All of our websites are now equipped with a powerful theme customizer that lets you tweak the colors, fonts, and design elements of your website – at any time. And of course, our staff is here to help you with any changes the customizer can’t handle, or to make the changes for you.

Access your site’s theme customizer now by logging into your dashboard and going to Appearance > Customizer. See our tutorial below for more info on how to use this exciting new feature!

» Theme Customizer Tutorial

Stay tuned for even more new features in the future!

We’ve added 3 new designs to our design page, bringing our total up to 19 pre-designed templates. That’s in addition to the unlimited possibilities if you have us create a customized design from a photo, or change the colors of one of our existing designs! Take a look at them below:

Blossoms

One Lotus

Torn Paper

See all of our designs here

Sell Gift Certificates Online

Full Slate has also announced a new feature – you can now sell gift certificates online through your website! Our Premium and Ultimate websites come with an included Full Slate account (a $29.95/mo value) – to add gift certificate functionality you would just need to pay Full Slate’s $5/mo add-on price for the gift certificate functionality. Here’s more info from their announcement:

You can now sell gift certificates online using Full Slate!  Clients can go to your landing page, choose an amount, pay via credit card, and then email or print a professional gift certificate for friends or family.

Tis the time for giving! So for the month of December, you can sell gift certificates online for FREE.  This is a limited time, introductory special – starting in 2013, this add-on feature will cost a flat $5/mo.  But we’re not charging anything for gift certificates for the rest of the year.  Happy holidays!

Whether you’re just starting your acupuncture practice, or if you have an existing website that’s not bringing you new patients, now is a great time to get an AcuPerfect Website. Sign up today!

We’ve had a crazy year here. In these last few months we’ve been pulling out all the stops to bring our website users as many new features as we can, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job. Read on to see what I mean!

Full Slate Scheduling

We’ve partnered with Full Slate, one of the premiere online scheduling providers, to provide our clients with a all-in-one website solution. Not only will you have a website that will let you get found online, your website will let you convert visitors to patients while you are busy treating other patients! Full Slate lets you book appointments directly from your website, accept payments online, get email and text reminders, and automatically send out birthday and patient reactivation emails.

Full Slate scheduling is included with our Premium and Ultimate website packages, a $29.95/month value. And we didn’t raise our price a cent when we added this. I think we might be crazy.

To see all of the key Full Slate features, see our online scheduling page. To learn even more about Full Slate, visit their website here.

Mobile Ready Theme

We’ve had a lot of our website users ask us if our sites are mobile friendly. In fact, as of early 2012, around half of all US cell phone users have smart phones – more than enough reason for us to develop a mobile theme for our websites. So we did! Our mobile theme converts the most important aspects of your website to a mobile-friendly design. Your site’s phone number is converted to a one-click call button – letting mobile visitors get in touch with you easily.

Our mobile theme is included with our Premium and Ultimate website packages.

Automatic Blog Updates

Do you have time to write 2 blog posts per month? Not many of our clients do. Not only is it hard to come up with new topics every 2 weeks, you’d most likely rather be busy treating patients than sitting on your computer writing articles for your website. We’ve heard that from many of our clients – so we went and hired a writer to provide our clients with 2 blog posts per month!

“But what if I want to make changes to the blog posts?” – The blog posts will be uploaded to your website automatically twice per  month, about a week before they are scheduled to go live. This will allow you to go in and make edits, add to, or delete the blog post before it gets published for your site’s visitors.

Automatic blog posts are available with our Premium and Ultimate website packages.

And new a low price!?

We’ve been adding features to our sites as often as we can – but we’re committed to keeping our prices affordable and fair. In fact, we just contracted with a new SEO company that is larger and more reliable, but also can give us better rates. We’ve passed these savings on to you by lowering our Ultimate website package to $159.99! That gives you every feature we offer, including our advanced SEO and backlinking service to get you to the top of search results faster.

And this isn’t the end – we have a lot more ideas in the works that we’ll be rolling out throughout 2013!

Get more than just a website – sign up for an AcuPerfect Website today!

Looking for more than just a website? How about an ongoing discount on products to build your practice?

We’re pleased to announce that our Premium and Ultimate website clients can now receive a discount of up to 20% on products from the #1 source for patient education and marketing products for acupuncturists – Acupuncture Media Works!

Here’s how it works:

After you sign up for a Premium or Ultimate website package, you’ll receive a unique coupon code good for either 15% (Premium websites) or 20% (Ultimate websites). This coupon code is good on all products that can be purchased directly through AcupunctureMediaWorks.com, and applies to all orders of $100 or more. Your unique code cannot be used in combination with other coupon codes, but can be used on kits and sets that already have a discount applied to them!

You’ll get a discount on products like:

• Brochures
• Education Cards
• Bookmarks
• Customized Business Cards
• Newsletters
• Books & E-Books
• Organ Sheets
• Powerpoint Presentations
• Lobby DVDs/Kiosks
• Gift Certificates
• Health Passes
• Music
• Charts/Posters
• Prescription/MD Referral Pads
• Much more!

So what are you waiting for? Jump start your practice with not only a top-of-the-line website, but a sweet discount on patient education and marketing products to help you get MORE first time patients, and MORE returning patients!

Sign up for your website (and discount) today!

The (not so) fine print:

• Coupon will be active as long as you are on our Premium or Ultimate website package.
• Discount applies only to orders of $100 or more
• Discount cannot be combined with any other coupon
• Unique Coupon Code cannot be shared with other Acupuncture Media Works customers

Below are 6 essential features a website must have in order to keep visitors there for more than 60 seconds for them to develop a relationship and become a client/patient.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Make sure your speakers are on!

Download the 6 Essential Features PDF

What are meta tags?

Meta tags are pieces of HTML code that are added to a website’s <head> section. This information is mostly hidden from end-users viewing your website, but can provide important information to search engines and other websites about your website’s content. Some meta tags used to be very important before search engines developed complex algorithms – search engines used to rely on the webmaster telling them what a site was about using meta tags. Now, search engines are smart enough to look at the live content of your site to determine what it is about and how it should be ranked, and relies very little on the meta tags that used to be vital.

Keywords Meta Tag

<meta name="keywords" content="keywords, key words, so many useless keywords">

Why it is useless.

For years Google has ignored the keywords meta tag, and so should you.

If you were building a website in 1996, the keywords meta tag might have been important. Today, it’s basically useless.  Before the complex algorithms of modern search engines, meta keywords were used to help determine what a website was about. This was an easy way for unscrupulous webmasters to lie their way to the top of search results. A website selling ugly shoes could have added hundreds of keywords about Titanic and Monica Lewinsky or anything else that they thought was being searched for frequently to give them a boost to search results. The abuse of this meta tag led to it’s demise, and now it is pointless to spend any time on it.

What should I do instead?

The keywords in this meta tag are not seen by the end user and are not looked at by Google. Search engines look at the content of your site to determine what it is about and how it should be ranked, the same content your visitors see. Write your appropriate keywords into the content of your site and blog posts. Say things like “We provide great acupuncture in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, WA.” or  ”Did you know that our Seattle acupuncture clinic can help with back pain and headaches?” Write quality, unique content using keywords and phrases that potential patients in your area will be searching for online. *You don’t need to bold the keywords, that’s just to illustrate the good keywords

Description Meta Tag

<meta name="description" content="This is a description of my website">

How imortant is it and what is it used for?

The description meta tag has more usefulness than the keyword tag, but there are still misconceptions about it. Pretty much the only place this meta tag will see the light of day is on search result pages on Google and other search engines. When you do a search on Google, you generally get about 10 organic results. These results have the Title of the page in Blue, then the URL of the site in green, and then the description of the site in gray.

The description within search results is about the only place your meta description will show up – however Google’s algorithm will determine if your pre-written description is better than the one that Google will auto generate based on the page’s content. It uses the webmaster-provided description about half the time. However, like the keywords meta tag Google does not use the meta description as part of it’s algorithm to determine page rank. It is purely for the end-user to read within search results.

What do I need to do?

If you have an AcuPerfect Website, these meta description tags will automatically generate for you based on the page’s content, so you won’t have to worry about writing them for each page. If you’re feeling nit-picky, you have access to override the auto generated description for each page.

Title Meta Tag

<title>The title of my website</title>

How imortant is it and what is it used for?

Of the three meta tags covered here, this one holds the most importance. The title tag is used, obviously, as the title of your page. The title tag is seen:

• At the top of your browser window
• Highlighted in blue in search results
• On other people’s sites if they link to you

The title should be easy to read and relevant to both the user browsing the web and search engines indexing your site. Use good keywords, but Google warns to avoid keyword stuffing (don’t add a bunch of different spellings of a word, every city in a 100 mile radius, etc. It can be seen as spammy.)

What do I need to do?

If you have an AcuPerfect Website, you don’t need to do a thing. During your site’s setup, we configure your title tag for your business and location. Your site will automatically generate a unique title for each page on your site, an important SEO tactic.

The Importance of Good Content

If you’ve read this article, hopefully you’ve made the realization that the most important part of your site isn’t hidden away in the meta tags, but is the content on  your pages that is read by both potential patients visiting your site, and by search engines deciding how to rank your site among your competition.

One of the first things you should make sure your site has is quality, informative, search-friendly content on your home page. Write in the keywords that people will be searching for into the home page content.

We realize that you’re health care practitioners, not writers or authors, which is why AcuPerfect Websites includes dozens of pages of professionally written content, information taken from the printed brochures and education cards at Acupuncture Media Works. While this content is well written in layperson’s terms, it’s not written specifically for your practice. The solution? You have full access to edit the articles we include with your site! You can go in and tweak them to fit your style of TCM or elaborate on your specialties.

Having good content is absolutely vital to having a successful presence online, and with AcuPerfect Websites you’ll have just that.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on some video tutorials to help customers learn how to use their AcuPerfect Websites. Check out some of the first few videos I’ve made on our support site:

https://apw.zendesk.com/forums/20459956-guides-tutorials

Look for help articles entitled “Video Tutorial”. Topic covered so far are:

• How to create a post
• How to upload images and documents
• Basic formatting
• Advanced formatting

And this is just the start! More tutorials are to come. If you have an idea for a video tutorial topic that should be covered, leave a comment with your request!

Slideshow admin page

Features:

• Add your own images
• Re-arrange slide order by simple drag-and-drop
• Images are automatically resized to fit the slideshow
• Add captions to each image
• Make each slide a link to another page
• Choose from various slideshow themes
• Control the timing and animation style of the slides
• Create multiple slideshows and use on more than one page of your site

Here’s a working example of what you could have on your website:

If you’re an existing customer and would like this slideshow on your site, contact us to have it installed

Unless you know HTML code and can go in and change the content on the pages on your website, you will need to go through a web designer, which could be costly and time-consuming.

2) Use your blog to stand out:

You can use your blog to showcase your passion and expertise about your career and practice. In fact, you can create the most informative and content-filled web presence in your area. Aside from establishing credibility, your Google rankings will go up due to the rich content on your site. SHOW YOUR PASSION

3) Become search engine friendly:

SEO experts say that Google indexes blogs faster than regular websites. Tagging your blog posts with keywords gives you a targeted and effective plan for reaching out to your ideal clients. Especially if you are living in a competitive area.

4) Build Relationships:

Your blog posts are an extension of your inner world- personally and/or professionally. When a reader leaves a comment or a question after your post, a relationship starts budding. It is all about connecting, interacting and building trust. Then the business or patient-practitioner relationship can flow naturally.

5) Go viral:

Once a month, embed a Youtube video (or two) to allow your visitors to experience you with more of their senses, then just reading your website content. When they see you talk about a subject, even if it is announcing your May specials, they get to feel out who you are.

6) Recycle your blogposts to redirect traffic to your website:

What this means is, repurposing the content of a blog and turning it into an article that you can submit to online article directory to increase your exposure and credibility. The more you write, the more digital footprint you have, which adds to your general visibility.

7) Blog your way into a book:

Blogging is an excellent way to break down the process of writing a book- even if that isn’t the initial intention. After blogging consistently for a year, you may notice common threads in your writing and might be able to pull enough posts in to publish a book. A great way to establish yourself as an expert! And a source of pride too!

8) Contribute to the lives of others:

Blogs are free and open to public. Unless you are intentionally trying to make money off of your blog, it is an act of giving, sharing of yourself and/or your expertise. Investing time and energy to share your perspective and input on something other people also care about is a way to serve humanity.

9) Keep them coming back:

Write a series of blog posts on a subject. Give them a reason to come back to your site. This keeps the top-of-mind-awareness active. Showcasing your expertise on a health topic will establish you as the expert in the patient’s eyes and they will be more likely to reach out to you if and when they suffer from those ailments.

10) Stay authentic while you market your practice:

No one wants to feel like a used car salesman when trying to get the word out about their business. You don’t have to become someone you don’t like to make a living doing what you love. Your blog will help build relationships and show prospective customers the intersection between the profession and the practitioner (you)- which is where the actually business happens.

Would you ever consider practicing acupuncture without needles? Probably not, unless of course you are a Qi Gong master. In this day and age, a business without a website is like an acupuncturist without needles.

When potential patients are looking for an acupuncturist, one of the first places they turn to is the Internet. They’ll search phrases like “acupuncture Seattle” or “acupuncture help for headaches in New York”.

This is how business is done now—your future patients are “googling” around on the Internet trying to find someone to help them. Your future patients want to be able to learn about you and your practice, before they pick up the phone to call for an appointment.

Why are websites so important? A website will enable you to:

• Develop your reputation and increase your credibility
• Establish yourself as an expert
• Build trust with current or prospective patients
• Be visible 24/7
• and MOST OF ALL, get new patients from the internet and all that “googling” going on out there!

Having a cool, professional, easy to navigate and information-packed website will attract visitors and convert them from “visitors” into patients.

When you are getting a website designed make sure the answers to the following questions are a YES:

1. Do you have the ability to edit and update text and photos yourself on your website?
2. Does your website come with a built-in patient education library?
3. Can you create new blog posts and announce specials and promotions with ease?
4. Does your website have seasonal newsletter content, updated quarterly and interactive seasonal quizzes?
5. Can you add and update testimonials as easily as creating a blog? Can you automatically rotate your testimonials so your content appears fresh?
6. Is your website designed with Search Engine Optimization in mind? If not, do you know how to optimize your website for Google searches?
7. Can new patients download a health history form before their first visit?
8. Do you have live support Monday-Friday to help you solve problems that may come up with your website?
9. Have you paid several thousand dollar to get a website designed for you? Are you happy with your website?

If you have answered No to three or more of these questions, you may be lose the opportunity to build a reputation, establish yourself as an expert and build trust with current or prospective patients. It may be time for a new website or time to get current and get one!

Click here to upgrade the presentation of your professional identity and sign up for a content-filled, ready to go website!