Review of CanadianTherapists.com December 31, 2009

CanadianTherapists.com remains a very popular web site in Marriage and Family Therapy.  For 2009 the site has enjoyed approximately 12,050 visitors, an average of 33 visitors a day. 

Technical facts on our visitors,

• Windows based PCs are used 8 to 1 over Macs
• The browser of choice is Microsoft’s IE (Internet Explorer) by approximately 4 to 1 over other all other browsers combined, such as Netscape, Firefox etc.
• Those using IE, 56% are using version 7, 30% version 6 and 14% using the latest version 8.
• The majority of these browsers are being viewed at a resolution of 1024 X 768 or 1280 X 800.

I would think that we are safe to assume from the browser type and resolution that most visitors to the site are somewhat computer savvy and are using relatively up to date computers.

Other interesting facts,

• So far this year March, July, September, October and November have all had over 1000 visitors with October being the busiest with 1,235 visitors.
• The site enjoys the most traffic mid day between approximately 9 am to 4 pm with peaks at 11am and 2 pm
• The site also has an increase in traffic between the hours or 8 pm to 11 pm

Webmaster Observations,
CanadianTherapists.com was established in January 2003.  In the early years, the traffic to the site was direct coming either to the home page or directly to the individual therapist’s page, likely as a result of their own marketing efforts.

While this is still a large part of the traffic to the site, each year more traffic comes from search engines such as Google and other referring sites.  The search strings used are becoming quite defined.  Not surprisingly are search strings including location, i.e. “Marriage and Family Therapy, London, Ontario”.  These searches would be used more when a visitor is looking for a therapist in their area as opposed to researching an issue.

Issue related search strings are more specific as well, for example “anger management” “teen and family therapy” “cognitive behavioural” “self injury” “infidelity counseling” etc.  Many of these will also include location such as, “korean speaking family therapists in toronto”.

While these specific issues are attracting more visitors to the site, the individual therapists name is still a key within the search engines.  To me this indicates that potential clients want to find out more about the therapist they are seeking to visit.  They can learn so much more from a 3 page web site than a print advertisement.  Individual therapists are taking advantage of this and expanding their client base by including their web address in all of their marketing materials. 

These therapists are also enjoying direct traffic to their pages through articles and newsletters they are publishing on line with magazines they are featured in and organization they belong to.  By including their web address, visitors are being directed to their sites to learn more about them and the services they offer.  These therapists are building a web presence, which their web site is the central component.

Something new I am noticing is how smaller local, community based and healthcare specific search engines are directing visitors to CanadianTherapists.com.  This is very beneficial within geographic areas.

I have mentioned this in the past and still feel strongly that Canadians are using the Internet daily to research marriage and family issues and therapy.  This likely isn’t news to many of you who have been marketing yourselves on the Internet for some time and know what a useful tool it is. 

I hope you find them helpful.

Sincerely,
John Lemme
CanadianTherapists.com Webmaster