Inspiration

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Summary

Would you like to add a feature to your website which will make it more interesting to your website visitors, more attractive to Google (i.e. list higher up), and increase the chance of your visitors coming back to your website and sharing it on social networks?

Introduction

We have called this EZ Guide "Inspiration", as we're hoping to inspire our clients to try either this suggestion on their websites, or something else similar that is inspired by this idea. If however you do try this idea, you may also inspire your clients. Before we go any further though, please read this:

From a distance a woman can be seen walking along a beach and regularly bending down to pick something up and throw it into the sea. As she gets nearer, a passer-by sees she is throwing stranded starfish back into the water. "That's pointless" he says, "there are so many starfish stranded on this beach you can't possibly make a difference." The woman bends down and throws another one into the sea, "Made a difference to that one." she says.

Sometimes the problems of the world together with our own more immediate issues can seem so overwhelming we just don't think we can make a difference to anything. But a kind word to a friend or stranger, a smile at the supermarket checkout does make a difference. Can you remember when someone paid you a casual, sincere but unexpected compliment? Well others remember what you say just as you remember what they say and you do make a difference.

You may be wondering how all this is connected to our summary description of this guide, which was to suggest a feature for your website which will make it more interesting to your website visitors, more attractive to Google and increase the chance of your visitors coming back to your website and sharing it on social networks? Well let us explain: 

Google Appeal

The latest Google research, as carried out by WebHealer, shows two key themes which stand out more strongly than we have observed before. Firstly an increasing preference for lots of content, especially on the home page. Our analysis shows that most WebHealer websites have homepages with fewer than 400 words, whereas websites with 600-700 words on their homepages tend to be listed several places higher on Google. If you were to add the above inspirational story to the end of your homepage, along with a heading and some accompanying explanation you would easily increase your home page by 200 words.

Our Google research also shows that websites that are updated frequently list several places higher on Google than those that are not updated often. This is often referred to as freshness. If you were to display the above story one month, and replace it with another each month, you would maximise the chances of Google giving you a boost for displaying fresh content.

Visitor Appeal and Social Media Sharing

If you don't have a Facebook sharing icon on your website, you would be well advised to add one. See our Social Media EZ Guide for more details. You don't even need your own Facebook account, but it still means that your visitors can tell all their friends about your website if they choose to, which of course means if they think it is interesting enough.

Visitors will share your website link with friends if they think it is interesting enough....you need to maximise your website's shareability

Unfortunately the chances of them sharing your link, just because you are a therapist with good qualifications and some experience, are fairly limited. That's why it helps to have other features of interest on your website, to help it stand out and increase its shareability. A section featuring regularly updated Inspirational Stories can give you that differentiating interest factor.

Where do I get stories from? What about copyright?

Unless you write the stories yourself, you must always be cautious with copyright or risk getting into trouble with the owner and publisher of the original content. The above starfish story came from a website www.enmore.org, which is a charity run by David Mills. WebHealer contacted Enmore in 2013, and obtained permission for WebHealer clients to use the stories from their Stories page. The only request is that if you do use a story, please set up a link explaining it originally came from www.enmore.org.

What if I don't like these stories?

That is absolutely fine. It is important that you are comfortable with the information you show on your website, and that it reflects your values and style. However, we hope in this guide to have inspired you to try something similar, either:

  • Search the web for stories that do resonate with you (ensuring you obtain permission from the copyright holder)
  • Try something different, such as inspirational poems
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