Kath Gerrard wishes to announce her new site to the group http://www.kathgerrard.co.uk/ and would be grateful if you would link to her site from your own sites (remember links help us climb up the Google ratings).
Christine Brock would like to invite reciprocal links to her site http://www.westernherbalcare.co.uk/ so do please include Christine’s site on your links page.
Also I have created a “blog” (you will be creating your own blogs, possibly next week!) where I am posting each session as a permanent record of the course. The blog can be found on http://www.nimhmarketing.blogspot.com/ There is a comments section after each session on the blog, so do please add any feedback and suggestions you might have about any of the “modules”.
Thinking ahead, can you please identify one specialist area of herbal medicine you would like to focus on in your site, and start to collect enough information to be able to construct a page on your site about this specialism (perhaps a treatment). We will use this in an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) exercise in a couple of weeks’ time.
In this session we are going to look at use of pictures.
Research shows that websites that feature a high number of pictures and illustrations attract more traffic than those that do not. If possible you should be aiming to place a picture on each page of your site (or indeed sites plural, as we are about to set up many more than just your main “brochure” website). Generating a high number of pictures is not easy – we start full of enthusiasm, and maybe take about twenty or so pictures, and then (if you are like most people) run out of ideas.
This is where our collective group comes into play – there are thirty of us going through this course, and if we decide to share our pictures we could have a collective library of 600 (20 pics x 30 members) images at our disposal! That is very nearly two years’ worth of pictures if you are posting them at a rate of one per day (and again you should aim to add something to your sites every day, even if it is just a picture and a caption). So whenever you are out with your digital camera taking pictures of herbs or herb gardens etc remember to take one picture for yourself and another (slightly different) picture for the group.
The value of Flickr
Flickr is one of the great resources of the web. It is a site that allows you to share your photos with others. It also allows you to showcase your photos to the general public.
I have created a resource for us to use on Flickr which you can find on http://www.flickr.com/photos/39105047@N04/?saved=1 This is YOUR resource where you can post pictures you want to share with other NIMH members. I have put up four photos and will post others as time allows – these are free for you to use with no strings attached so download them to use on your website (to download pictures click on them and then click on the “All sizes” option in the top left corner and then click on Download the large size and save it to your computer and upload to your website).
If you want to add a photo to this site go to the top right-hand corner and click on the words Sign In. In the page that appears you will need to enter the YahooID andrewnimh@rocketmail.com and the password picsaboutherbs.
This takes you to the Flickr page and you will see on the right the button Upload pictures and video.
This again takes you to a new page where you should click on the button Choose Pictures and video. Clicking on Browse allows you to find the photo on your computer, and when you have done so click on Open and then on the pink words Upload photos and videos. The picture will then be uploaded (you will see a moving pink bar) and then the page will ask you to give the photo a title, and also a description. Then you click Save and the photo will appear for everyone to use in the Photostream page.
Now you should create your own Flickr page
You should seriously consider creating your own Flickr page.
The advantages for this are as follows:
* It allows you to create another link (on the “Profile”) to your website from a herb-related site.
* It gives you somewhere to put your herb-related photographs on show and thus create an additional “shop window” for your practice (the traffic through Flickr is huge).
* It allows you to make friends with “groups” and if you choose these groups geographically you may be able to get to know people in your area who may be potential patients. People interested in pictures of herbs may well be interested in their medical properties.
* Flickr has a complicated policy about links and will block or remove sites that are over-commercial, but if you write sensible captions and slip the links in conversationally (as I have done with my comments for each picture) you can use the site to create herb-relevant links, thus pushing our sites further up the search engines (again, 30 Flickr sites all linking to each other will create another 600 links related to medical herbalism!).
* It adds to the global exposure of herbalism – remember to upload the NIMH logo as one of your pictures with a caption explaining what NIMH is and a link to the NIMH website.
* Flickr is a very friendly community of photographers, and you will almost certainly be able to make friends with people who will let you use their photos of herbs for no charge.
The downside is that it will be another website for you to maintain, but Flickr is not something you need to work on every day or even week, so once you are up and running the time constraints should not be too demanding.
To create a Flickr site go to http://www.flickr.com/ and in the top right click on Create your account. You will be asked to fill in a registration and choose a password (remember to record your username and password in the booklet you have started for passwords).
You will then be allocated your own Flickr page and will be able to start uploading photographs and writing captions. Use the captions to put in links to other herbalists on this course (for instance you might put up a picture of thyme and mention that Jane Gray uses the word thyme in the tagline on her website and then put in the website link for Jane’s site – for any Flickr moderator this will look a relevant link). As you can see in the captions on the Flickr page I have created I have put in links to all the herbalists on this course who have websites.
Once you have your site you can click on Personalize Your Profile and upload a “buddy icon” – you do not have to use a photograph of yourself, but you should always upload something (perhaps a picture of a favourite herb) as it shows other Flickr users you care about the site (this relates to a long internal debate within Flickr which is not relevant to us, but people who do not upload “buddy icons” tend to get shunned by other members).
Also in your profile you can put in a short piece about yourself and your love of herbs and even subtly mention your practice and where it is and put in a link to your website, but do this in an understated way as Flickr is not really for commercial use.
Flickr has many useful features and if you play around with the site you can find all sorts of valuable ways the site can help you. However, I would emphasise the Search box in the top right. You can use this to search for images of anything, but particularly relevant to us are pictures of herbs. Once you have found a picture of a herb you particularly like you can use Flickrmail to write to the photographer – click on the photographer’s Photostream and then on his/her Profile. In the third line down it will ask if you want to send the person a Flickrmail. You can then simply explain that you are a medical herbalist with limited resources, but you admire their picture of (say) aloe vera and would they mind if you used the picture on the website you are building. They will either say yes or no!
You can also use the Contacts feature to build a network of friends on Flickr. It depends on how much time you want to put in, but generally people who are photographing pictures of herbs will probably be interested in herbs per se and so you have an easy introduction to talk about herbal medicine (obviously you would need to concentrate on UK Flickr members). Even if they are too far away to attend your practice you might be able to refer them to a herbalist in their area. Likewise people who come onto your site and comment on your pictures may be potential patients – and even if they are resident in America or Australia they may well have friends in the UK who they might refer to you.
I am personally a great fan of Flickr and there are many ways I think it could help herbalists, but I see that I have already written 1.600 words and so I will draw a close, and I will mention aspects of Flickr as they arise in future “modules”. Also remember that I am learning myself, so if you discover something of value I havn’t mentioned do please draw it to everyone’s attention.
