On most occasions when people use a mobile device, they are away from home and looking for specific information quickly. If your website can’t give this to them, you may lose a customer. Despite many visitors having good browsers such as Opera Mini or Firefox Mobile, it is still important to optimise your website for mobile visitors.

It is normally quite difficult to navigate a normal website on a mobile device. However, if the website is optimised for mobile devices, the users will be able to get the information that they need easily and it might just earn you one more customer. It might be the differentiating factor between you and a very close competitor.

Mobile data in most cases is charged by the download size. So by having a mobile optimised website, there is increased download speed and reduced download size so it both renders the content to users faster and also saves mobile internet costs for clients.

By optimising your website for mobile devices, you will be able to use mobile features such as click to call and mapping services. Instead of a visitor having to write the number down to dial it later, you can set up click to call so that once the user highlights the number, using just one click he can call your business number. The user can also get a map to your business location easily using mapping services.

Mobile friendly search engines such as Google and Yahoo are able to detect mobile versions of website. When you have a mobile friendly website, the website is ranked higher due to having the mobile version. Thus people searching for a keyword that your website is listed in will be able to find your business easier.

Lastly, having a mobile device will help your business stand out from the crowd. It will give your business an edge above the rest and increase the impact that your website and website marketing campaign has in bringing new business.

Autoresponders have many advantages.

First, autoresponders help to keep your clients informed. You can use autoresponders to send out latest information about physiotherapy techniques or tips and tricks to keeping  fit. This will increase your return visits which generally mean more and better business for you.  People emailing that address will get this message in reply.

Secondly, the autoresponder will help bring more visits to your website. A simple message with ‘We hope you did not forget about us’ in the subject and ‘Please take a minute to keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments in the physiotherapy practice by visiting our website’ can remind past clients of your services. This will place you at the forefront of their mind the next time they are in need of physiotherapy.

Thirdly, you can use autoresponders to give special offers and/or discounts to clients. By informing them about available offers and/or discounts, you are able to increase the number of return visitors as well as have new visitors based on people forwarding these offers and/or discounts to their relatives and friends.

Lastly, autoresponders also help you keep close business follow ups with your clients. Following up with clients is an important aspect for good customer service. It helps strengthen business relationships and also to market new products and services.

On top of all this, autoresponders are extremely cost effective. It doesn’t cost much to set up and there is no fee charged to send the email. Compare this to direct marketing which incurs costs such as envelopes, stamps, paper and printing for each letter.

On the LinkedIn website, www.linkedin.com, they describe LinkedIn as “the world’s largest professional network with over 75 million members and growing rapidly. It connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.”

To create an account with LinkedIn, just visit www.linkedin.com and click on ‘Join Today’. This will take you to a simple form to enter your details. You could create a personal account and use it as your business account. To do this, fill in the form with your personal detail (First Name, Last Name, email) and then add a password.

After doing this, you will be required to confirm your account by clicking on a link that they will email to you.

You need to soup up your profile to make it better looking. Go to the profile link on the top menu and select edit profile. You will be taken to a page to edit your profile information such as current position, previous positions, education info, website(s) and Twitter username. If you wish to have a more detailed profile, you can also add a summary of yourself and your specialities.

The next thing you will need to do is to add your company or business to LinkedIn. To do this, go to http://www.linkedin.com/companies?didentcompy. Then enter your company name and your company email address. Again, they will send an email to your company email address to confirm the address. Click on the email link to confirm your email address.

After confirming the email address, you will be redirected to a form to add more details about your business such as website, company description and industry, number of employees, type of company, country which the company operates, postal code and your position at the company.

After saving these details, you will be redirected to a page to upload your company logo and a square logo for your company. You can also add other advanced details such as Company Locations, financials and a link to the company blog.

Social networking works by ‘you build me, I build you’ model. Where the more connections you have, the more you benefit. So to reap utmost benefits from LinkedIn, it is important to follow companies that you like, join groups and ask or answer questions on the LinkedIn website. To build your credibility by answering questions, search the person who asked the question and find a way to give a personal answer relative to that person’s profile.

On the Twitter 101 website, they describe Twitter for business as ‘Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.’

To get your business on Twitter, you need to first create an account on twitter. To create an account, go to www.twitter.com and click on ‘Sign Up’. You will then be taken to a signup form where you fill in your business’ full names e.g. ‘ABC for Physio’ and choose your preferred username.

The username cannot hold more than 20 characters so it is important to make it simple, catchy and relevant. For example if your business is called ‘ABC 101 for Physiotherapy and Everything Else’, you can choose a shortened version such as ‘abc101forphysio’ or ‘abc101physio’.

After entering your username, the twitter system will check whether the username is available and report this to you. You can then enter your desired password and email address.

After registering your account, Twitter will send you an email to confirm your email address. Click on this email link and confirm your account.

You can then start following people that you find interesting. After registration, the Twitter system gives you a list of users to follow. You can choose from this list or skip this and find users from your email address to follow.

Another way to find people to follow is to search for their names. For example if you like the men’s health journal, you can search for them on Twitter and then click the ‘follow’ link on their profile. Remember that social networking works likes a two-way street. So for Twitter, the more people you follow, the more likely you are to find more followers.

Twitter has a website widget called ‘Join the Conversation’. This widget shows your tweets and your website visitors can follow you on Twitter. To use this widget, go to https://twitter.com/goodies/widgets and choose ‘Widgets for My Website’. Here you will see four different kinds of widgets to select from. There is the profile widget which displays your most recent tweets. The search widget shows real-time search results, this is best for live events or even just to keep your visitors up to date with the latest news and/or events around the physiotherapy world. The faves widget shows off your favourite tweets in real time. Finally, the list widget also picks your favourite tweets and shows them in a widget.

North West Physiotherapy now ranks #1 on Google for their desired search terms “north Brisbane physiotherapy” and “physiotherapist north Brisbane”

physioHQ.com.au has many features:

• Detailed business listings
• A ‘Find-a-Physio’ search feature
• And ‘Ask a Question’ feature that allows visitors to post their questions and receive answers from registered Physiotherapists
• Easy integration of Twitter and Facebook accounts within business listings

With over 500milliion users worldwide, Facebook has become almost an indispensible tool for businesses to grow since as anyone who has been in business for long would say, the best method of advertising is through ‘Word of Mouth’. Naturally human beings tend to trust their friends, relatives or acquaintances more than they trust strangers. This is the foundation on which using Facebook as a business tool is made.

To use Facebook to market your business, you must first have your own personal account. This helps to build your own network of friends first then to expand it to friends of friends then to friends of friends of friends and so on and so forth. When you visit www.facebook.com, there is a simple registration form which you fill in your first name, last name, email address, password, gender and date of birth. After registering, you will be required to activate your account from an email that they will send to you then you need to verify your account using a code that they will send by text message to your phone number (which you specify).

After doing this, you can use their simple friend inviter tool to find friends on Facebook from your email addresses or add them by their name or email address. By building your own network of friends that is the first step to getting your business on Facebook.

To create a page for your business, visit www.facebook.com/pages/. At the top, you will see a link to create a new page. By clicking on that link, you will be taken to a webpage with a form to choose what type of page you are creating. Choose ‘Local Business’, check the text box to say that you are an official representative of the business and click ‘Create Official Page’.

After creating the page, you can specify details location, phone number(s), office hours and website. You can then invite your friends to like your page who will then invite their friends, and so on and so forth.

You can also set up advanced settings such as such as age restrictions, country restrictions, wall settings (who can post on the wall of your website), mobile settings (to set up your page to be viewable on mobile devices), discussion boards, events (if any), and much more.

A page has a similar look and feel as a person’s profile on Facebook. The only difference is that for a Page, anybody can like the page. They do not have to be confirmed by the page admin while for personal profile, to become a friend, you must first send a friend request then get accepted.

To make the page lively, always make sure to keep the members informed and entertained. You can do this by updating the page’s status with latest information and tips about keeping fit, new physiotherapy techniques or just anything that will remind them that your page exists.

Do not forget to put a badge of your Facebook page on your website to inform your website visitors to become members of your page. This will also help to bring more visitors to your page and overall keep your business well-advertised. Visit this link to do this. http://developers.facebook.com/plugins.

In social media, there is a large number of visitors. For example, Facebook, one of the largest social networks has close to 500 million registered members half of who are active at least once every month. If you are able to position yourself in line with social networking, for instance Facebook, you will have access to millions of potential customers for your business.

Secondly, social media is interactive. Take an example where a customer tweets or updates their status about your business, his/her peers will read the tweet or update and can then ask questions and the customer can then help to promote your business. Another example is where you have a page for your business on these social networks such as Facebook. When a user ‘likes’ your business page, this is shared to that user’s connections who will then be able to see the page, visit it and will then be able to find out more about your business and in this way, you are able to build more visitors both to your website and more potential customers.

Social media offers the ability for you to participate in conversations with current or potential customers. For example, on Facebook, but updating the status on your business page, this update is shared with all people who ‘liked’ the page and in this way, you are able to start a conversation with the members of your page. For example, to get feedback about your business, you could tweet or update your status with “Tell us what you like or don’t like about our business”, then your connections will join in the conversation with their comments, opinions, criticisms, etc. and you will then be able participate in this conversation and explain to them what they may have misunderstood, seek clarification on what you may have not understood or even just to thank them for their feedback.

Your website should:

• Promote the services offered by your business – the website should have complete and detailed information about the services offered by the business. Do not leave the potential customers with irrelevant or incomplete information.

• Promote the products sold, distributed or manufactured by your business – the website should give the customers information on available stock and up-to-date stock prices. It should also give the customers information on other stock that may be available on individual order basis.

• Give the location of the business

• List other branches/offices of the business

• Give contact information for your business – phone number, email address and contact person

• if possible, have photos of the business owner or top management – this is to build confidence in the potential customers that the business is legit and worth their while

Over the course of your business, it will be inevitable to improve your website based on customer feedback and as need develops. Therefore it is important to have a feedback section for your website visitors to give their opinions, criticism or comments about your website and your business as a whole. Also allow anonymous feedback since user feedback is very important to know what you are doing wrong and correct it or improve where they say you are doing right.

Have a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section for your website for questions that are frequently asked by your customers to answer the questions that the visitors to your website may have.

You could also have a health tips section to give customers tips as to why they should use physiotherapy, in what situations physiotherapy is important and other general health tips. You will find that it will be easier to draw customers by showing that you care about their health than just the money they will pay for your services.

Apart from this, your website should:

• Have a powerful professional looking website with a simple landing or home page – this is to build the image of your business on the internet.

• Be simple to navigate and find information – to enable the visitors find information that they need.