Killin’ It By Doing Your Own SEO with Jessica Tappana | FP 126

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On this therapist podcast, Jessica Tappana talks about Killin' It By Doing Your Own SEO

How can you improve your SEO to boost your rankings on Google? Have you considered doing your own SEO? Where does one start?

In this podcast episode, Whitney Owens speaks with Jessica Tappana about doing your own SEO.

Podcast Sponsor: Therapy Notes

An image of Therapy Notes is captured as the sponsor on the Practice of the Practice Podcast, a therapist podcast. Therapy Notes is the most trusted EHR for Behavioral Health.

Is managing your practice stressing you out? Try TherapyNotes! It makes notes, billing, scheduling, and telehealth a whole lot easier.

Check it out and you will quickly see why TherapyNotes is the highest-rated EHR on TrustPilot with over 1000 verified customer reviews and an average customer rating of 4.9/5 stars.

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If you are coming from another EHR, they make the transition really easy. TherapyNotes will import your clients’ demographic data free of charge during your trial so you can get going right away.

Use promo code ‘JOE’ to get three free months to try out TherapyNotes, no strings attached, and remember, telehealth is included with every subscription free. Make 2022 the best year yet with TherapyNotes.

Meet Jessica Tappana

A photo of Jessica Tappana is captured. Jessica is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the founder and Owner of Simplified SEO Consulting. Jessica is featured on the Faith in Practice Podcast, a therapist podcast.Jessica Tappana is the founder and owner of two small businesses, a psychotherapy private practice in Missouri called Aspire Counseling and a search engine optimization company for mental health professionals called Simplified SEO Consulting.

As a successful group therapy practice owner herself, Jessica understands the importance of marketing your practice and getting your name out to the right potential clients. That’s why she created Simplified SEO Consulting, to help therapists around the country move up through the ranks of Google and get connected with more of their ideal clients.

Visit the Simplified SEO Consulting Website and connect with Jessica on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Check out Simplified SEO’s courses and use promo code “Faith” for 20% off any of their DIY SEO courses!

Sign up for the free 7-day SEO email course and join the SEO Mastermind!

In This Podcast

  • What is SEO?
  • The first steps of doing SEO on your own
  • Find resources to follow
  • Jessica’s advice to Christian counselors

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is what you can do to positively influence your rankings on search engines like Google.

If a client searches keywords that link with your practice or business, optimizing those keywords can help your company’s name appear on the top of the first pages, which helps you to land more of your ideal clients.

Search engine optimization is any change you make to your website or anything you do outside of your website where you are trying to influence those results so that you show up hopefully on the first page when … [your] ideal clients search [online]. (Jessica Tappana)

The first steps of doing SEO on your own

Start with your website. You need to have a website that you like and that is easily navigatable for your clients.

Create a website – or have a website created for you – that you feel comfortable making changes on by yourself.

Getting comfortable [with your website] and learning how to make a new page and how to change elements of it is going to be step number one … the basics. (Jessica Tappana)

Then, add content that speaks to your ideal clients. Have three to five service pages on your website that discuss all the services you can provide to your clients.

Go in-depth, and write about 700 words about how you treat and work with each pain point that your ideal client struggles with.

Find resources to follow

Search for some free material that you can follow and learn from.

There are lots of resources available online such as email courses and videos to watch that can teach you quick tricks and hacks to improve your SEO on your own.

You can consider taking another step further and purchasing a short course to follow, or some consulting, to boost your SEO ranking faster.

If you have the time and interest and you think you are going to do this long-term that’s when it’s really worth investing a lot into learning how to do this yourself. (Jessica Tappana)

Jessica’s advice to Christian counselors

You can do hard things, whether that is learning SEO or how to write a meta-description. You can learn to take risks and trust your gut, even when it is scary.

Useful links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

Meet Whitney Owens

Photo of Christian therapist Whitney Owens. Whitney helps other christian counselors grow faith based private practices!Whitney is a licensed professional counselor and owns a growing group practice in Savannah, Georgia. Along with a wealth of experience managing a practice, she also has an extensive history working in a variety of clinical and religious settings, allowing her to specialize in consulting for faith-based practices and those wanting to connect with religious organizations.

Knowing the pains and difficulties surrounding building a private practice, she started this podcast to help clinicians start, grow, and scale a faith-based practice. She has learned how to start and grow a successful practice that adheres to her own faith and values. And as a private practice consultant, she has helped many clinicians do the same.

Visit her website and listen to her podcast here. Connect on Instagram or join the Faith in Practice Facebook group. Email her at [email protected]

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[WHITNEY OWENS]
Welcome to the Faith in Practice podcast. I’m your host Whitney Owens recording live from Savannah, Georgia. I’m a licensed professional counselor, group practice owner, and private practice consultant. Each week through personal story or amazing interviews, I will help you learn how to start, grow and scale your practice from a faith-based perspective. I will show you how to have an awesome faith-based practice without being cheesy or fake. You too can have a successful practice, make lots of money, and be true to yourself.

Welcome back to the Faith in Practice podcast. I’m looking forward to this interview today, because I have my good friend, Jessica Tappana with me. I know that you’ve heard her on the before. In fact, I think this might be number four, because I did have that round table. So I’m excited to have her on the show. I’ve had people tell me before some of their favorite episodes are the ones I do with Jessica. I’m just going to be honest, there’s some mine too.

All right. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you that myself and Alison Pidgeon are going to be a free webinar. You can head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/bank to register for that. It’s going to be March 2nd at 1:00 o’clock and we are going to tell you all about how to make bank by starting a group practice. Alison and I have been helping people start in group practices for years and so in this webinar, we’re going to go through all the steps of helping you to actually make money instead of just spending money by starting a group practice. Head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/bank, and we’ll be hanging out with you on March 2nd at 1:00 o’clock.

Today on the Faith in Practice podcast, this is episode 126, and we’re going to talk about how to kill it, doing your own SEO. That’s right. You actually can do your own SEO and Jessica has done her own SEO and she can tell you how to do it. But let me give you some background information in case you’re meeting her for the first time. She’s the founder and owner of two small businesses, a psychotherapy private practice Missouri called Aspire Counseling, and she owns a Search Engine Optimization company for mental health therapists called Simplified SEO Consulting.

As a successful group practice owner herself Jessica understands the importance of marketing your practice and getting your name out there in front of the right potential clients. That’s why she created Simplified SEO Consulting to help therapists around the country move up through the ranks of Google and get connected with their more ideal client. Jessica, thanks for hanging out with me today.
[JESSICA TAPPANA]
Yay. Thank you for having me again. I always love being on your show and it’s just fun any chance that we have a chance to hang out and call it work.
[WHITNEY]
Yes, girl. I’m excited today because we’re going to talk about SEO. I never thought I could do my own SEO and you’ve already taught me lots of little things and so I’m excited to start sharing that with other people. I know so many people who’ve worked with you in your company who have done their own SEO, all the way through their website and I’ve always been really amazed. So why don’t you first talk a little bit about what SEO is just in case somebody’s listening and doesn’t really understand what that is and then we can go into how can somebody actually do it themselves?
[JESSICA]
Search Engine Optimization is whenever somebody types something into Google, does a search and Search Engine Optimization is just what we can do to influence where you show up on in those search results. So at the top there’s those ads. That’s not really what I’m talking about when I’m talking about SEO. That’s a little bit different, but underneath those ads, those organic search results. Search Engine Optimization is any change that you make to your website or anything you do outside of your website where you’re trying to influence those results so that you show up, hopefully on the first page, when those clients, your ideal clients, the ones that you’re really excited to work with, when they enter whatever search that they enter into Google; may be when they do that, you want to be there.

You want to be front and center and putting your best foot forward so that they click on your website and of course end up calling you. I’m a really big believer that when we have a steady stream of calls, we, as clinicians can be a bit more choosy about taking on the clients that really energize us and that we really enjoy working with. Really that’s where my passion for SEO comes from. That’s the power of it is, to get to get those right calls coming so that you can make sure that you’re not just taking any client because you don’t know where the next client’s going to come from, but you’re taking the people that you’re truly excited to work with and that you really know that you can make a difference in their lives.
[WHITNEY]
Yes, thank you girl. I like that. So important. I can even attest even in my own practice, when I first started, I didn’t know what SEO was or what I was doing. I know you can empathize with me on that. Then I started a group practice and it was going okay. Then once I got to know you and I learned more Google and Search Engine Optimization, it has been the foundation of my group practice. So many people who don’t want to ask for a referral for therapy in my town, I’m in Savannah, people know people and so a lot of people are nervous to tell anybody, because then someone’s going to tell somebody. So if so many find us through Google and if I didn’t work on the SEO part, the group practice definitely wouldn’t be as full as it is. So anyway, if you’re listening to this episode, you’re going to really be able to learn a lot and be able to really help your practice move forward.
[JESSICA]
I think that there are, one of the best pieces of marketing advice I got super early in my practice was to find what fits with your view for your practice and that you’re going to hear a lot of different marketing techniques out there and hear most people say that they’re the absolute best and you absolutely must do X, Y, Z in order to have a successful group practice. So you won’t hear me say that because I think it’s like figuring out what works for you and for some people they would prefer to build their business through just networking or that sort of thing. But the truth for me, what worked best for me was to learn SEO myself.

t’s what I did after my kids went to sleep and I was working, I was doing DBT and trauma work. So I was working with some really intense clinical cases. There also was something for me, nice about learning to do my own SEO in that it wasn’t as emotionally intense, I guess. So I was able to really, like after a full day of intense counseling clients and a full night of parenting sit down and just think about something else and think about my website and think about this whole other way of doing things. For me, this felt like a really natural way to build my practice. Like you said, for me too, it was when I transitioned from solo group that the SEO became so necessary because people were calling to talk to me and I’m like, but I’ve hired this amazing 1099 at the time.

People just wanted me because they heard through word of mouth about me personally. Then when they started finding us online, then they started calling for Aspire and I can take that time to be like, and I think this therapist actually is the best fit. We became very focused on fitting clients and therapists based on who fit the best, not necessarily who the personal referral was. So that was a huge advantage of SEO for us and growing and growing my practice. We now have nine clinicians and everybody stays pretty full and it’s working for us. So we’ve enjoyed now the last few years being able to help other people with it.
[WHITNEY]
Definitely. So people are always asking me how do I know when to delegate something out and how do I know when to pay someone for it? How do I know when to do it myself? I mean, ultimately what I say to people is do you actually want to do it? If you don’t want to do it, do you have the money to get someone else to do it? I love Jessica, how you are so passionate about SEO. You just basically told me after I work all day, the thing that makes me happiest is to sit and do SEO.

That’s what I love about you. It’s like you wanted to do it. So let’s just talk people through it. Let’s say there’s somebody listening right now that has just started their practice. They want to get SEO going. Let’s walk them almost down a timeline, that’s not really the right way to say it, but walk them down the process of doing it on your own and how can you do it on your own and then move from there.
[JESSICA]
Okay. So I think it really starts with the website. If you’re going to do Search Engine Optimization and you’re going to get people coming to your website, you’ve got to start with having a website that you really like. I would recommend, and I would say along with those lines, one that you feel comfortable making changes on. So working on designing a website that you’re happy with a lot of times that’s outsourcing but not always. If you’re going to build it yourself, I highly recommend Squarespace as a platform. It’s pretty good SEO-wise. The best SEO-wise is WordPress, but most people do outsource to a website builder or developer for that.

But regardless of whether you hire someone else to do it or you make your own website I think just knowing, getting comfortable with it, getting in there and learning how to make a new page, how to change different elements of it is going to be step number one. We got to start with the basics, because if you’re afraid to touch your own website, then it is going to be hard for you to do much from an SEO standpoint. There are still things you can do, but yes, it starts with being willing to get in there and learn how to do, how to make changes on your website and then adding content that really speaks to your ideal clients.

I recommend that a solo practitioner has maybe three to five service pages, usually more like three to four of their absolute favorite things to work with where you go super in depth. I’m talking 700 words of content about specifically how you work with anxiety or specifically how you work with OCD or those specific things. Then getting some really good content around each of those. Group practice owners may have more service pages. We tend to have, each of our clinicians has certain things that we know they’re really good at, or we know they’d like more clients are that do X, Y, Z, or that are looking for help with X, Y, Z, and so want to create pages for those specific clients.

So a solo practice is only going to have a handful and then a group practice may have, I’ve seen many, many service pages on some group practices. Some try to keep it narrowed down for how they look, but having that great content on there really is the first place to start.
[WHITNEY]
Great. I know there’s lots of videos and blog posts and ways that you can do your own website. I actually did my own website and I know you did too, starting your practice. I think a lot of people do that. Then I grew up and realized that I really didn’t know what I was doing. All right, let’s say somebody has figured out their website. What would be the next step?
[JESSICA]
The next step, what I like, what I encourage people to do, we actually have a free seven-day email series where each day I show up with a little video and some written text about how to do things. I recommend finding something like that. Or I have a blog on SEO concepts. There are a lot of other people out there. I would recommend finding a free resource and just trying your hands at a couple of things that we talk about. One of those, one of my favorite things I love to talk about is writing meta descriptions. It’s like this little bitty puzzle where you have to summarize an entire page in just about two sentences. So it’s super big challenge for me because I’m really wordy.

Try a couple things like that. Is this a fun challenge where you’re getting sucked in and losing track of time because it’s so exciting or do you find yourself just avoiding sitting down and doing it and you maybe sign up for our free email series and never actually read the emails? If you’re someone that no matter how much you tell yourself I’m going to sit down and I’m going to read, to watch these little five minute videos, or I’m going to read this book blog post and try to implement it and you just find yourself never able to convince yourself that this is something you want to do, then it might be one of those things that you can quickly outsource as soon as you’re able to budget for it.

But if you’re like me and you’re like, oh, what is a meta description and halfway through this episode, you’ve already got out your phone, do a Google search for what is a meta description, then you’re probably someone who’s going to really enjoy learning to do this on your own. It’ll save you money. But I think that the best case scenario is you’re looking to save money and you get excited and try to implement some of these things right away. You’ll want to implement it totally imperfectly. When you’re trying to do this on your own, whether you’re using a blog post or a little video or one of our smaller courses you’re going to implement it incorrectly or imperfectly at least.

At first that’s okay. It takes practice. I remember that’s really how I learned. It was like, I would hear one little tip on a podcast or somewhere, and I would go research for hours, what is a meta description and practice writing it on like a thousand pages of my website in a night. Then a few weeks later I’d hear about the importance of blogging and how long a blog should be. So I’d go write a few blogs and the next I’d hear about subheadings and oh, what on earth? How does that have to do with SEO? So if you find yourself getting sucked into those resources, but you’re still getting frustrated with it, then maybe you look at something like a mastermind. We have a small group training mastermind type thing that we do or we offer one-on-one trainings or a bigger, more expensive course. You can look at going further down that rabbit hole, but start with the small and just see if it’s a fit for you?
[WHITNEY]
I think you bring up a good point, thinking about your motivation, definitely. But I’m also thinking about how do you enjoy working? Do you enjoy working on your own quietly? Do you get motivated by yourself or by a challenge or do you need people? Do you need people to come alongside you? Because I think that would help people figure out which community and which way to learn is the best.
[JESSICA]
Yes. I think that that’s a really good point. The funny thing, when I started Simplified SEO Consulting, I actually envisioned it almost all being training. That’s why I’m so excited to talk about this today because what ended up happening is so much like a huge part of our business now is actually people outsourcing to us and what we call our done four year program. We love that. I have an amazing team that does just, they’re all smarter than me in their own way, by the way. That’s the key to my business that’s been hiring people that are better at many of these things than I am. But what I actually envisioned to begin with was doing these different types of trainings and giving people a bunch of options. What I always wanted was one place that I could go to and get all of this information.

So we have a lot more resources, honestly, in our field right now, if you’re wanting to learn SEO than we had four and a half years ago when I was getting started and I think taken advantage of that. Some people, I’ve gotten really sweet kind emails from people who all they ever did was our free email series and our blog posts and here they are recommending us to their friends and sending me kind words. They have that motivation and that’s the way they learn. Other people want to demoed on the screen. So they do better with our courses. Then, like you said there’s the whole the like, okay, I do it better when I’m bouncing ideas off a group and it’s super fun right now.

We’re finishing up our first mastermind. By the time those airs will be filling up our next mastermind group and watching people come together and talking about let’s use this tool together and let’s support each other and share our wins. So for a lot of us, we learn more that way. Then we have our standard, I love teaching people one-on-one and meeting them where they are, where some people would prefer that one-on-one accountability. So once you figure out that this is something I’m interested in, then the next question is what fits you the best based on your motivation, based on how learn, similar to how we learn so many other things in life; is just figuring out what way works for us personally,
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[WHITNEY OWENS]
Well, let’s talk about all the services that you offer, because it sounds like when I think of Simplified SEO, you really can meet people in a lot of different places and the different things you offer based on what they’re interested in and how much they want to work. So can you walk through the programs with us?
[JESSICA]
So I believe if you survived grad school that you can figure out how to do Search Engine Optimization. I think that there are a lot of people that make it sound really like a whole other language. And it is. Honestly four and a half years into this, I have all these different complicated words in my head that I had no idea what they were a few years ago and I’m learning new ones every day. But the truth is that you can do hard things if you made it through grad school. So what I like is just to meet people where they are, to meet you where you are and say okay, let’s give you options.

So some of our options, like I said, we have that free seven-day email series that’s just some basics; here are a few concepts, a few very specific things that you can do. If you just implement everything in there to the best of your ability that will make a difference. Then we have DIY courses, we have one that’s the huge mother of all courses that we try to keep super affordable. All of our DIY courses, I try to keep really affordable, but also try to do it where I’m describing how to do it and showing you on screen to our paid courses, like demo how to do it, usually on Squarespace and WordPress. But even if you’re like, oh, even if you have like a website or a GoDaddy website or show at website you can take those same concepts and look up how to do it.

Then we have other masterminds, which we’re really excited about. That’s a new thing. That’s a new thing this year. But small group training where you’re working directly with with a couple of us to, in a small group format to provide each other that support and comradery, “Hey, I tried this, have you tried that?” It’s also a little bit a lower price point than our big package. But we want to try to deliver similar value just in that small group format. Then we have the one-on-one training, which I think of I’ve been told as also like an accountability coaching type thing where every week we’re giving you very specific assignments. Then the first thing you do when we meet again is show us what you’ve done. Then we look at the data to see the impact of that before teaching you something new.

That’s a 12-week program where we work really intensely for 12 weeks. You’re at the top of my email, you get email responses before anybody else, because we’re trying to just give that really intense individualized attention for about 12 weeks. So those are the options. It’s really which one really just depends on what level of support feels right to you personally, and to your business and where you are. But I think the biggest thing is just knowing that if you find this interesting, if you are committed to doing this, you know, we have some people that do training and then six months later, their budget opens up and then they pay us to do done for you.

We’re always happy to do that, but I would rather like the training, if you have the time and interest and you think you’re going to do this long-term, that’s when it’s really worth investing a lot in learning to do this yourself. Some people do a combination. We do some work, but they do it themselves as well. But I think if you are interested, if this does sound fun, if it does sound nice to have this other part of your brain working outside the clinical work, once in a while, just knowing that it is possible. There’s a lot of really intimidating sounding words when you first start learning SEO, but if you stick with it, you can learn those concepts. Maybe not all 200 plus ranking factors on Google. You’ll probably never learn all of those. None of us work on all of those but you can learn to work on enough of them to start moving the needle for your Search Engine Optimization and get ranking more often and get more of those clients calling.
[WHITNEY]
Yes, definitely. So if somebody is starting out in their practice and they’re on your email list, they’re using all your free resources, can they tell a difference in their website by just doing those things?
[JESSICA]
Yes. I mean, it depends on a lot of factors. If you have, my favorites are when like you’ve had the same URL, you’ve been in private practice for like 10 years, but never done Search Engine Optimization and you’re in maybe a less competitive area then, yes, just doing those is going to make a huge difference. If you’re in New York city or LA or even parts of Florida they’re much more competitive. So it might be harder to actually start seeing a super noticeable difference. So I think that’s where you might get it frustrated if you’re just trying to implement the things that we’ve done in our free resources, but not had someone there to guide you. You may start to feel frustrated like this isn’t worth it. I can’t learn this.

What I would just say is those are really competitive areas and your technique has to be much better and done in a much more intentional way to get ranking in some of those more competitive places. I just mentioned some of the most competitive, but really more and more of the United States is becoming competitive. Even some of the, it used even, I remember the first time that we worked on a site in London, it was actually really easy. So even some of the other places as abroad are getting more competitive. So if you’re not getting the results with just using the free resources, then it may just be that you’re in a more competitive area and are going to have to do more and perfect your technique. So then you need to ask yourself, do I enjoy this?

If you enjoy it, that’s when it might be time to start investing in our paid services, like our mastermind, our 12 week program. We can work with you more intentionally on either some different ranking factors or teach you some new skills or on perfecting the skills you have to make a bigger difference. Because we do notice the people do, especially in the more competitive areas are going to need more support to get ranking, but at least you’ve tested it out enough to know if this is fun for you and what you’ve found is every time that you open up the backend of your website, your brain’s ready to take a mental vacation. Then at least you’ve tried enough to learn that maybe this is something that would be better for you to outsource.
[WHITNEY]
One of the things I love about simplified is you do like a call, a pre-consulting call so people can know what you’re doing, and they can make a decision and you can give them a recommendation based on their price point, based on their practice need. So it’s not like they have to go into it blindly. You can really look at their website and give a honest, good recommendation to them.
[JESSICA]
I can’t do, I haven’t taken the statistics recently, but I want to say it’s probably close to half the people where we actually don’t necessarily recommend that they move forward with a paid package after that first call. What we re recommend is that they either do some things first or use some of the free resources or maybe one of our smaller courses at first because we want people get the best value. We get enough calls, we stay busy. What we’re more interested in is figuring out what you need for your website to reach your goals. So, yes, that’s why it’s really important to us that we offer that call. It’s very important to us. That’s on Zoom so we can share screen and look together at your website and talk very practically about like in order for you to get good return on investment, this is what we recommend you do different.

If that is investing right now in Search Engine Optimization from a done for you perspective, or like, hey, we’re getting ready for this new mastermind and you seem like you’d be a good fit. Or if it’s, maybe you try this first and see if you like it or here’s a blog post. Try implementing this, see how it works for you. Or even if it’s, well maybe it’s time to talk to your website developer about making some changes or making some changes on your own site. We’ll give you pretty straight up our recommendations and go from there because we want people to build their practices in the way that makes the most sense. Also as a practice owner, myself, who is very careful about where I invest my money, I want to make sure that I’m giving you the recommendations that I would want somebody to give to me.
[WHITNEY]
We did our own SEO for my practice for a long time and then we took the course, the 12-week course, like the do it yourself. I was amazed that it doubled our visits to Google. We already had a lot of visits and I just couldn’t believe the change that it made. So I can attest to the work of simplified just by taking a course. That wasn’t even like doing a mastermind and working closely with somebody. So if you’re looking to improve your ideal client, like who you’re working with to really work with that person, or maybe, or wanting to just increase your overall client load or grow your practice, I encourage you to reach out to Simplify SEO Consulting.

Another question I get, just for what it’s worth, I thought I’d throw it out here, a common question I get is when somebody’s thinking about starting a group practice, and they’ll say to me, well, I want to invest in SEO, but I also want to start a group practice and I’ll say to them, okay, well, how many clients are you seeing right now? They’ll say, I’m completely full. I’m like, well, if you spend your money investing in SEO, you’re not going to have anywhere to feed these people unless you’re just wanting to hone in on your ideal client. But if you start a group practice and then invest in SEO, you’ll have somebody to give all those clients to because you’re going to explode in your practice, if you start working on your SEO. So I do encourage people, if you are thinking about starting a group practice, basically, if you’re going to invest in SEO, just expect your practice to grow and have some space for it. Don’t put a bunch of money into something that you really can’t benefit from and help clients with.
[JESSICA]
But knowing too, the Search Engine Optimization takes time. So if you just hired someone and you want to now invest in SEO and tomorrow get ranking and get them full, that’s not super realistic. So I think it’s both and yes, start hiring people. Quite frankly I did and I think that that was the right move. But also just knowing that SEO takes time. So that’s one of those places where if somebody does a call with us and they’re at that point, or we might be like, okay, here’s some things I want you to do as you bring someone on, for instance. If you know haven’t invested in SEO much yet, but you’re going to down the line, when you bring on your first few clinicians, have them write some blog posts.

We’ll talk about how to talk to them about that so that they come on, they’re creating content that you’ll optimize, content that’s already directed at their ideal client. In the meantime, you can be sharing that on social media when you do get calls and you’re in that spot where they were referred to you personally, but you actually think that, so and so’s a better fit for them. You can email them and, “Hey, so and so actually wrote a blog post on three ways to better talk to your wife. I’m going to send it to you to help market them.” To me, there are some of those happy, medium things that you can be doing that will eventually help your SEO, and that will set you up for SEO but while you’re still adding the people that you’re going to try to fill up.

Those are some of our favorite practices to work with, are those are in that huge growth phase where it’s like we added some people. So usually the first thing we ask is, okay, your new clinicians that don’t have anybody yet, or that only have a few people and you want fill them out, let’s start with focusing on their specialties. Who do they love working with? You’re full. That’s fantastic. We don’t need to get you more clients yet. We want you to have a steady stream when you need them. But if you know that so and so you’ve gotten them to about five clients, but you really want to see them full, and we know it takes months to do SEO, the first question I’m going to ask is, well, who does so and so really like working with? If you can send me a couple blog posts that they’ve written as imperfect as they are, you had to like pull it out of them, it will go so far. Also us understanding your new clinicians well enough to help you really highlight them.
[WHITNEY]
Yes. Thank you. I’m really glad I asked that question. I appreciate all your tips there about group practice and SEO and bringing those two together. So you’ve got a discount here for people today that are listening to the podcast. Thank you, Jessica, for that. She’s offering 20% off the DIY SEO courses if you use the code Faith when you purchase. To get the links to everything, you can go the show notes. You can just go the simplifiedseoconsulting.com website. You can join that seven-day email series where you’re going to get free tips to go ahead and start doing SEO on your website.

If you haven’t done anything at all, just go and get that email list and do the things and see how you like it, see how it’s working. Then the mastermind group, I know people that are in it that are already loving it. So if you’re interested in having someone walk you through the process of doing your own SEO, check out that mastermind group, simplifyseoconsulting.com/seomastermind. Did I get it all Jessica?
[JESSICA]
I think so. This has been fun to talk about, because yes, I just really believe that if people want to do it themselves, they can.
[WHITNEY]
Yes, definitely. All right, so I’m going to ask you what I ask everyone that comes on this show, what do you believe every Christian counselor needs to know?
[JESSICA]
I wish that I could go back and listen to all my responses. I’m so curious about what I’ve said each time, but I think that just today what’s on my heart is just this idea that you can. You can do hard things, whether that’s learning SEO, whether that’s like for me, I was learning how to hire people; that through prayer and reflection and consulting with people that you trust, you can do it. You can learn when to take risks and how to trust your gut even when it’s scary. Just don’t underestimate yourself.
[WHITNEY]
Good advice. Well, I am looking forward to hanging out with you in April at the Faith in Practice conference. Simplified SEO Consulting is one of our sponsors. So I’m looking forward to hanging out with her and she’s going to be bringing somebody with her to also help out with SEO. So it’s going to be a really good time. If you want to see if there’s still tickets, this was getting recorded after we’ve already started selling tickets, but go ahead and go to practiceofthepractice.com/faithinpractice conference. We’re going to be hanging out in Jekyll Island in April. So I’m looking forward to it, Jessica.
[JESSICA]
Me too. It’s going to be amazing. I’m so excited that you’re putting this on. I think that it’s going to be a blast. So come hang out with us folks.
[WHITNEY]
Definitely. Well girl, thank you for coming on the show again today,
[JESSICA]
Anytime.
[WHITNEY]
We want to thank our sponsor today, Therapy Notes. To get three months free head on over to the Therapy Notes website and put in promo code [JOE], J-O-E. Make 2022, the best year with Therapy Notes.

Thank you for listening to the Faith in Practice podcast. If you love this podcast, please rate and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast player. If you liked this episode and want to know more, check out the Practice of the Practice website. Also there, you can learn more about me, options for working together, such as individual and in group consulting, or just shoot me an email, [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Faith in Practice is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts that are changing the world. To hear other podcasts like Empowered and Unapologetic, Bomb Mom, Imperfect Thriving, Marketing a Practice or Beta Male Revolution, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.