Back to School – Website Marketing for Therapists

Therapy marketing WebsitesIf you are in the UK you will know that today is the first day back at school after the long summer holidays. This does not just apply to children but to adults as well so I thought this would be the perfect time to launch my first online course for therapists. One of the biggest issues that I see time and time again is therapists making fundamental mistakes with their website design and content. This is a huge issue as your website is now usually the number one marketing tool for your business. Get it right and you have great foundations on which to build your empire but get it wrong and you may as well go back to your old day job. So I have created a course called “Turn Your Therapy Website Into a Client Magnet” that is especially designed for website marketing for therapists.

Before I explain a little bit more about the course I want to firstly thank those therapists who took the time out to send me their websites so that I could use them in the video content. I had a great response and it would have been great to use them all but in the end I settled on two websites in particular one from the US and another from Australia. I will be sending a short thank you note to the other hypnotherapy business owners over the next couple of days to give them some advice on what they can do to boost their website and business.

Common Therapy Website Problems

Firstly I thought I should mention that of all the websites that were sent over to me there were a number of common problems that appeared time and time again.

  • The therapist has decided to create their own website and has done it badly! This was generally due to a lack of website design skills and saving money. So here is my opinion. If you can’t be bothered to spend money creating a website or going to classes to learn how then don’t bother at all. I know this sounds harsh but the reality is that if your website stinks then it makes your business look bad and won’t make you any money. I am not sure what it is about therapy that makes people think it is ok to do this but it is a huge problem.  You have to invest in your success. If you own a shop you get the best premises, signage and stock. If you are a plumber you need a reliable van, tools and website. These things cost money!!! Setting up a therapy business is relatively cheap in comparison to many other businesses so save up and do it right.
  • Therapists do not bother to put their location on the first page of their website or in some cases on it at all. Now I am not sure if they think that their clients and Google are mind readers but without this information nobody knows where you are. This is basic stuff! People are on your website in most cases for a period of seconds. If they can’t see that you are near them then they are off elsewhere like a shot. The same applies to the Google bots that search your website for clues as to where to place you in the rankings. If a client enters in a search “Hypnosis in Adelaide” then the bot has search your website for that keyword and will show all the listings which have that term in the page. If your website does not say where you are then your website is consigned to an internet black hole! Start to think like the people searching for your website and what you might need to add to your website to help them find you.

Therapy Website Marketing Online Course

Website marketing for therapists is so crucial to your business success that I have created an online course which contains over two hours of video lessons plus information sheets to help you create the perfect platform for your business. I believe that the information contained in the course can make a huge difference to a therapy business and its ability to get found in the Search Engines as well as assisting you to create a platform for making passive income.

I am not a website designer (even though I have made my own websites) but that does not matter. Why? Because most website builders are great at creating a website but have no idea about search engine optimisation of the elements that you need to have to make a success of a therapy business. That means that even when you spend thousands of pounds getting an expert in to create your site it still does not create a great return for you. I show you how you can get a website built for under $200 and the content it needs to contain to act as that client magnet. I know what I am doing. As of this morning I was number 1 on Google in the US for Hypnotherapy Marketing,  number 1 in the UK  and number 2 in Australia. Not bad for a website that I update once or twice a month! If I can do this worldwide what can I do for you in your local town or province?

Build a Hypnotherapy Website That Gets Customers

Follow the tips and strategies that are contained in my online course and you will be guided through each of the important elements that your website must have.  These are the exact methods I used to create three successful practices in the UK plus they catapulted this website to one of the leading websites in the world for hypnotherapy marketing. So what are you waiting for?  The link for the course can be found below. I hope you all find it useful and informative and I would love to hear what course you would like me to create next to help with your marketing.

Marketing a Therapy Website Online Course

Turn Your Therapy Website into a Client Magnet Turn Your Therapy Website into a Client Magnet Online Course

 

5 Essential Tools to Boost Your Hypnotherapy Advertising

Hypnotherapy Advertising ToolkitI think you will agree that finding great tools to boost your Hypnotherapy Advertising can save you time and money. In the old days it was relatively simple. Pay for an advert in the Yellow Pages and wait for the phone to ring. Now hypnosis marketing is becoming increasingly complex and if you don’t understand the game then you are doomed from the very beginning. Many of my marketing students are stunned at the complexity of modern day client attraction techniques. Left to their own devices most of them would have been out of business in half a year. That is why it is essential to have the business knowledge and tools to help you on the road to success. Here are just some tools that can help you to boost your current marketing efforts.

Google Keyword Planner – Previously called the Google Keyword Tool this has become an essential starting point in finding out keywords that are relevant to your business and niche. Whilst not always 100% accurate the planner can help you to identify words that you can use on your website or blogs to attract people interested in your services. Primarily the planner allows you to enter in a set of keywords into its search system and then it generates a large number of other keywords which may be useful to your business niche.

I know that this tool could be invaluable to most therapists if they bothered to use it. Why? Because it would stop them writing content that nobody wanted to see. There is no point making a great page on your website talking about your expertise in Hypnotherapy for Dementia if there are only ten or less Google searches in the country per month for that term. Logically it is highly unlikely that many of those searches will be near you so concentrate initially on the terms that your clients are looking for and write your content around that.

WordPress – There really is no need now to get expensive websites created in HTML coding when WordPress has become the main platform to create your online site. WordPress has made things simple for you and uses a system that makes it super easy for you to write content that matches what Google wants. It allows you to add pictures and video at the click of a button. Your content can be tagged correctly with a simple click. You can even see if your content meets SEO standards with the wonderful Yoast plugin.

With a simple traffic light system it shows you whether you content needs work with a red light or whether you are green to go. If you are given a signal that your content needs work all you have to do is page down and it tells you exactly what is wrong with what you have written. Oh and there are thousands of plugins you can add to your site to increase your marketing effectiveness. Do you want to regularly retweet content? Well there is a plugin for that. Want to add a a pop up screen to collect email addresses on your site? Yep there is another pop up for that. This is easily one of the best systems for helping you in your therapy practice marketing today.

Google Adwords – Adwords is a complex beast of a system but use it correctly and it is a client attraction machine. Yes it uses pay per click advertising as a means to get paying clients in through your door but that is no bad thing. Think of Adwords as your manager. You pay your manager a percentage of your income and they get you work. Yes of course it would be lovely to get clients without having to pay anything but lets look at the reality of the situation.

If you are an established hypnotherapist who has been in the business for years and has built referral networks, marketed to old clients and has a name for themselves then you probably don’t need to do anything to get work. If however you are new to this game you need to get found. Networking and referrals take time and you have to ask yourself can you afford to wait for months if not years to get to the point where you are earning enough to live on. So you think about creating a website instead and boosting it in the rankings until you high in the organic rankings. Again this takes time and a significant amount of effort. In addition with the new way that Google shows results it is likely that even with organic SEO you may appear relatively low on the first page. Google is not daft it now monopolises search to the point where you are going to find if difficult to earn a living without them.

Fiverr Hypnosis AdvertisingFiverr – This website started out as I will do anything for you for five dollars and now has morphed into the go to site to get things done cheaply. Want new leaflets created for your business? Well you can fiddle around trying to create something badly yourself, hire a local graphic designer or head on over to Fiverr to get this done for the price of a cup of coffee. You can get videos made, websites created,  content written and so much more. Of course not everything is quite as cheap as five dollars anymore. Usually the service providers on this site choose to offer their work in exchange for multiples of the five dollars but it will be still be at a great price. What better way to boost your hypnotherapy advertising cheaply.

Think about it a local graphic designer in the UK, Australia or The States charges in relation to their cost of living in that country. That means a small graphic can cost you a significant amount of money. The sellers on this site are situated all over the world which means they can significantly undercut local offerings. What may cost you £100 in the developed world can be only £4 overseas. Just make sure that you choose the person you are using from their reviews. If a seller has hundreds of positive reviews then you are likely to get great work. Think twice about choosing services from someone with little or no track record.

Google Webmaster Tools – Have you placed your website on this yet? If not you are missing tons of useful information that can help you with your hypnotherapy advertising. This free site allows you to see your website as Google does. Here are just some of the reports and data you can receive from the tools.

Information on the search queries for your website and the click through rate of the people arriving at your website. Clearly this is valuable information showing you how you have been found.

Links to your site – If you have lots of natural links which flow back to your site it boosts your search engine results. The reports here can show you who is linking to you and on what pages.

Keywords – Google provides you with a list of keywords it finds when it is crawling your site. Check to make sure that the words they are finding are the ones that you want to be found for.

Internal Links – Details of the links on your website which link to other pages. Google loves relevant internal linking as it improves your customer experience. Think Wikipedia.

Errors on your site – You may not know it but there may be broken links or problems with your website and Google lets you know where they are.

Understanding How to Use Tools in Your Hypnosis Marketing

These are only a few of the tools that it is possible to use in your hypnosis marketing efforts. However having the tools is not enough if you don’t know how to implement them. Hypnotherapy Advertising is becoming more and more sophisticated and that means you need to have the knowledge in order to stand a chance in beating your competition.

My marketing students found that when they tried to market without any knowledge of these techniques they got almost zero clients in through the door and no income. When they were given the tools to work with and were guided through the marketing maze they suddenly got high search engine positions and a steady stream of new customers. Don’t let a lack of business savvy hold you back from achieving your dream of a hypnosis career find a mentor to guide you through the maze.

 

 

 

 

Citation Building for Therapists – The Complete Guide

Citation Building for TherapistsMarketing a therapy business well should involve creating a great local presence for your services. One of the best ways of doing this is building citations to your business. So what exactly is a citation? In short it is a mention of your name, address and phone number on another website page. The citation does not have to link back to your website. In some cases you will find that people use the term NAP to refer to this name, address and phone number. Citation building for therapists is a crucial marketing strategy that should not be ignored.

Building a local list of citations is hugely important for a local business as it is a key ranking factor in Google and Bing. Both these search engines use citations in their ranking algorithm and the more you have the more likely you are to rank over your competitors. Most people believe that a citation needs to be built in a directory but they can also be created in forums, blog posts, press releases and social media links. A citation is telling the search engines that your business is genuine and in the local region. The more citations you have from good quality webpages the more trust you build around your business. Location specific citations from local newspapers, your chamber of commerce or local directory links can make a big difference to your website rankings in Google and Bing.

Claiming your Therapy Business Listing

I will supply a list of some of the most best citation sites on the web at the end of this post but once you have found the site what do you do next?

  1. Before most sites allow you to create a listing you may be asked if your business has already been added to their website. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly it prevents duplicate listings of your business and secondly it allows you to check if other businesses are registered at the same address. Many therapists may work out of therapy centres where there are a number of people working so you would expect to see many other businesses registered at your address. If however you have taken over a premises and an old competitor is registered it is worth flagging this to prevent them benefiting from your advertising.
  2. If you don’t have a duplicate business listed you will be asked to fill out details about your company. Obviously the name, address and phone number but in many cases you might also be asked for pictures, website details, social media links, hours of operation, products sold and so on. Fill out as many of the details as you can.
  3. Some websites try and persuade you to pay money in order to get a listing on their website. Where possible simply opt for the free option. The purpose of your adding your details is for the citation alone. In many cases paying to be added to a directory is a pointless exercise unless they appear extremely highly in the search engines for your keyword.
  4. Be aware that some people will add a different email for their citation links than their usual business email. This is because adding your details to these forms of sites tends to generate spam marketing.
  5. After adding your details you will usually be asked to verify a link to finalise the process. Google + Local however sends you a postcard which may not appear until weeks later. Some other websites will ask for your phone number and then call you with a pin number to confirm that you really are at that phone number.
  6. In many cases your listing may appear live after only a few minutes but in some cases the citation websites will have a review process of up to six months! Obviously if you paid them for the listing this would be up and running in a day or so.

Consistency and Citations for Therapy Marketing

One of the most important points to remember when building citations is to keep consistency. That means using exactly the same name, address and phone number on each link that you are building. Even more importantly the ones you choose should be in exactly the same format as your Google + Local page and Website address. Having different phone numbers or variations of your trading name can confuse search engine algorithms and raise red flags. You do not want any doubt to be created around your business listing so make sure that everything is written exactly the same. Moz local is a system that can be used to track your citations online and ensure that you do not have duplicates, listings that are incomplete or have inconsistencies.

Build a Booming Therapy Business with Citations

A great way of finding out what citations to use is by searching for what your competitors are doing. If you are hiding away on page three or four of the search engines then it is worth looking at the citations that your competitors are using in order to trank. Although at the end of this post I have included a great list to start you off there may be many local listings that you may miss without looking to see what your fellow therapists are using. I know that this method helped me to find a number of local newspaper listings that I would never have even known about when I moved into my new location six months ago.

The Top Twenty List of Citations You Need to Use in Your Marketing

  1. 192.com
  2. Yelp.com
  3. Brownbook.net
  4. Facebook.com
  5. Local.Yahoo.com
  6. Thomsonlocal.com
  7. Citylocal.co.uk
  8. Cylex-uk.co.uk
  9. Freeindex.co.uk
  10. Hotfrog.co.uk
  11. Locallife.co.uk
  12. MisterWhat.co.uk
  13. Scoot.co.uk
  14. TouchLocal.com
  15. Yalwa.co.uk
  16. 118.com
  17. directory.thesun.co.uk
  18. directory.independent.co.uk
  19. Approvedbusiness.co.uk
  20. Opendi.co.uk

The list I have given is based around the UK however I know that I have a number of blog readers from the US and in Australia. You can find the best lists for your regions here:

US Citations

Australia Citations

Not Getting Professional Help Is Costing You Money

Obviously citation building for therapists is just one small step in getting your business found online and getting customers in through your door. If you were unaware of its importance and had not begun the process of building your citations you could have potentially lost thousands of pounds in revenue in the past year. Thousands of pounds that you could have reinvested in your business, used to pay for a holiday or simply saved for a rainy day. My therapy marketing coaching sessions help my clients to get ahead of the competition and stop burning money following strategies that are not working for their business. Even better the cost of my business training is easily offset by just a couple of new clients. For more details simply contact for more information.

Therapy Marketing and Voice Search – The Revolution Begins

Therapy Marketing and Voice SearchThe world of therapy marketing is changing, a revolution is going on right now but you probably haven’t been even noticed or thought about it so let me enlighten you. Last year I published a blog post about Mobilegeddon. The point at which Google decided that non mobile websites would be penalised in the search results in favour of those that were optimised for mobile. I should point out that I know that there are subscribers to this blog who still have not actioned anything following this announcement nearly a year later. That means that not only are they a year behind on their SEO it also means that they are unable to optimise on voice search.

So what exactly is voice search? Simply put it is a new way of getting information from your smart phone or tablet simply by asking questions to get information. That means it is no longer necessary to type something into a search engine to get results. Instead you can ask your question and you will get a reply back from your technology. The big players in this market are “Ok Google” and “Siri” although there are other sytems out there. The figures for this market are huge with over 55% of teenagers using this form of search and approximately 41% of adults. That means that nearly half the people who may want to use your services are no longer typing queries into search engines but are simply speaking into their phones to get the answers they want.

Getting Your Therapy Website found With Voice Search

If you are serious about your therapy marketing that means that you will need to take into account how you can get your information to the people who are looking for your services on voice search. Here are just some examples of how this can be made easier.

Long Tail Keywords

When we look for a product in a search engine we are likely to type in just a short phrase such as “Hypnotherapist in London” or “Confidence Hypnosis in Edinburgh”.  With voice search we tend to use longer phrases or sentances in order to get the information that we want such as “Who is the best weight loss hypnotherapist in Ireland?”.

Using long tail copy in your posts and content is becoming an increasingly popular way to get found in the search engines. This makes perfect sense when as there are some keywords that you are never going to be found for without the long tail version being used. For example the keywords “Hypnotherapy London” will bring up thousands of results. and so an average hypnotherapist is unlikely to ever be able to compete without for those keywords without a long term SEO strategy. However if a therapist where to define the area of London that they worked in it would reduce the level of competition. If they were also to write additional copy in a conversational style they would also be optimising for voice search.

Conversational Phrasing

When people use voice search they talk into Siri or Ok Google as if they were having a conversation. They don’t simply say “Hypnotherapy London”. They will ask “Where can I find a hypnotherapist in London?”. This more natural form of phrasing means that parts of the copy on your websites and blogs should also mimic this style in places where it is appropriate.

Use of FAQ’s in Your Content

Many therapists especially hypnotherapists already use FAQ’s in their content but I can guarantee that most have not thought how to write that section of their website with mobile voice search in mind. Now think of writing that copy again but answering the questions that people would want to know on voice search. Remember the questions asked in voice search tend to be “Why, where, when, how and what?”. The FAQ’s of course do not have to be just placed in your main content but can also be placed on your web pages or on your blogs.

The Devil is in the Detail

If you a therapist who has barely bothered to write a paragraph or two on each page of their website then you are likely to be a loser where this revolution is concerned.  Valuable and informative content in becoming increasingly important. I know that most of the students who come to be for marketing coaching have very rarely bothered to make much of an effort in their initial website attempts. They might have tried to cobble together a website themselves which is misaligned and has three or four pages with little information. When this little effort has been made there is nothing for the search engines or voice search to crawl. That means the Google bot comes along looking for words in that content that gives it clues as to what information that website contains. If the website has no information then the hypnotherapist does not get found. I spend a good portion of the time I have with my clients helping them to understand exactly what hard work they will need to put in to their web design in order to get customers from the internet.

The world of therapy marketing is changing all the time and staying on top of these changes is crucial to prevent your business model from becoming obsolete. Getting a helping hand to create therapy marketing solutions and to implement them can mean the difference between success in your chosen profession or heading back to your old day job. This is why my therapy marketing coaching helps my clients to drive customers to their door.

The Hypnosis Practice is Full – Therapy Marketing Mission Accomplished!

Building a Successful Hypnotherapy PracticeIf you have been following my blog posts regularly you will know that in mid September I moved house. Not only did I move my home but I gave up my practices in London and Hertfordshire and started my business again in an entirely new area. Yes I could have continued my existing practices but who wants to commute for hours and hours each week so I began again from scratch. To clarify that mean’t I no longer had a website and certainly not a well optimised one. I had no clients or referrals and frankly nobody knew who the hell I was. In fact I was in the same position as a therapist who had just finished their training apart from the fact that I had my therapy marketing skills.

Now I had no idea exactly how long it would take to build my new business. I knew that my new home was within easy reach of some large pockets of population but equally some of those areas were not particularly affluent and some very rural. I thought that perhaps it would take me a year or two to get my practice up to the levels that I saw in London in fact it took less than five months. I should point out that one of those months was December where I wasn’t even in the country. I am thrilled to report that my methods work because as of next week I have a full diary.

Building a Successful Hypnotherapy Business Quickly

Therapy marketing may seem difficult to many but with the right knowledge it is possible to build a thriving practice in only a few months. When you have the right knowledge and start thinking like a business person you can get remarkable results really quickly. I have heard so many therapists blame the economy or lack of demand for their financial woes but these are just excuses. I live in a village with 2,500 people in it yet I have filled my sessions at my home easily which means so can you.

In my marketing programs I teach other therapists and small businesses how to get ahead of their competition and get paying clients in through their door. Many of these customers had previously been struggling to get even one person to pay for their services! In the last month alone I have had one client see a website move from nowhere on Google to some of the top spots on local searches. Another has seen a massive uplift in conversions from her new website. In both cases just one new client paid for my six monthly marketing training. Of course they will be getting hundreds more so I would consider that a great return on their investment. My guess is that without my training many of these therapists would have been out of business within the year and back working in their old day jobs.

The Five Keys to Marketing Your Hypnotherapy Practice

Website – Without a decent website you may as well give up before you start. Yes I know you may be tempted to cobble together some awful looking one page site on some online free software but it will look terrrible and your customers will go elsewhere. There is nothing worse than a shabby looking, badly aligned web page. A great website is easy to read, informative and converts browsers into buyers. The content has to be written in a very precise way in order to be recognised by the search engines. Get it wrong and you won’t even appear in the top ten pages of Google never mind the front page.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation is key to getting found in Google. Think you can write any old content and get people ringing your phone? Forget it, your content including your pictures and videos needs to be structured in a certain way so that your potential clients can find you. Even after you have written that content you need to promote it so that you can get relevant backlinks. This takes time which is why so many people hire SEO companies to do it for them. Yet you do not need to be an expert to achieve results provided you are shown how.

Blogging – Every website that needs business should be blogging on a regular basis. A blog is a great tool of giving additional detail about the products and services that you are offering. As a bonus it can help you get found in the search engines. If you structure it well it can also get you regular followers and you can monetise it.

Geographical Targeting – Understanding how to market yourself geographically can make a big difference to your chances of being found in the search engines. Do not just confine yourself to targeting the area that you are living in but to the surrounding areas as well. I know I target a thirty to forty mile radius around my practice. You will be shocked at the number of people who will drive long distances to see you.

Paid Advertising – Not so long ago everyone wanted to appear highly in the Google organic rankings. SEO companies made fortunes helping their customers get higher in the rankings and then things started to change. These statistics from Wordstream show how the landscape of SEO is changing in 2016:

64.6% of clicks to a website now come from paid advertising.

35.4% are from organic rankings

For keywords which have a high commercial intent 2/3 of the clicks are sponsored!

Organic search results now account for 14.8% of what you can view above the fold. In other words when you enter a search query most of what you will initially see on the page before you page down is paid advertising.

As long as Google and the other search engines maintain their dominance these figures will increase meaning that soon you will not be able to get any business without paying. If paid advertising is not one of your methods of getting new customers it will soon need to be.

Therapy Marketing Mentoring

If you run a therapy business that is

Brand New and has no customers.

That is established but is struggling to attract customers

or

You would simply like to take your business earnings to the next level then my therapy marketing coaching sessions can help to transform your practice. Over six hour hour sessions I can show you the same tactics that I used to fill my new practice. Simply send me an email or give me a call and we can talk about your business goals for the next year. Until the next time.

 

 

 

 

Three Cliche Hypnosis Marketing Images That are Killing Your Business!

Ready for a new year of Hypnosis Marketing Blogs? Today’s topic sprung to mind because I am currently working with some hypnotherapists on creating new websites. Following their mentoring sessions I asked them to come up with some images and looks for their new websites. What soon became apparant is that the same images were coming up again and again and they weren’t even that great. The images are what I would class as hypnotherapy website cliches that are actively putting off some clients booking sessions with you. And just to repeat what I have said. Therapists are choosing images that actually repel customers!

Are you guilty of this?

hypnotherapymarketingexpert.com

 

 

 

Or this?

canstockphoto8817732

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or even this?canstockphoto26164545

 

 

 

 

 

So lets start with the butterflies, or tree metaphors or even pebbles in the sand (I was guilty of that one in my very first website). These images are off putting to 50% of your customers – Men! How many men do you know that want to visit a tree hugging, airy fairy hypnotherapist? How many men love a pink website with pretty images and new age themes? The answer is of course almost none. When a man visits a website for a therapy that they don’t really know very much about they want to feel reassured that the person is a professional and can help them solve their anxiety, erectile dysfunction, depression etc… Pink writing and butterflies is going to make them run the other way. Now of course if your hypnosis website has been specifically designed to attract new age women who want past life regression then brilliant if not then get back to the drawing board!

Now on to image two. In this case I have chosen a picture relating to chakras but it could be related to Reiki, Crystal healing or any manner of other alternative therapies that are out there. Time and time again I see hypnotherapists who mix up the therapies that are on their site. Now only do they mention their hypnosis skills but also some of the more esoteric treatments that they offer. Remember most of the general public are suspicious of hypnosis and have to pluck up the courage to pick up the phone. When a potential client comes across a site that looks like it might be “out there” they are likely to look for someone else. This is when your skills or knowledge actively serve as a repellant! Of course if you are a counsellor or psychotherapist add it to your website but if you read auras create another site.

Finally the last image is of the famous hypnotic spiral. I have also seen therapists use pictures of watches swinging on their websites. These images are associated with old school visions of hypnotherapists as svengali’s who control peoples minds. If you are running a stage hypnosis act then perfect but if you are trying to reassure potential customers that you are the real deal then these are not going to work.

So What Image Should You Have for Your Hypnosis Website?

I have read a number of times advice saying that if a Doctor wouldn’t want it on their website they don’t have it. Now of course whilst this advice is mostly sound you can be a little bit more experimental. Some of the most successful hypnotherapists, life coaches and therapists in the industry today keep it simple. Their sites are professional with perhaps a very photo shopped image of themselves on it and banners with links to their media appearances, testimonials or success stories. The colours on their site may pop but are clean and modern. Look at this website by Marie Forleo as a perfect example of how a modern life coach has created a website which potential customers subscribe to in droves. Now of course not everyone has the budget to create something like this straight away but with a little bit of creative work a stock website does not have to look like the person who runs it lives in Glastonbury!

Meanwhile…

Following a very long holiday in December I am continuing to work on building my web prescence in my new local area. After only a few short months I am already starting to move up the Google rankings to dominate certain searches. Want hypnotherapy for bulima or binge eating in my local area? Then I am number one and two in the searches. Fear of Driving? Number one again. Fear of Public Speaking then 6, 7, 8 and 9. Sleep hypnosis? Number two and a video appearing at number five. I could go on. Bit by bit I am dominating the long tail keyword searches in a forty mile radius of my clinic. By creating a website which is well structured for SEO and then creating further content in other areas on the internet as well as building backlinks I am ranking highly in the search engines. If I continue to do this then I will be the dominant website on hypnosis locally. Only one other hypnotherapist in this area is close to achieving these results and they have been working in the area for six years longer than me!

I mention these results not to brag but to show what with a systematic approach to marketing and a reasonable amount of website and SEO knowledge amazing results can be achieved. I show my therapy marketing clients exactly how to achieve results like these and more. This knowledge can turn a failing business into one that is thriving. Don’t let your lack of marketing skills hold you back. Hypnotherapy marketing is not as difficult as you may think when you have someone to help.

 

 

 

2016 Hypnosis Marketing Strategy & Merry Xmas

Hypnosis Marketing 2016If you are not in the world of the self employed it is highly likely that this is the time of year when you are winding down and getting ready for the Xmas holidays. Perhaps you are planning your christmas shopping or are intending to go to every party in town during this festive season. If you are a self employed hypnotherapist and are thinking of doing this then it is time to get a new job. Yes December tends to a time when client load tends to reduce but this means it is the perfect time to work on your 2016 hypnosis marketing strategy.

December in a therapists calendar is time to take stock of the previous year and to decide what worked well and what needs to be overhauled in the New Year. If you are planning to create products to sell in order to make passive income this is the perfect time to do it as you will be able to dedicate time to making a great course, audio, video or self help manual without the distraction of too many clients. If you don’t have the clients then this is the best time of year to create a new hypnotherapy marketing plan to attract those customers in through the door.

Hypnosis Gift Cards

How many of you are offering gift vouchers on your hypnotherapy sites? If not you are missing a trick. At Christmas sites such as Virgin experience or Red letter days sell all kinds of vouchers for everything from wine tasting to helicopter trips. At Xmas there are millions of people out there with money to spend on presents and wanting to pick something for their loved ones that is a little bit different. It could be a relaxation taster session, a stop smoking program or even weight loss sessions. Publicise your products well enough in the local area and online and you may get a great monetary boost just before Xmas.

Partner Up

Why not partner up with another local business in order to market your hypnotherapy clinic. Create a package that enables you to cross sell for something a little bit different. The possibilities are endless when you team up with other local businesses. If you know someone offering pregnancy massage package it with your hypnobirthing. If you offer weight loss find a nutritionist who can offer a personalised nutrition plan to offer to your clients. These packages will work for sales both before and after Christmas especially when they are linked with New Years resolutions.

Marketing Your Hypnotherapy Business in January

There is no point in thinking about marketing your hypnosis services in January because by then you will have missed the boat. People start taking stock of their life almost as soon as Xmas is over. By the time they hit the office on the first day back after the holiday people who are dissatisfied with what they achieved in 2015 will be hitting Google to see what they can do to improve themselves the following year. Make sure that you are the business that is giving them what they are looking for rather than thinking about adding something to your website later on in the month.

What is your 2016 Hypnosis Marketing Strategy New Year Resolution?

To get more clients? To earn more money? To give up your day job and start your hypnotherapy practice? Just as your clients need guidance and help to make positive change so do therapists. I was saddened to hear during the week of a hypnotherapist who announced that they were quitting the business because they had only managed to get two paying clients through their door in 8 months. They believed that they had done everything possible to get those paying customers but the reality was very different. When I looked for their website it appeared nowhere in the Google rankings. Without a web prescence in 2015 a hypnosis business is doomed from the start.

It is interesting when I hear therapists say that they have tried everything to get clients in through the door but can’t get the business. What they are really saying is I have tried everything I know which is very different to doing everything that is possible. A good Hypnotherapy Marketing Coach can show you where you are going wrong and help you start to build the business you deserve providing you are willing to put in the work as well. Don’t let your business fold in 2016 without getting expert help.I wish you all a Merry Xmas and I will be back in the New Year with more ways to plan your 2016 Hypnosis Marketing Strategy.

 

 

New Beginnings and More Exposure in The National Press

Balance Hypnosis Daily MailIf you are wondering why you haven’t had any emails for the past six weeks it is because I have moved house. That has of course created upheaval, mess, tradesman and a never ending list of things to do to get the new house into some sort of liveable condition. Whilst this has been going on of course it also means that I have moved my business as well. This is a bigger issue because the area where I have moved to has no clue about my skills, I have no referrals to boost my income and I have no search engine rankings locally. That means I am having to start all over again putting my in a similar position to a new Hypnotherapist. So the next series of blog posts are going to be about I begin to dominate the local area and rebuild a thriving practice. You can also read my previous blog post on what makes a hypnotherapy business portable.

Balance Hypnosis in The Daily Mail

But before I begin I had one piece of great news this week. A contribution I made to an article on Nail Biting Hypnosis was finally published in The Daily Mail this week. When I say finally I should point out that I actually gave the interview to this journalist nearly two years ago. I would have missed the story completely (most journalists don’t bother to contact you to say when you will appear in the press) if it had not popped up on my husbands news feed on LinkedIn. It is worth noting that just because you are interviewed by a journalist it does not mean that you will instantly get a story in the press and it almost certainly can be parked for a long time before publication.

Now I should point out that having a mention in the National press does not necessarily lead to a stream of nail biting clients ringing for help. If you want that kind of exposure then the story would really need to involve an issue such as weight loss or your face over a major news story.on television. What this story does do is make me more credible for my hypnotherapy marketing. I can now happily add the words as seen in The Daily Mail on my website as well as adding their logo to my front website page and in the media section of the site. That means when people come across my site and have to choose between a therapist with a low grade website and myself they are more likely to pick the hypnotherapist who has appeared in many of the national newspapers and demonstrates expertise.

Hypnotherapy Marketing in a New Area

Anyway back to the real issue which is how to get clients when you are just starting your business or have moved to a new area. Well I always start in one place and that is getting a website up and running. Now because of the house move I actually did something that I don’t do very often and that was hand the setting up of the website to a SEO and website building expert. Big mistake! Why? Because despite this person having all the credentials and knowledge to create a fantastic site to dominate my local area they have not as yet delivered. This is despite the brief having been given to the company concerned back in June! Luckily I have set up a considerable number of my own websites before and at the last minute I have had to create a website myself to get some exposure. This means that I am at least three months behind in my marketing plans which is far from ideal.

I have written previous posts on not putting all your eggs in one basket as well as staying in control of anything you own or produce and I still stand by that. If it were not for my web knowledge I would be feeling stranded right now. This is why I still suggest that any Hypnotherapist who is starting out takes the time to learn how to get a website up and running. No it does not have to be an all singing all dancing website but it does have to do the basics which is tell people where you are and what you do. Having these marketing skills will be a great back up to you if you should ever need them.

Getting Your Hypnotherapy Website Right

Being found in the local search engines is the one major thing that you need to work on when you start up in an area for business. There is no point writing a fantastic website if it makes no use of keywords and nobody knows where to find you. At the moment this is my number one task and I am afraid it takes time. Your content needs to be original, you need plenty of it and then you need to structure your website in such a way that Google wants to place you on its front page (ideally in the top three organic rankings). This takes a methodical approach, knowledge and the ability to write quickly. Currently three weeks after getting my website up and running I have front page rankings for 17 locations in my area and one number one spot. For more competitive locations I am generally appearing on page two of Google despite the fact that my actual location is not in that area. The next month will be spent boosting those rankings to the front page. Note I do not market in one small area and make sure that the radius I cover is at least 30 miles wide.

Do not forget location specific keywords are not the be all and end all of getting business. So if you are a Hypnotherapist in London and trying to rank for the front page of Google you are going to need a couple of years at the very least to get to that spot. That means you need to target long tail keywords instead. That means phrases of three or more words which will help you get found. If you were not aware nearly 50% of searches placed into the Google search engine are brand new and have never been searched for before. Such as “hypnotherapy in London to help migraines” , hypnosis to stop my IBS flare ups” and so on. Concentrate on targeting the long tail and business will eventually start coming your way. I know that apart form my keyword phrases for locations I have 21 top five rankings already for my weight loss keywords in those areas. In some places in fact I dominate the front page. Over the coming months I will use the same tactics to corner other niches that I specialise in.

I expect that my big push into my new location will now happen in the New Year as business for most Hypnotherapists starts to wane in December which is not that far away. I will be also be on holiday that month but I will look forward to sharing with you some of the other tactics I am using to build my face to face hypnotherapy business over the coming blog posts. Remember if you need help structuring website content so that it converts or want help with your hypnotherapy marketing I offer coaching and mentoring programs. The proof of my abilities as you can see is written in black and white in the National Press this week (or colour if you go on to The Daily Mail website).

 

 

Using Periscope and Meerket to Promote Your Hypnotherapy Business

Hypnotherapy Marketing periscopeEver heard of these apps? My guess is that the vast majority of hypnotherapists haven’t a clue what I am talking about. You see the world of social media is changing all the time and the latest methods of communicating with your followers is by live streaming video from your phone. Both Periscope and Meerkat allow you to do this and both are linked to your Twitter account. In fact Twitter owns Periscope. This allows users to comment on your live streams and see how many people are actually watching and viewing your content. If people like what they are seeing then they like it on Meerkat or signal their approval with a heart on Periscope.

So what do these two apps mean for you. Well firstly if we look at their usefulness outside of promoting you Hypnotherapy Business. Lets say that you are on holiday and you are about to take the cable car up Table Mountain in South Africa. How amazing would it be to livestream the views and your comments on your phone. You could arrange for your friends and family to be alerted of  the broadcast and show them exactly what you are experiencing at that moment. Or perhaps you are out and about and you come across an amazing sight. Same thing start a broadcast and transmit what you are seeing to your followers. If they like what they see the comments will start to flow in. Just remember that on Periscope what you broadcast is deleted within 24 hours.

Using Live Streaming to Promote Your Hypnotherapy Practice

As this blog is all about marketing them of course I am going to talk about how you can use this great tool to promote your business.

1) Using it for Q&A sessions – I know that you will find that many of your customers ask the same questions again and again before they book. Am I asleep under hypnosis? Will I remember what I say? What about creating a broadcast for people thinking about booking with you where you can answer their questions live. Instead of repeating the same questions again and again you can transmit to many people and save time.

2) Group Work – There are a huge number of possibilities of working with clients online and this system has now added another dimension. Imagine offering cheap hypnosis for stop smoking sessions to your customers. Instead of meeting you the hypnosis session is carried out as a live broadcast to those who have signed up and paid you money. No of course it wouldn’t be the same as seeing you one to one but your price could reflect that. Just make sure that you take the same precautions that you would use for Skype sessions. Vet your potential clients carefully and make sure there are no reasons why they should not be using hypnosis.

3) Demonstrations – Many people are afraid of hypnosis and worry about what could happen to them when they see a hypnotherapist. Create a live broadcast of you working with a subject so people can tune in and see the power of hypnosis in action.

4) Announcements – Just got featured in a magazine. Create a broadcast about it. Or what about that new audio that you are selling? Tell your followers so that they are informed about what you are doing and your product offerings.

5) Follow your Potential Customers – Find out who is on the app in your local area and start to follow them and comment on their videos. Remember social media flows in two directions. If they need a hypnotherapist in the future you are the person who will immediately spring to mind.

6) Interact with Fellow Therapists – How about using the apps so that you can hold live supervision sessions? Or stuck with how to handle a particular client. Head on over to the apps and call for help from your fellow professionals for instant feedback.

As both of these apps have been going for less than six months this form of communication is in its infancy. Lets see if they stick around but for the short term experiment and see where this great new form of communication can take you.

 

 

 

Marketing for Therapists – The 80/20 Rule

Never heard of the 80/20 rule? Well it is a simple observation that can change the way in which you run your therapy business. This rule otherwise know as the Pareto principle was first thought of by Joseph Juran and named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who noted that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. In other words most of the results for any situation are determined by a small number of causes. The same principle will apply to your work and practice and when you understand the areas this impacts you can dramatically alter them in your favour.

80/20 Therapy Marketing

Lets look at some of the areas where this rule can be used.

80% of your income for example is likely to come from 20% of your clients. Why? Well some of your clients come for one off sessions whilst others may see you for many more. Clearly having clients who stick around longer creates a stable income and additional return on your investment for advertising and marketing. Now of course that does not mean stringing out clients therapy for longer than you should. It simply means recognise the value to your therapy business of those clients and seek to find more of the same.

20% of your blog articles will be read more than the other 80%. This can be due to a combination of factors. Perhaps you got a great mix of keywords which helped you get found in the search engines. Or maybe your blog hit a nerve or coincided with the hot topic of the year leading to lots of social shares. Once you identify the subjects that people want to read you can go and create more of the same. Marketing for therapists is simple when you know how.

20% of your business time is probably doing something that you don’t really love to do. Tinkering with ad campaigns, filling out spreadsheets on your finances and creating invoices, graphic design and so on. In this case you need to start to find people who can take over the things you dislike so that you can focus on the good stuff. Yes it could cost you money but the world is global now. It is possible to get virtual assistants in India or graphic designers in Thailand for a fraction of the price that you would pay in the UK.

Your task for your business is understanding the ratios at work in your business so that you can maximise your performance and income. Find the areas that generate the most income for you and drop the remainder which only produce minimal revenue. If you have great skills in certain areas then focus your time working on those and then hire others to work on the areas where you need more help. If you have certain clients that make you feel sapped of energy and depressed then refer them on to other therapists who would love to work with them and focus on the clients who make you feel happy and rewarded.

How This Marketing Tip Impacted the Way I Work

When I discovered the 80/20 rule it transformed my hypnotherapy marketing. Just some of the ways I have embraced the rule are:

Now I work only three days a week with clients and focus my other time on building up other aspects of my business such as passive income. Yes it is entirely possible to work five or six days a week with clients seeing 7 to 8 clients a day but it was making me burnt out. Working with so many clients left me feeling tired and lacking energy and that does not make for great therapy sessions. Taking a step back has allowed me to really focus on the clients that I have whilst actually helping me to make more money. You see if you work all the time you never get time to develop areas of passive income which allows you to earn money whilst you are asleep. Now I actually make more money by working with less clients.

As I have probably mentioned before I am in the process of moving house to a new area and that means moving my business with me. Now I could spend hours building websites, doing SEO and generally optimising my business for this new area but I simply haven’t got the time. I have however hired someone who is doing all that work for me. It means that I now have the time to focus on the house move and everything will be ready for me when I move house.

When I first started working at this business I would spend hours trying to work out how to do certain tasks. Trying to design graphics, record audios online, design newsletter templates and so on. The result was often that I would be tearing my hair out as the hours ticked away and I made little progress. Not anymore! I recognise my weaknesses and hire others to do it for me. I have had graphics done for the price of a cup of coffee. People creating websites for me for less than £50 and the best thing of all is that they looked great. I would have probably laboured for hours to get something half as good and here was everything I wanted presented to me in no time at all.

Most of my business now comes from clients who will see me for programs of sessions rather than one of visits. This means that I have culled many areas which I felt were not great for my revenue. Think about the time, effort and money it takes to attract a client into your business. When you add up the numbers it is significant. So seeing that client for just one session means that you are hardly making a profit at all. Yes you can write blog posts about nail biting and spend money advertising that service but it is not going to make you rich. I now focus on the customers who need the time and support to see me for multiple sessions.

Make the 80/20 rule work for your therapy marketing and business and you will see your yearly income rise significantly. You can even apply it to your day to day life as well to make a difference. Remember follow your passions, play to your strengths and you will have a great life and a booming business.