One of the things I have in place to supplement my income as a massage therapy is creating websites related to massage therapy – like this one. My first site was www.thebodyworker.com (Now defunct) that I used to just put my notes from massage school online. The way it came about was that I a was having health challenges that kept me from working. At the time it was just a hobby to keep me busy when I felt bad. I started it in 1999 or so and didn’t know anything about creating sites. From there I somehow found an ebook called Make Your Site Sell, by Ken Evoy and learned more and more about the possibilities of creating income from a website. Today that ebook has worked itself into a whole online business creating system and website builder – SBI! (Solo Build it! previously Site Build it!).
I used SBI! to create my second big successful website – www.massagetherapycareers.com (which I sold in 2008 for enough to live on for one year
and the owners crashed it into the ground! The completely changed the content and made it into a sales site for massage schools. Smiling all the way to the bank 🙂
What would you do a site on?
What are your hobbies, interests, passions? What do you know alot about? What are you an expert at or what are you an expert at doing?
Massage, some aspect of health, knitting, soccer, stock trading, gardening, dog training, destinations, your local community….. you name it. It can be made into a profitable topic…somehow….someway.
The way it is done is to take these hobbies, passions, interests and expertise and start with brainstorming your topic through a comprehensive process of keyword research. (Using proprietary software included with SBI.) The software gives you an idea of how many searches there are for that word compared to how many sites there are that provide that information. It also takes into consideration possible ways to make money.
Don’t think you have anything worth writing about?
Think again. Don’t let your old fears get in your way.
Every time I see things in happening around me, I can think of a website that would help and that I would love to do. Some of my massage related ideas are:
- A website on each type of pain condition that I see like hip pain, neck and back pain…etc
- A general website on Pain and the science of pain
- A website on all of the research on massage therapy that takes each study step by step and analyzes it and then explains how massage therapist can use this information.
- How to start and run a massage school
- How to teach couples massage classes to the public to make money doing that and to build your massage business too.
- How to start and run a mobile massage business.
- How to start and run a franchise
- How to start and run a massage therapy co-op.
- A directory of local massage therapists (use WordPress plus the SBI plugin for WordPress)
- A directory of local CE classes. (use WordPress plus the SBI plugin for WordPress)
- A travel site on high end spas. use WordPress plus the SBI plugin for WordPress)
- A site on books on massage for therapists
- A site on all of the various online scheduling apps/systems and reviews of them all.
- Your massage school notes. (Buy my site – www.massageschoolnotes.com to get a good start)
- A site that talks about the issues of being a male massage therapist.
- A website that deals with the issues of sexual assault, illegal massage businesses and human trafficking issues and that promotes massage therapy.
- A website on REAL massage. (https://amta-wa.org/page/REAL_overview) REAL massage is :
- Responsible – REAL massage therapists recognize the honor of responsibility that comes with providing people with massage.
- Ethical – REAL massage therapists are bound by best practices conveying ethical business sense.
- Accountable – REAL massage therapists thrive in accountability to, and encouragement of, one another as we help each other grow our businesses to reach their potentials.
- Licensed – REAL massage therapists in WA states are licensed through the Department of Health, being recognized as healthcare practitioners.
- A website on hospital based massage – how to start and run a program in a hospital. Look into reviving the Hospital Based Massage therapy network. (http://hbmn.com)
Non-massage related ideas:
- I feel really concerned about the plastic thing… the pictures of plastic in the oceans and all over and how we got this way and what we can do about it. I don’t know anything about it but it is worrisome and would take some reading and research.
- I love reading books and keep thinking I should do a site on some aspect of reading – – not sure what aspect…but I am sure I could find it.
- A website on feral cats living in barns.
- A local directory for your city/town/county for locals or for tourists. (use WordPress plus the SBI plugin for WordPress)
- A travel site on your favorite beaches or ski resorts. (use WordPress plus the SBI plugin for WordPress)
- A website on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or Appalachian Trail
I can hear your objections already…. aren’t there enough websites on those topics? There are never enough GOOD ones let alone GREAT ones. Just look at the sites out there. Most are getting so spammy with ads popping up all over and having stories that you have to click 100 times to see all the images just to get to the one important thing…. We need better websites that inform and educate.
Take a look at these case studies and this list of results and list of websites using SBI for proof.
How do you make money with a website?
In the early days, I made the most of my income from Google Adsense. Putting Google ads on my site. How much? Well it got up to about $2000 a month before 2009 when Google made big changes in their search algorithms. Since then I have started writing ebooks and am not getting back to working on a few sites that will have more Adsense ads and affiliate income mainly through Amazon associates program.
You don’t know anything about creating websites?
You don’t have to. SBI! provides EVERYTHING you need to know about how to use their proprietary software and if you want to use WordPress, they will help you will all that too with a complete action guide for each type of software. (WordPress just released their 5.0 that includes a block by block builder which will have a big learning curve.)
EVERYTHING? Yes Everything.
- How to choose a topic
- How to choose the best domain
- How to set up your home page
- How to create pages so that search engines will find them
- How to use Social media – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram to build traffic
- How to write (anyone can learn!)
- How to make money
- How to create products
- How to sell other people’s products (Affiliate Income)
How long will it take?
It’s a process. It takes as long as it takes. It won’t happen overnight and it isn’t a get rich quick thing.
It is building an online business – one that could supplement your massage income and make you money while you do massage and take you into retirement. (I have so many plans for other websites that I can play with in ‘retirement’, I can hardly wait!)
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