It may not have been possible a few years ago, but with more health companies utilizing the internet to expand their business, there are now ways to make more money as a physical therapist. Improving one’s quality of life is no longer confined to the four walls of a hospital or a rehab center. With the online space, you can potentially reach out to new patients and I am here to show you exactly how.
Why Go Online
Let’s start with something that’s most familiar to you which is the niche itself.
1 – Physical rehab is a $30 billion dollar industry that has a huge demand and this is largely influenced by what you see on a daily basis – the increasing number of aging population, sports injuries, heart and neurological diseases – and so on.
While the primary treatment comes from professionals, most patients will also require accessories and devices on a daily basis to assist in their recovery and maintenance outside of these facilities. With that comes a wide range of products that can be acquired online and some, you’ve probably used before too.
From the chart, it’s clear that the market size is getting bigger every year and your valuable knowledge on these products is something to leverage from.
2 – Besides that, it’s a well-known fact that many professionals in the healthcare industry work for long hours and are pretty burned out by the end of the day. That need not be the case all the time. If you can channel some of the effort into the online space, you can still perform the job with less physical straining.
3 – However, perhaps what is most resonating is the state of your financial situation. With burdensome student loans, high cost of living and low-to-average wages, working in this profession is probably becoming a constant struggle. This realization makes it even more crucial for you to seek additional income streams and fortunately for your niche, the opportunities are abundant online.
Enter Affiliate Marketing
Notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about selling here and that’s because with the affiliate income model, you don’t need any big investment like building a center or purchasing equipment. Instead, your main ‘job’ is to guide online audience, with your professional knowledge, to products that can improve their condition via companies that supply them.
Through the referral process, you get to earn sales commissions whenever someone buys something online. And you can keep doing so for the same or multiple products over again for a long period of time. It’s basically like running an online business, except that you are cashing in from preexisting brands that are already in the market.
First Step to Getting Started
You do however need one thing to get started, which is a blog because it acts as an interface to communicate and engage with potential audience within the niche. The process is very simple and it works like this;
1 – Find a domain name (a name that you would call the blog) that is relevant to what you want to talk about. Make it end with any of these three extensions – .com, .org, .net – because it is easier to remember. A typical domain fee that comes with privacy protection and technical support should cost around $15 (or less).
2 – Next, connect the domain to a hosting provider that supports WordPress. If you haven’t used this platform before, SiteRubix has a free access for you to check out. Once familiar with the back office, simply follow their one-click installation to set up your first blog, which should go live within minutes.
Creating Content For Your Blog
Now, you are probably wondering, how on earth will people discover your blog online? Well, the strategy lies in understanding what the audience is actively searching and using that as your blog topics.
Just like you and I, patients use Google every day to look for information and products to help with their purchasing decisions. These phrases are actually reflected within the Google search bar and they vary in ideas every time you enter or add a new word.
This is not to say that they are the best topics to write about, but it will surely give an idea on how big a scope you can cover within the niche. With more relevant topics, your blog will have more chances to rank higher on the search engines.
Besides popular phrases, you can also look at trends for guidance and a good tool for that is Google Trends. I use this all the time for my niche research online and it always provides me with new exciting data to explore. Unlike the search bar, Google Trends is best used to analyze broad phrases, comprising of 1 to 3 words.
As you can see, the pattern for ‘lower back pain’ has a steady increase in search volume over the course of 5 years. Hence, this is a very popular topic to discuss online and even linking to products that can be a solution to the problem.
The ultimate strategy to select good content to write about is to do a proper keyword research by analyzing the number of searches versus competition for a particular keyphrase. For this, you’ll need a reliable keyword tool like Jaaxy that is easy to use and interpret.
For a new blog like yours, you want to be targeting keywords that are moderately high in searches (AVG > 100) and low in the number of competing websites (QSR < 100). The following phrase, for example, is a good keyword to use because 1/ it fits the criteria of our metrics and 2/ it encompasses the popular phrase and trend that I just showed earlier.
Repeat this online niche research process a few times using different ideas, until you come up with 10 to 20 targeted topics or so. That should give your blog a substantial amount of content to get started and generate traffic for the first few months. Once you’ve reached a steady stream of visitors, then it’s time to get into affiliate programs, write good product reviews and monetize from your content.
Physiotherapy Affiliate Programs
Online stores that sell physiotherapy products aren’t hard to find. You just need to enter the type of product, brand and a country location, and the search engines will often yield a few results to choose from.
In the list below, I’ve shortlisted some of the more popular companies that deliver within the US.
1 – Amazon
As you know, Amazon is a giant marketplace that isn’t niche specific, but they still offer a huge variety of items for rehab therapy. Among the advantages of affiliating with the company is that it’s a well-known retailer and when customers buy other products in the same transaction, you’ll get commissions too. However, at about 4.5%, their percentage isn’t always the highest and the cookie duration only lasted for 24 hours.
Nevertheless, it’s still a popular choice among new bloggers and to apply, you need to sign up with the Amazon associate program. The approval rate is quite high if you’ve all the information in order.
2 – iReliev
Pain is a huge deterrent to everyday’s mobility and if you can offer the audience a relief solution without using drugs, you should consider recommending the electrotherapy devices by iReliev. They are affordable, consumer friendly and FDA certified. Backed by hundreds of positive customer reviews, the affiliate program offers a lucrative 15% commission with a lifetime cookie.
To apply for the program, you need to sign up directly through the official site.
3 – Nectar Sleep Mattress
Another high-end product that’s trending in the niche is memory foam mattresses that provide not only comfort, but posture support during sleep. Nectar Sleep is one such company that has produced good quality and affordable mattresses to order online and your audience will love this brand because it comes with a unique 365-night trial which none of the competitors are currently offering.
Their affiliate conversion is quite impressive at $50 per sale and you can find out more by applying through the ShareASale network.
4 – Mosaic Weighted Blankets
Many patients that seek for physiotherapy also suffer from sleep deprivation and a good solution to help them combat the problem is a technology called weighted blanket. The Mosaic company is an expert in this field and they offer a variety of blankets that are proudly manufactured in the US.
The affiliate commission is 10% on items over $100 and you can sign up directly through their official site.
Grow Your Career Online
If you’ve always wanted to know how to make more money as a physical therapist, bringing your career to the online space will not be disappointing. As I’ve clearly pointed out, the niche is already growing in popularity and there will always be new products coming into the market that can benefit from reviews by professionals like you.
A well established blog will not only provide helpful information to the patients, but also generate long term income for yourself and THAT is something worthwhile to think about.
I hope this article has opened your mind to new ideas and if you like to learn more, please head over to my recommended training platform to create your first blog for free. I look forward to communicating with you from the inside.
Still have questions/comments about physiotherapy affiliate marketing? Just leave them in the space below and I’ll get back to you.
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I would never have thought that it was possible to make a living as a physical therapist online, but from what you say, it is obviously a very good idea. In fact, the tips can be applied to any profession whose job skills include the usage of products that people can buy online. If you look from that aspect, then almost every profession has the potential to become an affiliate within their own niche.
Physical therapists help people who are struggling with their bodies and that basically includes every human at some point in their lives or another. If you are in a day job, you can only see a few people in a day and this limits the effort in helping some patients within their vicinity.
Through an online business set up however, a physical therapist could reach more people than they ever could in real life. It is great to be able to even offer tips to prevent common issues, especially providing guidance to good products that can solve people’s problems.
This article makes a lot of sense as there are a number of equipment, tools, and even resources that are available that people are looking for to improve on their body condition. So why not create an additional income stream from these type of products.
I have friends working in this field so I am sure they would be interested to read what you have laid out here.
In a bit of self-interest, I can also offer to help them get started putting this thing together on the web, for a price, of course.
Now that you have piqued my interest in this, I am even thinking further about this whole concept. I can see that the same would apply to many professional fields of work. There is a huge potential in providing the standard structure that will back up the technical side of this potential side income.
Thanks for sharing this. I would like to know – how does one find a good product to promote as an affiliate marketer in this niche?
Hi Seun, you can always look at trending/hot selling products on the Amazon marketplace and run a few keyword terms to see if they being widely searched online.
If the search volume and trend are both high, coupled with many good reviews, you’ve probably find a good product offer right there.
Hope this helps.
Cathy, I just want you to know that you just helped me in realizing what has been on my mind for months. Although I want to be a fitness trainer, this information provides a lead way on how to start this and make it big with this niche. Tapping into your idea is something that would help me realize my own dream so thank you very much for the inspiration.
I am glad you benefited from this Kehinde! 🙂
Hey Cathy, I actually thought people in this profession are highly sought after and are paid very well for their services. Apparently, I was wrong. You’ve done a good job in pointing out some of the numerous ways a physical therapist can make money online. Some of these affiliate networks are offering really high commissions so it definitely looks a good opportunity to make some extra income.
This idea can actually be applied to any profession. Anyone who’s looking to make extra money using their preexisting job skills can definitely benefit from reading the tips here. With an online presence, you not only get to help more people within your field, but also avoid burnout by working shorter hours.
Good info. The only thing I would add is regarding the Amazon Associate program. Amazon has a deadline of 90 days (I think) where you must have at least three sales, otherwise they will shut you down. My advice would be to wait until you have steady traffic flowing to your website before setting up an affiliate account.
On a side note, when pushing your products via social media, Facebook will not permit you to advertise a link that goes directly to Amazon or any of your other affiliate offers. As such, many affiliate marketers create landing pages and/or blog posts to act as a buffer between the two.
Hope this helps for anyone who is thinking about venturing into this niche through the affiliate marketing way.
Thanks for the heads up, Annette! 🙂
Hi, I was reading your article and was quite surprised, in a good way, by the whole idea. I have been in the internet business for a little while now, but never thought of this kind of niche as something that could be done online.
Thank you very much for the suggestions and tips. My husband is actually a trained therapist but has always done it the normal way. I will certainly show him your article and who knows, we might be headed in a new direction soon.
Thanks for the informative post! Making money as a physical therapist is what I’ve been hoping for so far but didn’t know how to go about it. Gone were the days when one would have to visit the hospital premises to receive treatment. It’s great to know now that one can reach out to physical therapists online as there are many patients out there that are in need of care.
In as much as it wouldn’t cost a dime to make money building a $30 billion worth physical rehab, one can easily get started and start making money as a physical therapist. It’s interesting to know that affiliate marketing is another way to earn revenue promoting a physical therapy business.
Good and educative write-up, Cathy.
Judging from the fact that the health sector has a huge employ-ability potentials as it has diverse sub-sectors. Tapping into your idea of having a blog in health niche is applaudable. It affords one the opportunity of consulting for people on the right health product to buy and where to find them and the cost.
The physical therapy area is not that saturated and its in high demand by those who are in need of speedy recovery from physical acute to chronic injuries.
I run a business online which is a similar concept to this, and honestly when I get a client come to me and say my plan has changed their life, it’s the best feeling ever, and I don’t have to go anywhere to do so, and neither do they. They can come to me online whenever they need to and it’s the best job, honestly.
Hi Cathy.
This article is quite thought provoking and it makes me re-assess my career right now. I found I was linking to lots of things you put in there. Google Trends is really useful. Would you say that you need to be an expert on some of these products to sell them through affiliate marketing?
It would certainly help to have some kind of background of technical knowledge about these products before you join their affiliate programs. I will better enhance your product reviews.
Hi Cathy. This is a very helpful article as I plan to enter this business niche in the future, but don’t really know its way in the online world. Your post made me realized what I can possibly achieve with all the different and profitable affiliate programs out there. I will certainly take a good look at them. Thanks for sharing.