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?

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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.

 

 

 

Building a Hypnotherapy Practice – You Have to Speculate to Accumulate

build a hypnotherapy practiceSo how exactly do you run your hypnotherapy business? If you are a self employed therapist I bet you do the following.  Get clients in through your door and charge them a fee per session. Out of that session fee you will pay your costs such as room hire, tax. phone bills and other miscellaneous expenses. The money you have left over is what you consider to be your wage. Once every couple of years you may pay a bit extra money to upgrade your website and that about sums it up. At no point have you thought about how you are going to get your business to grow in the future and how you are going to make that happen.

When you are building a hypnotherapy practice you can either:

1) Plod on doing the same thing year after year. Get in perhaps a greater number of clients or charge extra but ultimately have a ceiling on the amount that you can earn.

or

2) Speculate to accumulate. In other words reinvest some of those earning in your business to grow it into something much bigger than one to one therapy.

My hypnotherapy eBook talks about tips and strategies to get you to a six figure income. I know for many hypnotherapists this seems like “pie in the sky” talk yet this figure is very achievable for most therapists with the right business skills. The problem that I see in not only our industry but with therapists in general is that most have not got a clue what they need to do in order to even get a few customers in through their doors never mind to take their business to the six figure level.

Building a Hypnotherapy Business

Instead of thinking about your business on a customer by customer basis you need to think in the long term. How am I going to build a business that will earn me great money in years to come? How can I get money in through my doors in an automated way so that that I can be earning money whilst I am asleep? Frankly you need to bust through the ceiling that you have created for yourself. Working one to one with clients is great when you are starting out but you need to take your business a step further.

Think about it if you were a shareholder in a company you would want to see that company growing year on year. They need to be earning more money and giving you a great dividend. The business world understands this because their investors will sell their shares if they find that the company they decided to invest in is standing still.

I see many therapists as companies who are stagnating. They have great potential but then they have no idea of where to go next. They carry on doing the same old stuff year after year and their income stalls. Well I can tell you I didn’t start my own business to earn a boring old basic income. I took the risk of leaving a well paid job so that I could not only be my own boss but so that I could demonstrate how I could build a great business myself. I see myself as an entrepreneur and not as someone who is earning just enough to stay afloat.

Reinvesting in your Business

Building a hypnotherapy practice and creating a business that is next level means you need to reinvest. That means that some of that money you are earning has to be spent on other ventures that will bring you more money in the long term. It means reinvesting in your skills. If you don’t know how to build a greater income then you need to learn from somebody else. Investing in marketing advice and mentoring could mean the difference between surviving and thriving. Oh and you need to invest in better websites, equipment, automated software and so on. Now you don’t obviously have to do all of this at once but I believe that a percentage of your income needs to be set aside for you to do this.

I know that ever since I started by business I have used part of my “salary” to create new avenues of income. Once I built those products I began to sell them to others and that extra money is now steadily adding additional income into my monthly account without me even thinking about it. That means that as well as earning income from my clients I am earning from other sources as well. Now there is no ceiling to what I can earn. You can do the same with the right help.

If you need help building a hypnotherapy practice then how about getting some assistance? I work with all kinds of therapists and small business owners with my marketing and mentoring sessions. I believe that the  cost of my business coaching will almost be immediately offset by the extra customers you will get into your business. Remember it only takes one client paying for a number of sessions to pay for my marketing sessions for six months and I personally guarantee that you will be getting in many more than that providing you follow my advice. Give me a call today on 020 8351 2744 and see how you can change the income potential for your business.

 

 

Testing Testing – Is Your Hypnosis Marketing Up to Scratch?

Hypnosis Marketing - Website TestingWhen was the last time you had a look at your website? Not a quick glance but a long hard look at what elements are working well and what elements need some changes. We often need to take a step back to really take in an overview of our creations or if possible get somebody else to look at our websites with fresh eyes. Why? Because when your website isn’t working well this is the first thing that your clients will pick up on and it could send them running to someone else. Your website is often the first way that people learn about you and if yours is not up to scratch you are to blame for negative hypnosis marketing.

So what are the things that we need to look out for in our websites? Here are just a few elements that it is worth your while checking:

1) Spelling – If I were to log in to a website and see that there was awful grammar and dreadful spelling it would send me running for the hills. This is such a simple thing to rectify. Run your pages through a spellchecker. Pay someone to proof read your content. Get it right first time.

2) Broken Links – How many of you have links to internal and external pages that simply are not working? Take the time to go through each of your links to make sure that everything is up to scratch. If they lead to nowhere get them fixed.

3) Contact Me – Regularly test your contact form on your site. I lost a few days worth of clients not long ago because my server was full. If I had sent out a test email to myself I would have picked it up straight away.

4) Products – If you sell products are your customers able to buy them? On more than one occasion I have lost sales because of problems with my downloads. You can easily make some test purchases to make sure that everything is working ok.

5) Responsiveness – How responsive is your website? In other words if I were to look at your website on a tablet, phone or computer would it look the same or would elements in the website be missing, squashed or out of alignment? When you are doing your hypnosis marketing you need to step into the shoes of your customers. If they are seeing a mess of a website because they are using a different system to you then it needs to be fixed. If you website is not mobile responsive expect to be penalised in the search engines.

6) Simplicity – As the saying goes “keep it simple stupid”! Are you actually getting your message across to your customers or have you written content that is too wordy, complex or unintelligible for your readers? Does your website have flashing images or annoying music when you log in? If it does then it is time to drop it. Have you put a god awful video of yourself on the front page which looks shabby and unprofessional? If you can’t read like a newsreader and don’t look professional and engaging then leave the video out. It will only have your customers running for the hills.

7) Long Load Times – How quickly does your website appear when somebody clicks on it. Generally the faster the better. Google penalises sites that do not load quickly.

All of these issues are easy and simple to fix and will make a big difference to your hypnosis marketing. Remember websites should be reviewed and updated regularly with fresh content. Google loves new material placed on your website and so do your customers as well. Take the time today to review your site and think about what you can do to make it more user friendly for your clients. If you are not confident doing it yourself I conduct website review sessions with my clients. Not only will I look at some of the elements above I will tell you how to write more successful copy that converts browsers into buyers.

 

 

Happy Chinese New Year – Seasonal Hypnosis Marketing Works!

Seasonal Hypnosis MarketingSo for those of you that celebrate it Happy Chinese New Year – The Year of the Goat. A time for sweeping out the old and bringing in the new and of course with that brings those new years resolutions for the second time this year. Yep it means that not only are you able to capture new customers who want to change their life in January but in February as well. Capitalise on an event such as the Chinese New Year and you now have another way of getting those valuable customers in through your door. This post is about seasonal hypnosis marketing and how it can work for you.

You see throughout the year there are set times when people look are looking to purchase products and services. We see them everyday in the shops but many hypnotherapists are not capitalising on capturing those customers in the same way that retailers are and that needs to change if you want a steady stream of visitors coming to your website. Retailers know that by planning seasonal campaigns they can have a great way of boosting their profits and that means you can apply the same tactics to your hypnosis marketing to increase your revenue.

So what exactly am I talking about. Well lets think of some of the services that you could be starting to offering as part of your marketing.  Here are some really basic campaigns to get you started. How about:

Winter – Helping people with SAD syndrome and depression.

Valentines Day – Helping people who are depressed because of break ups.

Summer – In the spring start advertising to help people get the perfect beach body.

Xmas – Audios on how to deal with Xmas stress.

AprilMay – Helping students to calm their exam nerves.

There are literally hundreds of different ways in which you can promote your products to your customers if you take the time to think about it. You just need to plan your marketing year in advance and choose the campaigns that will work for your business and specialisms.

National Awareness Days

As well as just general promotions there are days throughout the year known as national awareness days or weeks when certain issues are promoted to the general public. Get to know the big ones for your interests and you will be able to attract people looking for very specialised problem solving. Most hypnotherapists should be aware of No Smoking Day but what about some of the following where hypnosis can be used to help with the problem:

  • Tinnitus Awareness Week
  • Stress Awareness Month
  • Pain Awareness Month
  • Alcohol Awareness Week
  • IBS Awareness month

Now these are just a few of the weeks or months where you can advertise your specialist skills and there will be many more.

This is a simple hypnosis marketing tactic but it can help to reap great rewards just by targeting specific groups of customers who want to be helped at certain times of the year. Start to think about what you want to be offering your potential clients for 2015 and structure some simple marketing campaigns around it. At the end of the year look at which were successful and stick with those year on year to increase your profits.

 

 

Marketing a Hypnotherapy Practice Without Mentioning your Guru!

https://www.hypnotherapymarketingexpert.comI am always fascinated by other peoples websites and how they use them to sell their products and services and drive customers to their sites. I especially interested in their home pages as that sets the tone for the rest of their website. Now I seek out these websites because I want to see what my competition is doing. If I see them doing something innovative or interesting then I may follow their lead on my own sites. I love to learn from others. What I usually come across however is people making a fundamental mistake of marketing and that is not putting themselves in their customers shoes. Today I will share that mistake with you and show you how marketing a hypnotherapy practice can be done without mentioning your guru!

So what is this mistake? Wasting valuable front page website space writing paragraphs on who they trained with and the lofty institutes which gave them their qualifications. More often that not there will be links to their training schools or gurus and even pictures of them on their front page. Now whilst that is great advertising for your mentors and trainers it is absolutely useless for you.

Firstly marketing a hypnotherapy practice by referring to a person only known in the hypnosis world is totally pointless. In the UK there are really one two hypnotists that anyone knows and they are Paul McKenna and Derren Brown. Everyone else is totally meaningless to your clients and they couldn’t care less. Unless you have trained with someone who is a celebrity therapist really don’t bother wasting your time. Instead spend your time writing about what really counts and that is who you are, where you are and how you can help your clients feel better.

Remember you need to put yourself in your customers shoes and give them what they want. They have no interest in who you trained with just whether you are going to solve their problem. I should add that therapists that write wordy, flowery, incomprehensible and meaningless home pages are equally at fault. Using phrases that nobody understands isn’t really going to help you get the sale. As the saying goes “Keep it simple stupid”!

Secondly every time you put a link on your website you are giving publicity to someone else and that is worth something. Really think about whether you feel that the person you are mentioning deserves this free publicity.  Also consider whether by mentioning this training institute or trainer you are giving your potential client the opportunity to leave your site and look at theirs. This means that they will potentially be given access to a database of other practitioners whose websites might look better than yours and you lose the business. When it takes time and effort to get traffic to your website letting your customers look elsewhere is foolhardy to say the least.

When you are marketing a hypnotherapy practice you need to do everything you can to keep that person looking at your site and then contacting you for an appointment and that means keeping your bounce rate low. If you have never heard this term it is used to describe people coming across your website and only quickly viewing one page and then moving on elsewhere. By having links to other organisations on your front page you are giving people an opportunity to head elsewhere immediately. You need to try and keep those visitors on your site for as long as possible and be giving them valuable information not just one the front page but on your other pages as well. The more they hang around the more they are getting to know and trust you which means more sales.

Marketing a hypnotherapy practice on a website is relatively simple when you know how but many people throw a website together without ever giving any real thought to the words and information they are using. The fact is that every single sentence, paragraph and link you place on your site needs to considered carefully. When you understand how to structure a website then it will attract more business. Make fundamental errors and you have lost your customers from the start. Want a website review to help you convert searchers into buyers? Contact me for more details on how to turn your site into a client magnet instead of a dud.

Marketing Hypnosis – Who are You Targeting?

marketing hypnosisSo you are a therapist and you are marketing hypnosis. How exactly do you go about finding people to come to your clinic? Well I will tell you what the average therapist does. They sign up to Yell and a few other directories, distribute leaflets around their area and make a generic website with the minimum number of pages to try and entice clients to call and book. The problem is they are trying to be all things to all people and are scattering their marketing efforts far and wide without ever considering who their target market really is.

Marketing hypnosis through leaflets for example must be one of the greatest examples of futility when they are distributed around your local neighbourhood. You can send out thousands of them but in 99.9% of cases they will never be looked at and thrown in the bin. Why? Because most of the people you are sending the leaflets out to have no interest in seeing a hypnotherapist. It is a classic case of non targeted marketing and it does not work! In order to attract clients you need to work smarter. A generic leaflet won’t cut it but a targeted leaflet handed to the right people might. For example a leaflet about weight loss hypnosis handed out to people before they enter a Weight Watchers class might be nearer the mark. Leaflets about past life regression handed to people attending a mind, body and spirit event could get a greater response and so on.

The same thoughts apply to your website marketing. Is your website trying to be all things to all people. Would it be better if your website targeted a specific group of people so that you are now perceived as an expert in that area rather than the scatter gun approach? I know that if I want help with something I look for someone who is considered an expert in that area. So if I had a problem with stress I would look for someone who specialised in helping with that issue. If I had a choice between a website that dealt purely with that problem and another which mentioned everything under the sun then I would be more likely to pick the one that targeted me.

You see when it comes to marketing hypnosis people want to feel that you know them and you can help them with their exact problem. When they come across your site they want you to have explained exactly why they are feeling the way that they are and how you can fix that issue. Preferably they would also love to see testimonials from people who have experienced exactly the same problem as they have and how they have been helped to overcome the it quickly and easily. A potential client reading this thinks that you know and understand them and will be happy to ring you because you seem like the go to person in that area. A generalist website, leaflet, directory entry or business card simply doesn’t speak to them in the same way.

Whenever you think of marketing hypnosis you have to consider who am I targeting? When you know who you are aiming your services at then you can write copy that speaks to them and them alone. It really is a very simple marketing tactic but one that so many people get wrong. Then when you have the targeted copy consider carefully how you are going to get that to your target audience. Match you audience with the treatments that they are looking for and bingo you get your sale. Think about adjusting your hypnotherapy marketing strategy today to encompass this tactic and watch your conversions increase.

Hypnosis Marketing – Your Website is Crucial!

Hypnosis MarketingHave you ever had a situation where your practice is so busy you don’t have time to even think? Well this morning I had one of the those moments when I literally as physically unable to cope with the sheer number of calls coming in to the my practice. I know my hypnosis marketing works because I was getting call after call of potential clients ringing me up to book or ask questions about my sessions. I had deliberately booked this morning off to deal with admin and paperwork before a busy afternoon and evening with clients and the phone did not stop ringing. It was pandemonium but in a good way because it means that the business that I have created is a success and yours can be as well.

I should point out that I was struggling to cope this morning even though I have hired virtual assistants to answer all my calls. My phone was forwarded to my assistants whilst I rang back potential clients who had tried to call me the evening before. As I was making my call backs I was getting more and more messages from my assistants telling me about new calls coming in. For the next three to four hours I didn’t stop. The result plenty of new bookings and revenue coming into my business for weeks and months to come .  Now this morning did not happen by a fluke or by magic but because I have worked hard at creating a marketing strategy that gets me found by the people who need help.

Marketing takes sustained effort over a period of weeks and months and not just a small effort once in a blue moon. To be really successful at what you do you need to have a strategy and then you need to work systematically through each of the elements in your strategy to bring in new business. Place the elements of your strategy in order of importance and when one area has been worked through start to focus on the next. Keep on adding to your list and never stop marketing because when it comes to marketing there should never be a point where you have nothing to do.

I like to believe that hypnosis marketing should consist of both long and short term goals as well as marketing which can be done in short bursts during quiet points in your day. Bit by bit you are building strong foundations for your business. Create solid foundations and you have a great base for your business which can then be grown without fear of it collapsing around you. The big question is of course where to start?

One of the most important elements of your business foundations is having a great website that can be found. I know that my websites constantly drive traffic and customers to be my door even though many of the people who come across these websites have never met me before. This is because each of my websites has been deliberately designed to reach my targeted market. In other words the people arriving at my website get the information they need quickly and easily about how their problem can be solved. They are told exactly what it may take to get them to their goals so that the only thing they have left to do is pick up the phone.

Having a great website makes all the difference to a business. Make a great one and you will get plenty of calls and orders but get it wrong and you will drive your customers away. Many therapists sadly get it wrong and miss out on great opportunities to sell themselves and their treatments. It is not uncommon when I do website reviews to see fundamental and basic errors which prevent my clients from getting found. Get that wrong and you may as well be invisible.

Once you have the basic foundations of your business set up then it is time to work on the additional elements which will really take your revenue to the next level. For example:

  • Videos
  • Blogging
  • SEO
  • Self Help Programs
  • Referral Programs
  • Product Development
  • Advertising
  • PR
  • Media Work
  • Corporate Clients
  • Group Sessions

Website Reviews

The list is endless as there are so many ways in which you can extend your hypnosis marketing to increase your profits. However without having great foundations you will have a problem from the start. Without the right website structure you will find that when visitors come across your website they will stay for just a second or two and then head off elsewhere. This is why I offer a website review package to help therapists create a great looking site which can bring in business time and time again.

So what is included when I conduct a website review? Well firstly I am happy to review an existing website or talk your through how to create the perfect site from scratch. I may not do any design work but I do work with you to create the perfect framework for you to grow your business. I analyse each existing web page and make recommendations about how those pages can be changed to bring you in more customers. I will tell you if additional pages need to be added or if you need to change your current platform. I generally conduct the review with you over a live Skype or Facetime sesson and then following the session I will send you a report with the recommended changes on it.To get full details of how I can help you with hypnosis marketing or website reviews you can email me via my contact page or alternatively give me a call on 020 8351 2744.

 

Hypnotherapy Marketing – Work Smarter Not Harder

Hypnotherapy Marketing - Work SmarterWhen I start working with therapists to help them grow their businesses I usually ask them what they would like to achieve from our sessions and the answer is nearly always the same. They want to have more clients. Now believe it or not getting more clients isn’t actually the difficult bit when you know how. My hypnotherapy marketing is generally very successful and when I first started my business I used to see seven or eight clients a day but frankly working that hard every day isn’t fun. It is also not the best way to build a booming business and I will tell you why.

Lets say that you decide that you would like to work a typical five day week with clients. So you ramp up your hypnotherapy marketing and end up filling each of those days with six clients. Typically that could mean starting work at 9 or 10 in the morning and finishing in the evening at 6 or 7pm (if you left a gap between each client and allocated time for lunch). Do that 5 days a week and you are seeing 30 clients a week. Now whist initially that sounds lovely the reality is very different.

1) You are exhausted – Seeing such a large amount of clients is draining especially when you are doing it week after week. Eventually each client will seem like a chore and you will find that your energy levels are unable to keep up with the constant late working hours.

2) Where does your business go next? – If you follow the more clients is better thought you have very little room to grow your business further. Yes you could take less breaks or see more clients at the weekend but ultimately you will hit a ceiling and that is where your business stagnates.

3) What about Business Development? – When you are spending every waking moment dealing with clients how can you find and develop new income streams to grow your business? The short answer is that you can’t because you are too busy working on those one to one sessions.

4) What about your social life? – Many of your clients will want to see you in the evening which means that you get very little time to socialise when you are working such long hours.

Filling your time with so many clients frankly does not make sense. If you really do want to be  great at hypnotherapy marketing and business development you need to find another way. In fact less can be more. I now see less clients per week but earn more income. How? Because I am now focused on growing my business in other ways such as through training, passive income and group work. This is a win win situation for any business. Your clients will be happier because you are not exhausting yourself by seeing too many people in one day. Your profits will also increase because you can earn money when you are asleep or by seeing more people at the same time. Plus there is no longer a ceiling on your potential earning leaving your huge amounts of room to grow your business.

So next time someone promises to help your hypnotherapy marketing by suggesting that you see more clients per week think again. Remember the aim of the game is not to work harder but smarter! For help with your therapy marketing and business development contact me for details on my business coaching packages.

 

Marketing Your Hypnotherapy Practice – Domain Names

Marketing your hypnotherapy practice - domain namesWhether you are starting your therapy career or are looking to update and rebrand yourself you need a website. If you need a website you need a name for that website and therefore you need to purchase a domain name. Before you do you need to understand the possibilities that are available to to and how your choices may impact your search engine rankings under different circumstances. This is just a short guide to show you that marketing your hypnotherapy practice can be impacted by something as simple as a name.

Generally when I see the names that therapists have picked for their websites they have either chosen an exact match domain or a domain which contains their name.

Exact Match Domains – An exact match domain is based matching keywords that a potential client would place in a search engine. A typical example would be names such as hypnotherapylondon, hypnotherapistinnewyork or hypnosisscotland. The domains in these instances reflect the locations where the therapists are based and would like to get clients. By choosing keywords that are frequently placed in a search engine there is an increased likelihood of getting found. For example the phrase hypnotherapy London has an average of 1,300 searches per month. With an exact match domain name that is well optimised you have a high chance of getting a large number of customers coming across your site.

Of course marketing your hypnotherapy practice is not that simple because:

1) Many of these exact match domains have already been purchased.

2) Google is placing less emphasis on exact match domains in its algorithm.

A few years ago having an exact match domain almost guaranteed you traffic but now Google is looking for other indicators of a great website so their relevance is reducing. Reducing is not however the same as extinct. Remember having an exact match can still give your website a boost especially when it comes to advertising. Having an exact match domain for example can increase your click through rates especially when it comes to paid advertising. That is because your customers see a name which exactly matches their needs and is therefore more likely to take action and click.

Your Name Domains – Many therapists like to use their name in the domain title. So in my case I could have chosen martinamckeoughhypnosis.co.uk. Having a name domain is great especially if you are building a brand. In other words people will search for you because of your reputation and you will of course appear highly in the rankings for those searches. The problem is that most therapists don’t have a brand. That means that your name is currently meaningless to the people who are searching for hypnotherapy. They get a long list on Google of people who call themselves hypnotherapists and the first thing they do is:

1) Choose the names that appear at the top of the search.

2) Choose domains which most closely match what they are looking for.

3) Choose a name domain.

So in other words you are likely to come third on the hit list of potential therapists who get the business unless you also appear at the top of the page. Remember you need to think from the point of view of your client and not your own personal wishes when it comes to marketing. That said there is no harm in purchasing your own domain name and running two sites providing they both contain original content. The exact match domain can be used when you are starting out and as your reputation grows your name domain will grow in searches as well.

.Com or .Co.uk? – Choosing what to place at the end of your domain name is also important. Should you use a generic .com name or instead choose a country code of where you live or even one of the new domain extensions such as .London? The general rule of thumb is where are you intending to do business. If you are based in a town in the UK and only want to see people in the surrounding area then a .co.uk will do just fine. If however you are looking to sell downloads, online courses or run Skype Sessions then your audience is wider. Then you need to think about a .com. In other words you need to think about your business strategy when making those decisions.

Buying all the domain extensions available for your company could also be important from a branding perspective. Imagine if you built up a hugely successful company under the .co.uk extension which hundreds of people were searching for each day. What if someone else came along and bought the .com extension and then started advertising a very similar product? Suddenly your traffic is diluted by this other company and your sales fall dramatically as they start to get your business. Even if you don’t want to buy every available domain extension buying the country code and the .com should be considered. It is worth noting that many domain extensions such as .biz and .info are not great to use from an SEO perspective. If these are the only domain extensions left then choose another name.

Length of the Name –  Don’t get carried away with choosing names for a domain which are too lengthy and wordy. Choosing a name like hypnotherapyinlondonandthesoutheast.co.uk will not be particularly helpful in getting you found in the search engines. In fact Domain Monster has a great guide on domain names. They agree that a short snappy and to the point name will always beat a long one.

Hyphens – It can be tempting when an exact match domain is already taken for your keywords to try and choose the same words but place hyphens inbetween each of the words. An example of this would be http://www.hypnotherapy-in-Edinburgh.co.uk instead of using a domain name where all the words run together. Where possible avoid this behaviour as they can be considered spammy. Read this guide by Moz on their thoughts on domain names.

Choosing a domain name does not need to be a difficult job when you are marketing your hypnotherapy practice but it does require some thought. Thinking about just some of these basics can help to position your business so that customers can find your more easily or are more likely to click on your website rather than others. Get it right and you will reap the rewards especially when your site is then well optimised for SEO.