There's No Smoke Without Fire, Part I - Entering a Highly Competitive Market

I want to tell you a little about some work I've recently been doing for a client. It should be interesting because there are many lessons that can be learned (i.e. mistakes you can avoid). It is also a work in progress, so I will also post updates here so that you can see which strategies and techniques have been most effective.

The story so far...

My client is a hypnotherapist and has had a successful practice for over 20 years. When the smoking ban was announced for the UK (July 2007), together with a business partner, she decided that there was an opportunity to sell her 'stop smoking with hypnosis' session on the internet and make a little money.

Now selling anything on the internet is no easy task when you have zero technical knowledge (i.e. how to build a website) and no knowledge of internet marketing. It's not a criticism- in fact, it's the reason that a multi-million pound business exists out there today.

So my client bought her domain, recorded her hypnosis session and employed a web design company. The web designers duly created a website complete with very basic information and a link to purchase the hypnosis session through PayPal.

Success? Unfortunately not. Over 2 years later and not a single online sale.

Where did it all go wrong?

Even today, in a world where people are ever-more internet savvy, there are so many misconceptions about selling online (or more specifically, creating a successful online business - for that's what it should really be). Here are some of the lessons to learn from her experience:

1. Choose your domain name carefully.
   
   Unless you have a well-known brand (such as Tesco or Walmart), it is highly advantageous to purchase a domain name that contains keywords people are searching for. This is a small factor that will help you site appear higher in search results (know as Search Engine Results Pages - SERPs). This brings us to the next lesson (which should probably have been the first)...
   
   
2. Know your market and research it thoroughly.
   
   My client knew that there were people out there in the world that wanted help to stop smoking. What she didn't know was anything about their online activity or the competition she'd face - and why would she as a hypnotherapist.
   
   If you want to start selling anything online, the principle is to find something which has high demand (i.e. lots of people searching for it) and low competition (not many pages on the internet meeting that demand). Hypnosis (especially for smoking cessation and weight loss), is a highly competitive market which makes it extremely difficult to compete on any level. For our purposes, 'compete' means 'have our website rank in the top 10 in Google for an appropriate search phrase' - absolutely necessary if people are going to find your site and buy from you. Consider that the number 1 spot in Google will receive approximately 40% of the clicks, and that perhaps 1% of visitors to your site will buy your product. Now it is easy to see that if you're not in the top 10 search results, your massive market will translate into essentially zero sales.
   
   There are other ways to get traffic to your site (such as paid advertising), but if you can't compete as described above, you'll need a BIG budget - and there's still no guaranteed return on investment.
   
   This whole topic is something that I'll be looking at in more detail on future posts. Enter your email address in the top right for free updates to be sure not to miss them.
   
   
3. Employ appropriate expertise.
   
   My client employed a web design company to create her website - and that's exactly what they did. That website achieved precisely nothing. For anyone starting out with the intention of selling online, it is important to appreciate there is more to it than create a product and a website, then sitting back and waiting for the riches to roll in. If you aren't experienced in the following and don't have the luxury of time (or inclination) to learn it yourself, then you're going to need someone you can trust to help you.
   
   First you'll need to help researching your market as described above. Based on your research you'll either conclude that it is viable and create a strategy, or decide that actually, there really isn't a business there for you.
   
   Next you'll need a website that both ranks well in search engines and also converts visitors into sales. Essentially we're talking about three skills... website design (which very much includes usability as well as the overall look), search engine optimisation (SEO) and copy-writing. At all times, remember that you're selling to real people.
   
   Finally you'll need to launch your product - a good launch can create the appropriate buzz and gain the initial momentum you need. I say finally, but really this is just the start as you'll want to monitor progress and keep refining everything to ensure a successful long-term business.
   
   

How we're fixing it...

My client had a bad experience - she received poor advice throughout and saw no return on her investment. If I could give you just one tip to help you avoid the same mistakes it would be to ensure your web designer asks:

What do you want to achieve with your website - and how will you do that?

If they don't ask those questions, then you'll probably end up with a website and not much else. Anyway, I digress. These are the things we've been doing to make a success out of this venture...

First we took ownership of the website and domains - moving them to a free web-hosting company. It did cost to move them - but now there are no monthly fees. Free hosting is fine as long as you don't need anything fancy (which most people don't).

Next we did our market research and realised just how difficult a market it is to break into. However, we identified a small niche and are starting with that - more detail on exactly how this was done is coming in future posts.

Finally the website was redesigned taking into account usability, the (probable) need to make future changes and SEO good-practice. If you're looking for a stop smoking MP3 hypnosis session, why not take a look. The site was uploaded last week and was indexed (found) by Google 5 days later - entering the SERPs at number 12 for our chosen search phrase, which is a pretty good start.

The future...

Now we're going to be working to achieve higher placement in search engines and will also be promoting the site in various places, creating some buzz. From there we'll be tracking the results and refining the process to achieve better sales.

Writing this has been difficult as there's so much more to what we've already done and what we'll be doing in the future. That's why this post has focused primarily on providing the back-story (context) and strategies to avoid common pitfalls that so many people, through no fault of their own, fall into. We'll look at these strategies in greater detail as well as providing progress updates in future posts. Be sure to enter your email address at the top right of this page, so you don't miss them.

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