One, first and foremost, whether you feel comfortable making edits to your website or not, you always want to make sure that you have admin access to both your website and your hosting company if they're separate. 

If you have a Wix website or a Squarespace website, those are combined, but if you have a WordPress website, you want to make sure that you have access to your WordPress username and login in addition to your hosting company, which might be something like WP Engine or GoDaddy.

Once you confirm that you do have your username and password, put those somewhere safe where, you know, you can always refer back to them. And it's always good to give somebody else that you trust, um, admin access to your website as well. In case, for some reason, you might get locked out. 

Now, when it comes to feeling comfortable and confident making small changes to your website, and again, we're not asking you to jump in and become a web designer overnight, but it can be very frustrating if you just need to know how to do a couple simple things to your website. 

One thing that I suggest is when you're done with your website set up (using a designer to set up your website), ask them to walk you through, on a recorded Zoom call, how to make changes to your website, just so you feel comfortable and confident doing that. 

Some of the things include:

  • Adding pages

  • Adding blog posts

  • Adjusting a menu

  • Adding an image

  • Adding content to your website, text

  • Adding a link

  • Both opening [while] outside of your website and going from a page in your website to another section in your website 

Those are some of the basics that you really want to make sure that you can just jump in and change. Worst thing to happen is you notice that there's a misspelled word or something so small, and it would be so easy if you just had access to go and change that. 

So, I recommend, if you are just getting your website set up, that you ask the person that's setting it up to, again, just jump on a Zoom call with you and record it and have them walk you through some of the basics.

You can make a list out ahead of time to identify what items you want to have- you want to go over during that session. 

And it can also be stuff like: what size images should I use for certain areas? Or how did you make that image a circle instead of a square? And how did you adjust the spacing on this?

But just make a small list and have them jump on a Zoom with you to walk through that. And the same thing goes if you are currently working with a designer or somebody that helps you or assists you with your website regularly, just again, you can always ask them to jump on a Zoom call and go over those particular items and record the session, so you have that to reference later if you need to jump in and make any small changes.

Which leads us to one question that I get asked all the time, which is: what website platform should you be on? Some people say that they are on Squarespace and they love it, while others say they're on Squarespace and they hate it. Some people purposely move away from WordPress because they had a bad experience with it.

While others move towards it because they feel like it's a little bit more superior when it comes to SEO, search engine optimization. When you're wondering what platform should I be on? My suggestion for that would be- you want to be on a website platform that you feel comfortable using. 

Now the big website platforms, WordPress Squarespace, Wix, they're all user-friendly and they are all SEO friendly. Most clients that we work with are running on one of those platforms, or some people are using Clinics Sites or get Clear Sites, as well. 

All of these have the foundation for good SEO, meaning they're a good platform for SEO. But just because you're using a good platform for SEO doesn't mean you're doing SEO. 

We talk a lot about SEO- search engine optimization- on this podcast, and you can go back and listen to one of the previous episodes that we've done specifically on SEO. 

But when it comes to looking and thinking [about others’ websites], the grass is always greener; whether you're looking at another website platform or you're looking at the layout of somebody else's website, you want to keep in mind:

  • Ease of use

  • How quick it loads

  • The content that's on the site

Oftentimes people look over at somebody else's website, and they think, oh, well, it's got these cool rollovers, and it's got this, and it's got that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that website is actually performing better than your website. 

So, you want to do a little research. And you want to make sure that you're not just copying your competition but that you are setting up your website for success based on who your target audience is. 

Which leads us into another frustration that I hear all the time from clinic owners, and that's that they feel like their messaging or their branding is off on their website.

And this could be for a number of reasons. It could be that they don't feel confident in writing, yet they were in charge of writing their own website. It could be that they had somebody set up their website for them, so the person setting up the website used either canned content or looked to their competition to create the content, the text that's on the website, and so it doesn't really reflect who the brand is. 

So, take some time to ask yourself when you look at your website, does this row represent who we are as an organization? You want to make sure that you're really focusing on content that is going to connect with your target audience. 

In the [upcoming] episode associated with this one, we're going to go over- does your website spark joy for website visitors? And that will go through a checklist of some of these things in more detail as it relates to your target audience visiting your website and taking the actions that you want them to take when they arrive at your website.

The next frustration that I hear from people is they just don't know what's going on on their website. Meaning, they either haven't installed an analytic system like Google Analytics, or that they have installed Google Analytics and they're just looking at it, and they just see numbers and data, and they can't really directly correlate that information to what's happening when somebody is coming to the website. Are they the right people that are coming to their website? Is that what the issue is versus people not coming to their website? 

In an upcoming episode, we're going to do an episode on Measure What Matters, where we dive into Google Analytics and website traffic data and talk about what really matters and what does it really mean? Because who cares if a million people are coming to your website if the million people coming to your website will never step foot in your clinic or ever hand money over to you? 

If it's not going to end up in a positive transaction, then does it really matter? We want to make sure that you are driving the right traffic to your website, and then they're converting when they get there.

So, let me ask you, how do you feel about your website? Do you feel that your website needs a little love? Again, in the next episode, we'll be going over a list of things you can do to tidy up that website and make sure that your visitors will fall in love with your website when they visit it.

Well, hey, before we head out, I want to invite you to join in on a free masterclass I put together on the Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads.

You can find a link to sign up for this free masterclass in the Show Notes of this episode or by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn

During this workshop, we do a deep dive into strategies to help you improve your online presence. Including your Google Business Profile, that's what used to be called the Google My Business listing and what controls the Google Maps section, along with how voice SEO plays a big role in today's search and where you should be focusing your efforts online for the biggest impact. 

All right. Well, that's it for today. Again, you can join the masterclass by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn. And if you have a topic that you would like to hear on an upcoming episode of Propel Your Practice, please send it in by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/podcast-topics or looking for the link in the Show Notes. 

Thanks so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon. 

webinar

Darcy’s SEO strategies are easy to implement and effective. She’s the #1 SEO expert I refer to whenever I need help with my rankings.

 

SEO queen! I can’t thank Propel and Darcy enough for holding my hand through the SEO process! I’m loving the podcast and all the insight! Also loving that my business is now getting the brand awareness and sales I’ve always wanted!

 


Wow! Clear, concise and impactful. Excellent details and tips - already seeing a return!! Worth the 20 min listen.

 

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Sponsors

This episode of the Propel Your Practice Podcast is brought to you by Propel Marketing & Design. Propel Marketing & Design helps Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, Physical Therapists, Wellness Practitioners, and other clinic owners improve their website rankings.


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