Your Reiki Website Training: What You Need to Know

The webinar is presented in 5 videos totaling over 3 hours viewing time.

You’ll feel most empowered if you go through the videos in order, as each builds on the information and concepts already presented. This is especially true for Parts One, Two, Three and Five.

The content in “Part Four: Technology” is not as dependent on the information preceding it, so feel free to go to that early, if you’re tech-comfortable or tech-in-need, or to skip it and come back later.

Please note that the webinar is copyrighted, all rights reserved. You have purchased access to the webinar for your own personal use, not to share with others.

If you find the webinar to be useful, please email the Reiki website webinar info page to your Reiki friends and suggest that they consider registering, or share the link on facebook.

I do my best to keep this information updated, but if you find a link that has expired or you have a suggestion to share, please email me. Thank you so much for your support.

To your success,
Pamela

PART ONE: Overview (38 minutes)

PART TWO: Visuals (14 minutes)

PART THREE: Content (67 minutes)

PART FOUR: Technology (43 minutes)

PART FIVE: Development (35 minutes)

PART ONE: Overview

Seth Godin, arguably the top online business adviser and someone whose vision and integrity I admire, discusses What Works for Websites Today. The article was published in 2014 but is still accurate and relevant.

Reiki Precepts as translated by Hyakuten Inamoto

PART TWO: Visual

Image on slide 32 © Twigg
All other images © Pamela Miles 2010.

The videos on the public, unrestricted pages of my site (not the Reiki Best Practices videos or other purchased content) and on YouTube are for public use. You are welcome to download and put them on your site. I ask only that whichever videos you use, you use in its entirety (don’t cut or edit), and give full credit. Two sites for downloading video are keepvid.com and clipconverter.cc.

You can also put the Reiki Integrative Health Care video on loop and play it at your table at health fairs. People love video, and a moving image always draws attention.

PART THREE: Content

Good news for those who don’t have a separate business phone, and understandably don’t want your personal number on the internet: it has become increasingly easy and inexpensive to get a second line. Take a look at Google Voice to see if it meets your needs. Line2 is an app that adds a second number to your mobile or computer.

Consider using content resources from my website to help you get started, so you can have some content from the very beginning. Do not pull pdfs from my site and mount them on yours. That’s illegal even if you credit the author. Instead, write a short description of the content that tells your visitor what you find so valuable, and a Read More live link to the original website page or blog post.

You might be particularly interested to share the blog post How Does Reiki Help, and the content on Medical Papers and Articles and Books. Look especially at the interviews by UPI columnist Bernard Starr PhD, to which you can link directly: Reiki: A Healing Touch and Reiki: Learning to Do It.

I was the lead reviewer for the Reiki Backgrounder on the NIH/NCCAM website. Since this is a government site, funded by our tax dollars, there is no copyright and you can link to it or directly publish the content as you choose.

If you are using customer testimonials on your website, make sure you are in compliance with the law.

PART FOUR: Technology (greatly simplified)
First stop: you can register your domain at Hostgator.com. If your site name is different than you own name, register both and have your name link to your site. Some of the other hosting companies will register a domain for you, but you’re better off doing it yourself to insure portability. Also, if you have more than one site, they will all be in one account.

My intention below is to give you options and reliable resources at every level–easy/simple to most customized, and help you have reasonable expectations.

Startup hosting plans
Hostgator.com and site5 offer startup hosting plans. They both allow easy WordPress installations through Fantastico.

On a Mac?
iWeb is no longer available since Mobile Me went belly up. SquareSpace offers gorgeous design that is user-friendly.

Don’t want to do it yourself? Find a professional who fits your needs and budget at AwesomeWeb.

Startup hosting plans that specialize in wordpress, and offer good support
Page.ly is especially appropriate for non-techies who want to handle as few details as possible. It offers hosting and wordpress setup with quick signup for a good price. Page.ly handles upgrades–very important–but the other side of being very user-friendly is that it offers a limited number of themes.
If you want more options, check out wpwebhost.com, which is a hosting company that specializes in wordpress, and supports plug-ins. Signup with them and you can use any theme, or build your own.

Sources for Wordpress Themes
Studiopress
Elegantthemes

And of course, you can create your own blog at wordpress.com, which is not to be confused with wordpress.org (as I did in the video — can you ever forgive me?). Wordpress.com is a blog hosting site where you can make your own blog but you are not hosting it yourself, so if the site disappears, so does your blog.

However, if you feel you need a little time just to get used to being on the internet, this may be a developmental choice for you. But please immediately start planning your REAL website, the professional-looking one.

Farm It Out
If you have the budget, I hope you will seriously consider hiring someone for the design and tech. It will save so much time and angst, and likely money as well, especially if it means you have a professional-looking site up and running and bringing you clients faster than if you had slugged your way through it on your own. You, of course, will decide which pages you want and you will write the content.

PART FIVE: Development

Email Marketing
An important function of your website is to gather emails from people who are interested in your content and services. Ask people to give you their email and tell them what they will get from you.

Then develop a relationship with your people by sending an e-newsletter with content that serves them at intervals that work for you and your clients. Too frequently and they’ll unsubscribe. Not often enough and they forget who you are. Find the sweet spot that is a commitment but not a burden for you. I suggest contacting your list at least monthly.

Mailchimp offers a free startup program where you can store up to 2000 subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails a month without charge. If you already have an email list and/or a budget for email marketing, take a look at aWeber.

MORE HELPFUL LINKS AND IDEAS

Add your website URL to your email signature.

Set up an account on gravatar. Then every time you comment anywhere online, the same picture will appear, helping people to recognize you and link to your website.

Make sure you register your name as a domain name even if you don’t use it for your website. I know I put this under tech, but it’s important enough to repeat. You want to be easy to find online, and some people will google your name.

Set up a Google+ account. It’s another way for people to find you, and it will bump your search rankings.

Get on LinkedIn and fill out your profile thoroughly, with a picture. If you are already on LinkedIn, review your profile now through the lens of what you’ve learned in this training, and make the tweaks that will make you look more professional and inviting, and draw people to your website to learn more. Keep in mind that LinkedIn is more business-oriented and not as casual as Facebook, so make sure everything you write for your profile is appropriate to the venue, and make sure your profile is complete. Think what an incomplete profile communicates about you and your services.

Add new content to your site regularly. The search engines LOVE new content, and you want them to love your site. Also, an untended website starts looking stale after a while. You want your site to stay vibrant.

Click here to compare building your blog or website to organizing an event.

Make sure you’ve covered all these bases so that your site will show up in searches for a local Reiki class or Reiki healing.

Once your site is up, make sure every piece of content you post anywhere online refers to your website. That means articles, written or recorded interviews, video, podcasts, images — everything!