I am not sure that buying someone else’s domain or website is cheaper. Maybe that is not actually what you meant. Hypnosis.org cost $70,000 I think. That is out of reach for people.
THINKING LIKE A BUSINESS OWNER
Yes that is true, not everyone has $70,000. But as a Business Strategy, if you wanted the number one spot for a keyword and you knew you could instantly monetize the traffic to make $100,000/year… I’ll be you could find a way to borrow the $70k.
This is actually an entirely different level of thinking in business. You are in effect buying the traffic upfront.
Now, the real reason I use Hypnosis.org as an example was to show the for very generic words like golf, travel, coffee, hypnosis it is VERY DIFFICULT to get highly ranked. So it is smarter to just buy the traffic at one of the top positions (assuming you have a way to monetize it).
GO FOR THE LOW HANGING FRUIT FIRST
And I also pointed out that it IS POSSIBLE to get ranked for keyword phrases like “San Francisco hypnosis” and “hypnosis pain relief san francisco”
Example (traffic counts from Google)
Hypnosis – 32877 daily searches 17,900,000 competing sites
San Francisco Hypnosis – 16 daily searches 1,130 competing sites
So for SF Hypnosis, there are approx 500 searches a month. If I could get 20% of those to my website (100 / month) and convert 2% of those into clients (avg value of client $1000) then this is worth
If I wanted to, I could be on the front page of Google for San Francisco Hypnosis in about 1-6 months.
But it would involve more than just SEO optimization. I would use Social Media, Social Bookmarking, Article Marketing, Blogging, and Online Press Releases.
Fact is, there is no way I’ll make the front page of Google for “hypnosis” because I’m competing against sites like Wikipedia and Ask.com. Plus these people are just looking for information, they are not ready to buy.
(Note: I could be on the front page of Google today for both of them today using Adwords.)
KEYWORDS CAN INDICATE BUYERS
Another important thing to understand is the words people search on indicate where they are in the buying cycle. A rule of thumb is, 3 or more keywords means they are looking to buy.
Example:
Hypnosis
Hypnosis CD’s
Hypnosis CD’s Stop Smoking
People who search on hypnosis could be looking for anything related to hypnosis from a wikipedia entry to where to take a class. And you really don’t have anyway of knowing.
But someone looking for hypnosis stop smoking CD’s… pretty good chance they are looking to buy. This is why it’s important to choose your keywords wisely when thinking about your webpages and SEO.
Craig, I took some of your advice and optimized my page. Now admittedly, Central Oregon is a pretty small place but I come up as #1 in Google for “Bend+hypnosis”, “Central Oregon+hypnosis” (or hypnotists). I am very happy with those results – and I haven't spent a dime on Google Adwords or paid listings.
As the seller of hypnosis.org I couldn't agree with you more. Your suggestions on how to promote hypnosis sites are excellent. Now that I'm almost recuperated from my and my wife's hospital hiatuses [hiati?] I'm implementing your methods with great results. Now, if only you had a magic formula for enhancing motivation 🙂
Your tips and detailed advice is awesome! My wife is a hypnotherapist by she never thought of getting to that another level of web promotion. It might work for her! Thank you!