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

 

49 Hypnosis Marketing Strategies You Can Implement Today

Hypnosis Marketing StrategiesFirstly welcome to the last blog post of the year. I hope you have all had a lucrative 2019 and are now getting ready to multiply those practice profits in the New Year. December is the perfect time of the year to be planning your hypnosis marketing strategies for 2020. As your clients thoughts turn to overeating, drinking and being merry  you are likely to have a couple of quiet weeks where you  plot and plan that income boost that always appears in the New Year.

Now as many therapists are aware in order to be a wealthy therapist you need to be killing it when it comes to your competition. That means you need to work smarter and harder than your competitors whether they are based internationally or locally. Here are 49 Hypnosis marketing strategies that you can start to work on today to boost your income and build that amazing business of yours. There is no need to work on everything at once as it just is not possible but pick a few from the list and make a start on marketing your products and services.

In order to help you we have a number of additional tools which can help you to build your business faster. An Online Hypnotherapy Marketing Ebook with more details on some of these strategies. Our Turn your Website into a Client Magnet that shows you just what you need to do to attract paying customers into your practice. I also have a new course on Google Adwords which I will be releasing in the New Year to help you get to Number One on Google and slay your competitors.

So until 2017 I wish you all a fantastic Xmas and New Year.

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49 Hypnosis Marketing Strategies to Start Using Today

  1. Create Gift Vouchers – What can you get the person who has everything? Why a hypnosis gift voucher. It can be for relaxation sessions, law of attraction work or even just to target the curious. Market them on your website, create a beautiful online voucher and you are ready to go.
  2. Target Your Doctors Surgery – Talk to the practice managers, leave leaflets in the surgery or offer specific services to each GP. This is the perfect target market for anxiety clients.
  3. Head to the Gym – No not to work out but to put up your leaflets. Get there before January and help all those clients who want to lose weight as part of their New Year resolutions.
  4. Free Noticeboards – Stick those leaflets up anywhere you see a free noticeboard. Bus stops, coffee shops, supermarkets and so on. Even better if the leaflet is somewhere where people have to queue!
  5. Set up an Account on Pinterest – Get pinning those inspirational images that make your business seem irresistible.
  6. Driving Schools – Where there is a nervous driver there is a hypnotherapist who can help. Contact those instructors and offer to help.
  7. Corporate – Find the movers and shakers in companies local to you and start to offer them your services. Create promotion packs to sell stress management,  stop smoking or sales performance sessions.
  8. Video – Start creating videos and marketing them on YouTube or any of the other video sharing sites. Show proof of your skills, clients beaming with happiness as their problems fade away and watch the hits on your website increase.
  9. Awareness Days – Find out the awareness days for 2017 and create special promotions around them. Such as depression awareness, Stoptober and Dry January.
  10. Team Up – Find some local massage therapists, personal trainers, physios and team up with them to create a package of services or to cross refer.
  11. Hand Out Leaflets – Outside stations, busy fairs or events or even in a shopping centre promoting your services. Just make sure you get permission from the relevant authorities first.
  12. Create an Online Course – Although you will always need the personal touch with some clients others will respond with some simple self help online. Give them the tools to empower them and they will thrive.
  13. Get a Website Review -Find someone who really knows about hypnosis marketing strategies and get them to review your website. With some simple changes it is often possible to double, triple or quadruple your revenue by rectifying your copy and website structure. My online course How to Turn Your Website Into a Client Magnet enables you to review your website yourself and make changes so that you can multiply your income.
  14. Contact Those Dentists – Nervous dental patients or clients with bruxism as perfect candidates for some hypnosis to alleviate stress and anxiety.
  15. Create and Instagram Account – Advertise your business, like others and generally get involved in your community.
  16. Yoga Classes – Hypnobirthing and Yoga Classes go hand in hand. Offer taster sessions with the local yoga teacher at the end of a class and start attracting new clients.
  17. Start a Blog – Blogging is a great supplement to your website and if done well can go viral or create a community of followers in your niches.
  18. Design a Logo – Create an identity for your business and use it on your website, marketing materials and emails to stand out from the crowd.
  19. Get on Facebook – Get involved locally or in a group important for your niche. Heah even better start a group of your own and control the content!
  20. Market Research – Find out what your customers really want. Get out on the street or go online and ask questions to find out what is selling then tailor your products and services to meet demand.
  21. Get Testimonials – Put them on your websites, on videos and in your marketing materials. People love proof that hypnosis works!
  22. Record some Self Help Audios – Start recording self hypnosis audios and market them online and to your clients. Just make sure that they are the very best quality you can make.
  23. Upsell your Products and Services – Package your sessions to that you are selling programs. Upsell email support or your self help audios to bring in extra revenue. Even buy wholesale products and have them in your therapy room for your customers to purchase.
  24. Find your USP – Your Unique Selling Point is what makes you different to your competition. Work out what it is and start to use it in your hypnosis marketing strategies.
  25. Build a Therapy Centre – Rent a premises and start selling the other rooms to therapists for a fee. The other therapists will cover your room costs and you should profit on top!
  26. Use Paid Advertising – Google Adwords and Facebook advertising when done well gets you in front of your target audience. Use it wisely and see customer numbers jumping. I have created an online course to help you master Google Adwords for Therapists  and another for Facebook Advertising.
  27. Connect With Other Therapists – Counsellors, CBT therapists and psychotherapists are perfect people to network with and create cross referrals.
  28. Start a Podcast – Offer people tips and strategies for self help on a regular podcast and build a network of followers.
  29. Citations – Build citations in local directories and link them back to your website. Just make sure they are relevant or local.
  30. Networking – Join some local networking groups and connect with others. Spend very little initially until you find the ones that work for you.
  31. SEO – Learn about Search Engine Optimisation and start to put your knowledge into practice. Good SEO can boost your organic rankings and get you found in Google and Bing.
  32. Forums – Get involved in niche forums and offer your advice. Put your links in your profile and wait to be contacted.
  33. Get out on the Street – Why not demo your hypnosis skills in front of the general public. Amaze those passers by and wait for the stream of people who want to book an appointment with you.
  34. Wedding Planners or Dressmakers – Who doesn’t know a bride who didn’t want to lose weight for the big day? Create a weight loss package and market it to bridge and even the bridegroom.
  35. Health Food Stores – Get to know the owners. Put up leaflets and offer taster sessions and talks.
  36. Email Lists – Start collecting emails from your customers and potential clients and remarket to them.
  37. Local Newletters – Find out who runs your local newsletter and either write an article or take out a small regular advert.
  38. Press Releases – Got a new product or amazing service that you need the world to know about. Create a press release and advertise just what you can do.
  39. Twitter – Get on Twitter and engage in the community or with people in your specialist niches.
  40. Create a Workshop– Start by creating a workshop or a mini course for people to attend. Seeing twenty people at once will always be more lucrative that seeing one person at a time.
  41. Get on the Radio – Ok so you may have a problem getting on the National stations but there are hundreds of local and community stations that would love your input.
  42. Create an ebook and Sell it – Have a great solution to a problem? Then get writing and marketing your ebook. Self publishing on Kindle makes it easy for you to be a published author. My eBook on Hypnotherapy Marketing goes into considerable detail on how to market your business effectively.
  43. Broadcast Live – Periscope, Meerkat and even Facebook allow you to broadcast live and post directly online. Create a session with the wow factor and put it out there for the world to see.
  44. Snapchat – Learn how to use Snapchat and build a following.
  45. Volunteer – Get a gig volunteering at your local hospital using your hypnosis skills. Once you have people convinced of its effectiveness you can market your sessions to those who can afford to pay.
  46. Local Help Groups – Get involved with local help groups and offer taster sessions or talks.
  47. Google+ – Get on Google + and Google My Business to appear on those maps!
  48. Create a Membership Website – Offer clients continual value so that they sign up for your services month after month or year after year.
  49. Local Newspapers – Get in touch with your local newspaper journalists and offer them a story. How you cured a local person of a fear of Santa Claus. How you created stress reduction sessions for families who were worried about Brexit. Make it topical and local.

Enjoy putting in place those hypnosis marketing strategies hopefully they should keep you busy until my next post in the New Year!

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.