What I’ve Learned Spending £100,000 on Google Adwords for Therapy Marketing

google adwords therapy marketingYep you read the headline right. Over the past few years I have spent a whopping £100,000 or at today’s exchange rate $131,000 on Google ads. That is one hell of a huge number! Even I was shocked how large the figure was when I looked in my account the other day.  But here is the thing, in just about every month that I have advertised I brought in revenue which not only paid for my therapy marketing on Adwords but brought me in a significant extra income as well.

Now hell yes of course I would rather that £100,000 was in my pocket rather than Google’s but with most of the major search engines if you want to get found you often have to pay. Google is now like a greedy manager taking their cut of my profits but the deal isn’t so bad because my I come out winning as well. Depending on the campaign,  keywords or location I am advertising I am typically seeing a return of three or four times my ad spend. As a whole, it is estimated that most advertisers using the system correctly will make $2 for every dollar they spend. That is like printing money provided you know what you are doing.

So what have I learned from my years advertising on the platform?

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

I have worked with a large number of therapists over the years who have tried their hand at Google Adwords and got it badly wrong. This is because the system is a totally complicated beast which changes every five minutes. In fact even my account managers at Google have got it wrong at times. When I look at their accounts and the way that they have been set up I want to weep because invariably they are burning their cash. I have seen issues such as:

  • Local therapists advertising to the wrong area
  • Therapists not using the right keywords
  • Usage of  bad match types
  • Ignorance of negative keywords
  • Incorrect bidding strategies
  • Ignorance of half the system features
  • Not understanding the success metrics of their campaigns
  • General total lack of understanding of how the system works

These are the therapists who will turn around and say to me that Google Adwords doesn’t work for therapy marketing. In fact that isn’t the case it is the therapists who have rushed in set up ads without getting to understand the system first.

Even the Big SEO Agencies Get it Wrong

I’m currently working with a marketing student who turned over their Adwords account to a big SEO agency to run. Surely people with huge expertise in running websites and pay per click advertising would get him some clients? Err nope because the agency may have been great at SEO and PPC but they didn’t understand the therapy market. My client had told them he wanted to specialise in online sessions and was happy to see clients who were based anywhere in the UK. So the ad agency set up a load of keywords and then tumbleweed.

Just one of the myriad of mistakes they made was using the keyword hypnotherapy to advertise. Yes, it may have been partly relevant to my client’s job but here’s the thing people may look for this keyword as follows:

  • “free hypnotherapy”
  • “Paul McKenna hypnotherapy”
  • ” hypnotherapy to control girls”
  • “hypnotherapy definition”

I could go on. Hopefully, you can see the big problem here. None of those keywords is going to earn my client any cash. In addition, there are about 18,000 searches in the UK for this term alone in the UK at an average cost of £2.50 per click. Even on a generous budget per day for advertising you would lose a ton of cash and get no clients which was exactly what happened to my student.  This agency did not have specialist knowledge of the therapy niche and this was one of many mistakes they made so naturally, their campaign for my client was a disaster.

You Have to Spend to Accumulate

I know therapists love the idea of Facebook ads because you can have such a small budget per day that it feels very manageable. The only problem is that most therapists don’t understand Facebook ads very well either. They are cheap because the people being shown your ad have no intention to buy at that moment. This means to really make advertising on the platform work you need to build a funnel, remarket and cultivate the clients. With Adwords, the people typing in specific search queries are looking to hire someone now which means the cost of advertising to that person is higher but your chance of getting a sale is bigger.

The trouble is that as well as therapists setting up their ads incorrectly they also start to panic when they have to spend £50 and have had no calls so they close the account down. When you use pay per click advertising especially systems like Adwords you have to think strategically. For example, there is no point in spending £50 on advertising for clients who are only going to come and see you for one session. It is great for big-ticket programs but very difficult to make pay if you are selling something cheaply because the clicks will cost more than the revenue. Plan your campaigns carefully so you don’t fall into this trap.

PPC Advertising on Google Has a Low Bounce Rate

So what do I mean when I talk about bounce rate? Bounce rate is when a visitor comes across your website and visits one single page and immediately decides your site is boring, irrelevant or slow and heads off immediately elsewhere. Having a low bounce rate shows Google that you are attracting the right visitors to your site meaning it should in theory move it up the rankings for certain keywords.

Traffic to a website tends to be classed in five categories:

  • Social
  • Paid Search
  • Organic Search
  • Direct Traffic
  • Referral Traffic

The traffic with the lowest bounce rates tends to be a referral or organic views but in my case, my next best traffic is Google Adwords with a relatively low bounce rate. That means people who are seeing my ads are coming on to my website and staying because my campaigns have been set up to show them highly relevant website pages.  My worst form of traffic is one from social media. It is relatively obvious why. People on social media are using it to engage with friends and family not to really view my website. So if they do head on over to it from an ad on Facebook or from seeing one of my posts they are less targeted customers. This is another reason why Google Adwords traffic can be superior to Facebook ads.

Diversify and Avoid Using One Marketing Method Alone

As I have mentioned before Adwords, Facebook and SEO are changing every five minutes.  One minute you are sitting pretty at the top of Google and the next you are down on page three. Or perhaps you were spending £2 a click and getting customers but suddenly your local competition gets fiercer and now your costs have doubled. Or even worse Google or Facebook have decided that your website isn’t up to scratch and is making outrageous claims and suddenly won’t allow you to advertise at all.

Whatever you do in your marketing you must never rely on one channel too heavily because one day something will change and those leads will disappear. It is essential that you try and build up a therapy marketing strategy that gets clients in from every direction you can.

  • Facebook
  • Adwords
  • SEO and Organic Rankings
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Therapy Directories
  • Referrals
  • Joint Ventures
  • Networking
  • Email Marketing

Using Google Adwords at the moment is a great way to get in clients in your door but it should not be your only strategy just part of a diversified plan to get revenue in every way possible.

Want to Learn How to Set up a Therapy Marketing Campaign in Google Adwords?

As I’ve mentioned before Adwords is changing all the time and last year the whole platform got a totally new design.  So I thought it was time to refresh my online course to reflect these new changes. At the beginning of the year, I filmed a new series of videos to guide you through setting up campaigns that will convert.  This video course is designed to:

  • Get you regular client leads who are looking to buy your services.
  • Target only clients who are looking for your particular niche expertise.
  • Help you to get to number one on Google.
  • Build search campaigns that are localised.
  • Teach you how to use pay per click advertising to make money.
  • Allow you advertising flexibility so you can respond to customer need instantly.
  • How to get clients even when you are starting off in practice.

Until the end of March, you can claim a 20% discount on the course before the course reverts back to its normal price by using the code ppc2019. This is the system that has made me a considerable return on investment over the years and after spending £100,000 on ads I believe I am one of the most qualified hypnotherapists on the platform in the UK.  Just click the link below if you want to give this amazing marketing channel a try.

google adwords hypnosis marketing

Google Adwords Therapy Marketing

 

Hypnotherapy Marketing for New Hypnotherapists

Hypnotherapy Marketing for New HypnothearpistsI felt that I had to write a blog post to cover some basic hypnotherapy marketing for new hypnotherapists following an email I just received from my contact me page. As the email was received from one of my hypnotherapy websites and not  my marketing site I assumed it was from a client and rang them up to ask them what they needed help with. The answer that they gave shocked me! It appears that they were about to finish their hypnotherapy training and wanted to know if I could tell them a clinic that they could practice in locally. Err what the hell? Yep, a person was contacting their local competition and asking if they could help sort out a room for them to use to run their therapy practice from and they wanted this information for nothing!

This call almost rendered me speechless (and that never happens). I mean what hypnotherapy courses are preparing their clients to run a business by not giving them some basic direction as to what to do? But besides that, if a person who is about to start a new career as a self-employed person is incapable of searching for some therapy rooms to practice from what are they going to be like when they try and attract new clients into their business? I can already give you the answer they are going to end up back in their old day job fast. Prompted by this call and some threads I have recently seen on some forums here are some simple marketing basics.

Learn Therapy Marketing Skills

If you don’t know anything about marketing then spend some money and learn the basics. Hypnotherapy is a hard business because you are always marketing to find new clients. Unlike hairdressing where you are likely to have a solid client base that will return again and again with hypnosis, you have hopefully resolved your client’s problem in a few sessions meaning you will need to find new clients faster.  This constant turnover of clients means that you have to be better at marketing than the average small business. No wonder most new hypnotherapists don’t last in business for very long.

To run a business you need to understand how to attract clients, how to run a website, how to use paid advertising, how to network, do accounts, how to budget and so on. If you have always worked as an employee with a salary in a job which didn’t make you think on your feet or have sales targets then you likely to underestimate the effort and skills it takes to get a business off the ground. Someone offering marketing mentoring can help you navigate this making your job just that little bit easier.

Don’t Expect Decent Information For Free

As a business my time is money. Unless I am doing pro bono work for charity expect to pay for my services. I charge for advice, my time with clients, my products and so on. Why? Because my experience is invaluable and that is what you are paying for. It means that when I am seeing a client I help them make positive change faster.  When I work with a marketing client they will see profits sooner and so on. If I need expert help in an area where I am not a specialist I get out my wallet and spend some money. I don’t worry about this expenditure because I know it will help me get more rapid results or earn more money. You should do the same.

Learn How to Fend for Yourself

Running a business means that you have to find solutions for yourself. When I used to work in the corporate world I could call the IT helpdesk and get immediate help to fix my computer or software. If I wanted to some legal advice I would head to see our corporate lawyer. When you are self-employed you simply don’t have that infrastructure around you which means you have to learn to do things for yourself or pay someone else to do them for you.

It is amazing what you can learn when you set your mind to it. I am now proficient at creating websites, recording and selling products, search engine optimisation and much more. Did someone give me that information for free? Nope, it took some hard work and dedication to acquire the skills. So remember hypnotherapy marketing for new hypnotherapists requires effort and time.

Understand Basic Accounting

A regular question I see on hypnosis boards is how much should I charge for my services?  My answer is if you don’t know what to charge then you are not ready to run a business. Being self-employed and turning a profit is all about the numbers. That means understanding some really basic details.

How much do you need to earn as a minimum per month to cover your general outgoings such as mortgage, food and bills?

What are the fixed costs in your business as a monthly number? That means rent, insurance, phone bill, travel costs, professional memberships, tax and so on.

So let’s say you need to cover outgoings of £1000 per month or £12,000 per year.

In addition, you have to cover £300 in costs related to your business meaning total outgoings of £1300 per month.

With some simple maths, you can calculate that you need a minimum of 13 client sessions per month at £100 per session to cover those fixed costs. Alternatively, you can see 26 clients at £50 per session or 6.5 clients at £200 per month and so on.

Now have a look at what your most expensive local competition is charging to at least get a vague idea of the top of the market this will allow you to assess the level you should charge.

This is just simple arithmetic yet so many hypnotherapists don’t think like a business person but pluck a number out of thin air and hope for the best. Do the maths and get the real numbers.

Get Your Website Right

Whatever you do don’t throw together a basic website and hope for the best because it won’t work. Creating a website for a business is an art and it has to be structured correctly otherwise you will have no chance of getting any business. Don’t make a website that you like the look of, make a website that converts browsers into buyers. Also, find a web designer that has experience in search engine optimisation as well as web design. If you don’t do that you will find that the expensive website that you paid a fortune for is likely to be a dud.  This is why I designed an online video course for creating and marketing hypnotherapy websites to help new hypnotherapists.

The Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work

So many people believe that if they simply think about having a successful business the law of attraction will provide them with one. Well, keep on dreaming because it actually takes time and effort to get a business off the ground. Hypnotherapy Marketing for New Hypnotherapists is initially a time-consuming task. You need to add yourself to directories, create a website, write content and blogs and a myriad of other tasks. If you don’t do this you can’t be found and you will be waiting for the phone to ring. Sorry, you just can’t sit there and hope that something will happen. Running your own business can be incredibly rewarding but in the early days, it can also be lots of hard work. Get it right and you can watch the money flow into your bank accounts but get it wrong and you will be broke, depressed and back in your old career before you know it.

Should I Practice from my Home?

There is no reason why you can’t practice from your home to keep the overheads low when you are first starting out but only if you have a really professional set up. On a forum the other day someone talked about running their business from their utility room. Hardly the professional image that you want to give a client. You need a dedicated room in your house with a desk and therapy chair and your certificates proudly framed on the wall. When you are in that room you don’t wear your slippers and comfy home wear but a smart professional outfit. If you don’t have that set up then find a therapy room and pay for it.

Next, if you do pay for a therapy room in a clinic make sure that you are the only hypnotherapist operating from the clinic. In addition, make sure that they are not making or taking your bookings for you and that you haven’t used their number in your advertising. Keep control of your biggest assets which are you and your website. Never pay the clinic a portion of what you earn. Instead, arrange a fixed fee per hour or per time slot and stick with it. Where possible try and have at least two places you practice from as if one has a problem or shuts down you have a base to work from. This is simply common sense.

Should I do Free Consultations?

I generally have a quick chat with a potential client on the phone before I book them. This is to make sure that I believe they are a suitable candidate for hypnosis and that they aren’t shall we say threatening or problematic. Where possible I keep this chat to a maximum of ten minutes after that I charge. Yet time and time again I hear of therapists arranging to meet potential clients first to have a discussion about the therapy. In one case I heard the other day a therapist had spent 3 hours unpaid with a client.  This is a great way to end up broke.

Meeting clients take time and energy where you could be doing something else. You don’t only lose the time you are talking to them but the time around the appointment where you can’t book someone in case they are is a slight overrun. So a one hour chat with a client can take nearly two hours out of your day. In addition, because someone is not committing to paying you they might simply not be bothered to turn up. Meanwhile, intelligent hypnotherapists are getting in paying clients for that time and earning money.

In my old practice area a number of therapists I knew used to run free talks in the evening to try and attract new clients into their practice. For that evening they would be earning no money. I meanwhile usually had a full practice with four or five clients paying me a nice figure for every consultation. Live and learn.

Hopefully, these pointers can help a few of you new starters to make a great living from a fantastic profession. Just remember that hypnotherapy marketing for new hypnotherapists is a skill just like any other and that it can be learned either slowly by working things out for yourself or more quickly by getting therapy marketing help. You are simply the person who chooses how quickly you want to grow and the time and commitment you put into your business.

 

 

 

Time for a Mid Year Therapy Marketing Review!

Therapy Marketing Mid Year ReviewSo we are just over half way through the year which means that this is the perfect time to take stock and have a good look at what is working and what isn’t in your therapy business. Therapy marketing should never be static. You shouldn’t just put something in place and just forget about it. Instead you need to review the numbers and results of the marketing strategies that you are using and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. So here are just some of the questions that you need to be asking yourself if you are going to get the best out of your business.

Hypnotherapy Customers

As a therapist this is the biggie as without any customers you simply don’t have a business. Yet so few therapists actually sit down and drill into their numbers to make business decisions. To really get a handle on your business ask yourself the following?

How many clients are you currently seeing on average per week vs the number of time slots that you have available? So if for example you have a goal of 20/25 clients per week do you find yourself consistently finding problems attracting that number of people or are you over stretched? If you find that you are always seeing less clients than you need exactly how many new clients do you need to be attracting per week to make your business work for you? If you have too many clients exactly how many people per week?

Asking yourself these questions allows you to think strategically. A business with too few clients clearly has a problem especially if that shortfall is significant. It is a great signal to tell you that your current marketing methods are simply not working and that you need to try something different and quickly. Too many clients start to open you up to possibilities in your business. Perhaps you could do more group work to deal with the numbers. Alternatively, if you are so in demand can you hire an associate or put up your rates. Here you have choices meaning you need to really think about where you want to go next.

Where are Your Therapy Clients coming from?

Hypnotherapy MarketingNow drill down even further. Where exactly are your customers coming from? I know exactly where each of my customers comes from and I keep a spreadsheet where I note down which clients found me from each therapy marketing method I use. You need to understand exactly where your leads are hearing about you because this will tell you exactly what marketing methods are working and which are not. Have your clients found you from your website doing an SEO organic search? Did paid online advertising help? Did any arrive because of social media, referrals from friends, posters in a gym, networking and so on?

When you understand exactly where they are coming from you can now get a handle on the success of the marketing methods you are using and their costs. Always look at your return on investment. If you have a website yet nobody is hearing about you from that website then something is going badly wrong. If you are spending £100 per week on an advert in a local paper and over two months you haven’t had a call then it is time to stop the advert and think of something else.

When I used to work in North London I found that a large number of my competitors would spend one or two evenings a week doing talks around the local area to try and attract new clients. These talks would using take a couple of hours out of their precious evenings and were unpaid. Yes, they would get some new clients in because of their marketing but not enough that they still didn’t need to do more talks the following week and then the next. I however used pay per click advertising to reach targeted prospects. In a really short time, I was full every day and every evening and earning a great income. Yes, it cost money to put out the adverts but they paid for themselves over and over again meaning I never need to slog away just to attract clients and I was being paid a significant amount of money by those clients. This is a perfect example of working smarter and not harder.

Equally, at points in my early career, I invested in adverts in Yellow Pages, local directories or magazines. It soon became evident that many of these methods were simply not bringing in the revenue so I never renewed my subscriptions. Never keep on plugging away at something that doesn’t work. Look at the numbers and if they don’t add up then stop wasting your money.

What do your Therapy Business profits look like?

Therapy Marketing ProfitsNow let’s have a look at your income and profit each month. If you have been a therapist for a while you should always look not only at how you are doing currently but how your profits are changing year on year. If you are not seeing an upward trajectory then you may have a problem.

You can also drill down further and find out which type of customer is more lucrative for your business. I will state the obvious. You will earn more money from clients who are enrolled in a program than seeing clients for one-off sessions.  Spending advertising dollars trying to get customers in for nail-biting for example makes no sense. You are likely to see them for one or two sessions and that is it. Attract a customer who would like to enrol on a six-session stress management and mindfulness course is a different matter. Creating packages of products where ethically you can do so makes much more sense for your business and will bring greater returns.

If you have not heard about High Ticket Selling then it is worth noting that it is becoming a bigger thing in marketing circles. Basically, the concept is simple. Increasingly if you want to attract new customers or clients you are likely to need to spend money. If you attract the wrong kind of customers or don’t get enough of them you will never earn a great living and be living hand to mouth. High Ticket Selling is where you spend a significant amount of money on very targeted advertising but you attract customers willing to spend big to get your expertise to solve a problem. In the coaching sector where this concept is increasingly popular, it is not unusual for coaches using this system to charge $3000 upwards for one of their programs. Yes, they will have spent $300 on getting that client but they are still hugely in profit and they only need to attract a handful of clients to be making an exceptional income. Even if you don’t have the confidence yet to do this you can examine your profit per customer and see where you can find ways to increase that margin.

What is your Web and Social Media Presence?

Social Media Marketing for TherapistsIf you don’t have a web presence or an amazing social media following then give up and go home. This is where the majority of new customers are coming from. People are on their mobile phones all day surfing the web or checking on their Facebook pages so you need to go where your customers are.  Some simple questions to ask yourself about your website:

  • How many people per day are visiting your website?
  • What are the popular pages that you are being found for?
  • Where is the position of your website in relation to that of your competitors?

I know exactly what each person who comes to my website does and how long they have been on it for. I know what pages they are looking at and how long for. I know their location and even the device they are using when they find me. Here is an example of just some of the statistics I got from one of the visitors to my website this morning as they browsed for nearly twelve minutes.

 

4
Exit Time:
6 Jul 2017 10:17:36
Visit Length:
11 mins 57 secs
Resolution:
320×534
System:

Chrome for Android/Android

Samsung Galaxy Core Prime 4G
Total Visits:
1
Location:
United Kingdom FlagSturminster Newton, Dorset, United Kingdom
IP Address:
Removed for Privacy Reasons  
Referring URL:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:

I also know the position of my website in Google not just in the location I am marketing in but also for every keyword that I am trying to attract customers for. Do you? This kind of information gives you valuable therapy marketing insights and enables you to take action in areas where you are weak.

Finally

What are your goals for the future of your business? If you just want to see clients then fair enough all you might care about is filling your weekly slots and that is it but for other therapists, business expansion is really important. So that means you need to think about how you could create passive or alternative income streams for your business. As an example teaching your form of therapy to others,  creating online courses for customers, selling audios, or marketing yourself to corporates. Setting out future goals and creating plans to allow for this is important and stop you from being reliant on just one income source.

In addition are there any courses or skills that you need to acquire to help you and your business? I sell marketing solutions but I still go on courses by other marketers to continually improve my knowledge. I also have a few CPD courses that I am eyeing up that will hopefully enable me to up my success rate even more with clients. Whatever you decide to do make sure that your review covers future endeavours rather than just examing your current ones.

Taking a day or so out of your busy therapy business is so important as it can enable you to make significant improvements to the way that you work. Streamlining your business and getting rid of deadwood can help you to reap rewards well into the future leaving you with a robust, viable and very profitable therapy practice.

 

9 Great Sources of Traffic for Hypnosis Marketing

Website Traffic Hypnotherapy MarketingToday I am going to talk about traffic and hypnosis marketing and some of the amazing sources out there that can help you to advertise your products and services. So firstly what do I mean by traffic? I am talking about directing potential customers to your business online rather than to a bricks and mortar location. Without online traffic it is highly unlikely that a hypnotherapy business would survive in 2017 which means a huge part of your marketing plan needs to factor in getting more people to hear about your business. Now even though attracting traffic sounds difficult it is actually incredibly easy especially if you pay for it however the trick is understanding how well the traffic you attract to your website actually converts otherwise you will be wasting a load of time and money and ending up with no new sales.

It is important to also differentiate between cold and warm traffic. When traffic is warm it means that the visitors to your website have already engaged with your business or actively sought you out. An example of warm traffic might be a client that you have seen in the past who actively goes back to your website a year or two later with the thought that they may use your services again. Cold traffic involves people turning up at your website and blog who haven’t actively thought about hiring you or buying your products. Your job is to convince those people to use your services or buy your products.

Here are just some of the places where you can go to create both warm and cold traffic in order to boost your hypnosis marketing business.

Google Adwords

Google Adwords is the mother of all traffic generators and with over 6 Billion people using its search engine every day you have the perfect source of traffic. Even better the people that click on your ads are highly targeted individuals and if you set it up correctly they are also motivated to spend money.  Google is literally handing these potential customers to you on a plate providing you pay them a finders fee.

Sounds wonderful but of course, it also has huge pitfalls. Set up Adwords incorrectly and you may as well be burning your money. The thing with Adwords is that it is a relatively complex site which means it can be very easy to make a costly mistake. A former therapy clinic owner I knew threw away thousands of pounds on the site because her SEO guy set up her account incorrectly. Instead of attracting people to her complementary health clinic who wanted therapeutic massages, she managed to attract every sleazy man in the area looking for something a more intimate form of massage. Ouch!

If you are a newbie at Adwords and don’t want to get burned check out our online course which will show you how to set up your account without the common pitfalls.

Google Adwords for Therapists

 

 

Hypnosis Google Adwords Online Course

 

 

 

Bing 

In the UK most people still use Google but over the past few years Bing has been increasing its market share and now makes up 20% of the UK market. This means that when you are creating content or using ads this search engine needs to be considered. Also because the competition for ad space is still low on this particular search engine the cost for clicks is still relatively cheap which means it is worth considering in some niches as your return on investment will be significantly more.

Facebook

Now once upon a time creating a fan page and adding useful articles and videos on Facebook was a great way of reaching lots of new potential customers. That was until Facebook started to reduce the reach. So what is reach? It simply means the number of people who would see the content in your posts. Once upon a time around 16% of the audience who liked your fan page would see your posts that has now dropped to around 2% unless of course, you pay.

Facebook Ads are becoming increasingly popular because of the sheer number of people that you can reach on the site if you are spending the cash however it is worth noting that if you are not targeting real fans of your page then the traffic is cold. That simply means that you have to find a way of turning the people who come across your content into believers who are willing to spend on your services.

Pinterest

Yes, you may associate the site with pins of interior decor or recipes but it is also used to drum up traffic for many businesses. Add captivating pictures that link back to your website content or blog posts and some people will click through to see what you have to say. If they like what they see and hear then you are going to have a sale or a new customer. Of course, Pinterest has also got into the habit of getting people to pay for promoted pins.

Email

Some of the old fashioned methods are the best. Every hypnotherapist should be capturing the emails of visitors to their website or their clinics. Just remember that the people who come to see you need to have agreed to sign up to your mailing list. Once you have that email you can start to market to those customers and sell them solutions to their problem.

The great thing about email is that nobody can take your list away from you. Yes, some people will always unsubscribe from your content but in general, if you are sending out useful information it can only continue to grow. Yet your Google ranking can change in a heartbeat depending on the latest updates tanking your traffic as quickly as you built it. The money, as they say, is in the list!

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation is another way to get found and to attract visitors to your website. If you are a hypnotherapist without a website then you have a problem as that is where most people go to get information. The problem is that SEO takes time and you have to know what you are doing in order to get your content found in the search engines.

Even if you do get your SEO right and get that coveted number one Google slot for your particular keyword you still have a problem, the pesky ads. In high traffic areas, there are likely to be four other people paying to advertise above your listing which means that you are half way down the page even before you have begun. SEO can be great but the consensus appears to be that it won’t be long before the first page of Google is almost completely dominated by ads.

To set up your website correctly for SEO my Turn Your Therapy Website into a Client Magnet Can Help.

Marketing a Therapy Website Online Course

 

 

Hypnosis Google Adwords Online Course

 

 

 

YouTube

YouTube is one of the most popular channels in the world with people. People love to view the free content on the site and they love to solve their problems by searching for video solutions. I know I have used it to solve IT problems, help with DIY and of course for fun. In the case of hypnosis marketing, it is the perfect place to upload videos either about your business or to demonstrate how you can solve other peoples problems. If you aren’t using the site then you are missing a trick.

Directories

In the UK one of the largest directories is the Hypnotherapy Directory which is a traffic source and can help to bring in referrals. This is a niche directory as well which means that the people who are searching on it are actively looking to get help for their particular problems. There are of course thousands of other directories both free and unpaid which you can place your details on to get customers in through your doors. Be cautious where you spend your hard-earned cash and never pay for a directory or a listing in a publication when you are cold-called.

Instagram

People love actually seeing things which is why sites such as Instagram and Pinterest have taken off in the last few years. Now with this site, there is no point in just putting up picture after picture of your therapy practice or logo because people will unfollow straight away. For example, there is a gym near me that just puts up post after post of boring pictures of their equipment and classes. Yawn! Make sure that you are putting up interesting content about other events and places you have been and then every now and again drop a picture of one of your success stories or promotions.  That way your followers won’t get bored and will be actually engaged by what you have to say.

Getting traffic doesn’t have to be hard but the key for hypnosis marketing is to make sure that it is diverse. I have talked before about not putting all your eggs in one basket. If you are getting all your traffic from one source then you need to start to find other alternatives fast. Having a number of great places where you can attract new customers is the key to propelling your business to success.

Oh and finally I have decided that my hypnotherapy marketing mentoring rates are going to increase from June of this year. This is simply because the time and effort it takes to mentor one person is significant vs the revenue I make from my online work.  So if you are looking to work with me on a one to one basis I suggest you book in now as my fees are going to double from the middle of this year.

Building a Hypnotherapy Business by Having a Plan

Hypnotherapy business planIn the last month I have spent a considerable amount of time creating a hypnotherapy marketing plan that will help my business be ready for January 2016. In other words I have created a systematic and detailed way of getting my business to rank in my local area as well as creating plans for future products to increase my passive income earning potential. Trying to do well at marketing a hypnosis business without having a plan is pointless as the world of website creation, content generation, social media interaction and SEO requires detailed thought and regular input to get real results. Here are just some of the things that you will need to consider if you are to create a successful business.

A website as I have discussed before is a must have for any therapy business starting up now and in order for it to succeed it must be set up correctly. Getting the elements of your website right is key to getting the customers you deserve. What I have noticed is that just about all of my competitors in my local market are failing in this area. These are just some of the big errors that I am seeing when I look at my competitors.

Spelling Mistakes – Nobody is going to trust a hypnotherapist who hasn’t taken the time to proof read their website. I can forgive the odd mistake but a competitor in my local area has huge ones in the headings of his web pages. This is a turn off for many people who arrive at your site.

Keywords – Frankly many of the local hypnotherapists around me haven’t even thought about using them in their copy which is unbelievable. Google and the algorithm it uses needs to see keywords when it crawls your website otherwise it doesn’t have a clue where to bring up your business in its listings. So if you are a hypnotherapist in London you need to write that somewhere on your website. If you have no address in London, no mention of London in your copy or the fact that you are a hypnotherapist then how the hell do you expect to get found?

Minimal Pages – I have said it before and I will say it again. Hypnotherapists in general are lazy when it comes to doing anything marketing related. They can barely be bothered to write four or five pages of copy on their site. Most of my local competitors have a website that has too few pages. Yes it takes effort to write a website and lots of time to do it well but get it right and it can reap rewards. As I mentioned before with keywords these need to be all over your site leading customers directly to you. If you don’t mention that you do confidence coaching or work with depression then you will not get found when a client places a query in a search engine.

Minimal Content – Even those therapists who have placed in a number of web pages tend to write thin content. In other words they can barely summon up the energy to place a picture on the page and a short paragraph. Content is king currently. Write thin content and your website will be penalised and you are wasting your time thinking it will attract business.

Pricing – Oh I could weep for the local therapists and their business pricing. Some of the locals around me are charging as little as £40 a session! I am already the most expensive in the area by miles and guess what clients are still coming to see me. Undervalue your skills and charge too little and you will never earn a great living. From a business perspective I sell a gastric band audio download program for £39.99 on my website which is a form of passive income. I have recorded it once and now I can sell it again and again with little effort at all. Why would I want to see a client for £40 when I can earn that from a passive income product that requires me to do very little? Clearly my local competitors are not thinking like a business.

Hypnotherapy Business Plan

Now of course it is impossible to do everything at once but having a business plan which lays out your markting strategy is vital for the health of your business. I know that I have a great one for mine and it is working. Bit by bit my websites are moving higher up the search engine rankings and getting me not just on the front page of Google but in the number one slot.

As an example in my nearest local town I am number five on Google. So in just over six weeks I have gone from nowhere to beating websites that have been up and running for years. This town has a population of 25,000. I expect to have the number one or two slot by the new year. I am now repeating this formula in all the surrounding towns which means that I should have a population reach of well over a million potential customers.

I am also systematically creating great web pages and content for each of my key niches and building backlinks. This means you will find me on the front page for all kinds of issues related to hypnosis such as fear of flying, weight loss, depression and so on. By January I should have hundreds if not thousands of pages of content out there for people to find me. With the right guidance and work ethic you can do the same and not just earn a great living but dominate the area that you choose to work in. For more details about my hypnotherapy marketing mentoring send me an email via my contact me page.