Most of our members have a physical location that clients/customers/clients come to. For such businesses, promotion works more or less the same whether they are running a Dentist office, Animal Hospital, Haberdashery or donut shop; as long as you say who you are, what you do and where you are, people can figure out how to come to you.

If you don’t have a physical office you wish to publicize, it’s extra important to clarify how your business works. If people don’t come to you, how DO they interact with you? Remember, you want it to be as easy as possible for clients to contact and do business with you, so make sure that no guesswork is involved with the process.

When your clients are the only ones you want to find you.

If you do have a physical location, there may still be something about your business, clients or office location which requires keeping the location private. The most common example of this is a home office, but there are many circumstances where this is the case.

This is the trickiest situation to give general advice about, because no matter how much I know about business promotion and marketing, I don’t know much- or anything- about your specific situation. Promoting your home address may very well be dangerous, may be awkward, or could be a complete non-issue; so please, consider our advice with all factors in mind, check in with your own thoughts and those who know your specific situation, and feel free to contact us with specific questions.

Unfortunately, privacy concerns are usually counter to effective business promotion. No public address often means no public listings, and a lack of address may affect your Search Engine results. If you don’t want to share your exact location, provide as much other information as possible, even having city, state and zip is more helpful than no address information at all. Some of our members with home offices list their street name without a number, or substitute a neighborhood or district that the office is in. This allows a context and some idea for a client to know how convenient a trip to see you could be.

Whatever information you do share, make it clear on your website what a client should (and perhaps shouldn’t) do to contact you, and what the next steps would be. If it is relevant to explain why you keep your address secret, you can divulge this later on, it’s not important to state on the website.

When you come to your clients…

If your business model is not based on people coming to you, but you make house calls, do presentations at offices, deliver goods or services, or anything where you come to the client or customer, it’s still important to mention both your general location and where you’re ready, willing and able to travel.

If you do have a physical address you can share, it actually proves more helpful for Search Engines, listings, and client knowledge to have a business access on your website and listings IN ADDITION to a list of areas served and/or distance that you travel.

Many small business owners are under the incorrect impression that showing their address information will somehow hurt other aspects of their business. In general, more information is better than less, and your website works best when you can anticipate client questions and answer them. The key is to be as user-friendly as possible, and take the guesswork out of starting a business relationship.

When you never actually meet your clients in person…

Promoting a business that focuses on online or over-the-phone consultations is different than promoting a “brick and mortar” business.

If you supplement client interactions by calls, Skype or what have you, you’re still best off promoting your business address and making it clear that you ALSO offer these additional methods of contact.

It can’t hurt to use your office on your website or listings even if you never expect clients to come to you; a common misconception is that having an address shown minimizes your appeal for phone or online consultations. At worse, this information is just tangential, but it likely can help establish your presence and credibility. It also can improve your presence in Search Engine Results pages.

Another advantage of having your location, even if nobody comes to you, is that it’s one of many factors that makes you unique. A great example of this is a therapist whose website I helped promote. He only did counseling by Skype, because he specialized in working with people who lived in small towns in Alaska. The very point of much of his work was helping people cope with living with the isolation, loneliness, and other unique problems that such a life could involve. He lived hundreds of miles from most of his clients, but by being in the same situation, he knew their experience first hand.

Our members work in fields where personality can be crucial, and where you come from, and are, may be seen as part of your personality. Is your way of thinking and doing business influenced by big city living or small town ways? Is your style East Coast, West Coast, Middle America? Is this something you can use to your advantage?

Once again, however you work with clients, you want to make sure your website clearly explains the situation and process. Don’t expect clients to call you because they’d like to learn if you do telephone consultations, because your website and other promotion should make that clear. Your method of doing business should be presented as a selling point, not something websites viewers should have to wonder about or hunt for.

Think about it; if you had the choice between businesses, and one explained how to work with them and the other didn’t, which business would you pick? It’s always worth a few minutes of your time to make sure your website and other promotional material is the best and most informative that it can be, it pays off in the long run.

Rich M – TherapySites Support
Email any questions to [email protected]