Part One - Getting Started

Welcome to Digital Marketing for Herbalists. There are thirty people on this “course” plus Heather who will be adding her experience of on-line marketing as we go along. The format is very relaxed and you can go at your own pace. I will send out step by step guides and work with Jane Gray on setting up each stage for her practice while you have a go yourselves and call on me whenever you reach a sticking point. Please do this as often as you like – there is no such thing as a trivial question and I do not mind how many times you might ask me the same question!

First stage in our digital course is to set up a website. Think of this as the brochure for your practice – somewhere that acts as a shop window where you put all the salient information you want your patients (and their friends and relatives) to know. There are many different free website options but for this session we are going to use Google Sites.

First go to this page on the internet: https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?continue=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2F&service=jotspot&passive=true&ul=1

Click on Sign Up For Sites

You will open a page that asks you for an e-mail address and a password. You might want to start a small notebook of these passwords and e-mails as there are going to be lots of them and it can be confusing to remember them all.

You will also have to type in the verification code they provide.

Then, at the foot of the page, click on “I accept”.

Google sites will then send you an e-mail, and this will contain a page link in the first paragraph. Click on this link and it will take you to a message thanking you for verifying your address. Also on this page is a link that says click here to manage your account profile. Click on this link.

This takes you to a page called Personal Settings where you will see an icon called Sites. Click on this icon and it takes you to the “Create” page.

You have now registered as a Google Sites user and you are ready to create your website!

Click on the button Create Site.

You will be taken to a page that asks you a number of questions about what you want on your site and how you want it to look. Remember we are just experimenting at this stage, so if you are not happy with the choices you make you can always go back and start again.

First decide what you want to call your site. Preferably this should be the name of your practice, but you may want to call yourself by a more descriptive name (“Kensington Herbalist” for example). I will be talking later about the importance of “branding”, but for now type in a name you are happy with. As you type in the name you will see that it will automatically create your webaddress underneath (also in a future stage we will talk about the importance of sensibly worded urls in helping search engines pick your site up).

In the next box you put a short description. Again later we will talk about the importance of keywords in this box, but for now put a short succinct description you are happy with.

Ignore the box about mature content.

Make sure in the next section the “share with the world” option is selected.

In the next section click on More Themes and choose a background design you are happy with.

Again at the foot of the page you will be asked to type in a verification code.

Click on Create site.

You have now created your website!

You will be taken into the “Home” page of your website

This looks very blank and can be a bit daunting, but think of it as a canvas on which you can paint a brilliant picture explaining all about your practice and how it can help people.

Near the top of this page is a button that says Edit page. Click on this and it takes you into the edit facility.

You might want to pause at this point and give some thought about what words and pictures you want to put on your website homepage.

Do you have a digital camera? If so, over the next day or so you might want to take some pictures (of herbs, of herbal medicines, of your dispensary etc). Research shows that the more photographs you put on your site you more visitors you will have and the longer they will stay. But don’t worry if you don’t have a camera – you can always add pictures later.

Click on the word HOME and change it to WELCOME. Then in the box underneath write a welcome to people visiting your site and remember they will probably not know you and will need reassuring that you are a responsible medical professional who will take their concerns seriously.

Next we will create five new pages by clicking on the button Create New Page.

Select the “webpage” template give the page a relevant name (see bullet points below) and select the Put Page Under Home option. You will need to do this five times for each of the five pages.

Then on the pages write pieces on:
SEPARATE PAGE About Us. Who you are and what your experience is.
SEPARATE PAGE Where W e Are. Where you are located (but if you work from a home address do not put this on your website – we will cover security issues later, but for now if you work from home just put the town or area where you are located).
SEPARATE PAGE About Herbal Medicine. What makes you enthusiastic about herbal medicine and how it can help people.
SEPARATE PAGE Testimonials. Perhaps consider putting in testimonials from patients (with their agreement of course).
SEPARATE PAGE Contact Us. Cover essential information about opening hours, e-mail address, how appointments are made and structured.

Use the Edit Page button to style the page as you want it, exactly as if you were using Word.

Click on insert and in the drop down menu select image then click on browse to find the picture(s) you should have previously saved to your computer.

When you have found the image on your computer click on add image and it will appear on your website. If you then click on the image itself you can see options whether you want it on the left or right of the page or whether you want the type to wrap around the picture (that would be my suggestion, but you are in charge).

Remember this is YOUR website, and you can put on it whatever words and images you like. You can always change them if you don’t like them.

So now you have created your basic website. Anything you are not clear about please e-mail me and I will help and if necessary we will set up a telephone session one to one and go through it.

How long would everyone like to work on the above? Shall we say one week from today? Once your website is set up e-mail me the url and in our next stage we will talk about the importance of links (the lifeblood of the internet!). We will also talk more about developing your site’s appearance.

Once again, do please e-mail me if there are any difficulties.

Kind regards,
Andrew

PS if you log off and can’t remember how to find your website again remember the verification e-mail that was sent to you will have a link you can click on, and you can sign in from there.