9 Tips for Creating a Mental Health Blog

9 Tips for Creating a Mental Health Blog

Whether you’re a social worker, psychologist, or another mental health professional, creating a mental health blog is a great way to take your expertise to a new level. Not only will an online presence help position you as an expert, but your posts or articles will add value to people’s lives – and assist you in establishing trust and rapport with your audience.

By sharing your knowledge online, you will reach more people, make a real difference, and potentially experience growth in your practice. As a busy professional you’re probably wondering how you can fit in yet another task, as writing takes time and commitment. Setting up a blog is not as challenging as you might think. Here are the steps you need to take to start a blog:

How To Start a Blog

1) Where to begin? A great place to start is to identify the purpose of your blog. You might want to establish your expertise in a particular subject area, help people who are unable or unwilling to seek therapy or attract clients for your practice.    Writing for clients. If you want to write for your clients, you might focus on practical advice related to specific issues. You can broaden their understanding, share problem-solving steps, and offer advice.

Writing for colleagues. You might share scientific research, your opinion on mental health topics, or summarize current research trends. You can include posts that offer advice on dealing with specific problems.

2) Set up the blog on your practice website. Your online presence should be professional and represent you and your practice – building your reputation and attracting visitors to your website. If you need a website and blog, and you’d rather not tackle it yourself, check out therapysites.com, brightervision.com, or therapistrising.com.

3) Record and research. Keep a notebook handy or use a digital platform like Evernote to write down client questions and issues for future inspiration. Pay attention to the news and listen for topical and relevant issues. Scan the newspaper, professional journals, and online articles. Check out sites like BuzzSumo or Quora to search for ideas, and regularly visit American Psychological AssociationPsychCentral, and Association for Psychological Science.

4) Batch time and topics. The more you write, the better you’ll become and the faster you’ll create posts. Maximize the time you have by dedicating time each day to writing. Turn off your phone, eliminate other distractions, and write.

If you focus on a specific topic, you can write multiple articles about a different aspect of that topic, creating a series of posts. Share the posts one at a time in order, and as you complete a post, use a “teaser” to create interest for the next post. When the next post is up, update the original post to guide readers to the next post. This creates a “sticky” site – preferred by Google, helping your online rankings.

5) Take the time. Write thoughtfully and spend time explaining, educating, connecting, and establishing credibility. A solid blog post has between 400-1200 words, and when it comes to SEO, research has shown that posts ranked on the first page contain an average of 1,447 high-quality, useful, and reader-friendly words. Also, spend time creating an attention-grabbing headline to entice clicks because your readers want to learn more.

6) Worried you can’t write? You probably have lots of writing experience – think of all the reports, progress notes, professional letters, and referrals you’ve written. But when you write blog posts, you will use a conversational tone to sound authentic and help people get to know you.

Remember:

  • Be yourself!
  • Provide useful tips and insights.
  • Connect with your readers.
  • Write as you would speak.
  • Make complex ideas accessible.
  • Establish yourself as the authority.

As you gain more experience, you’ll begin incorporating calls to action in your posts, prompting your readers to interact with your website (e.g., signing up for your email list, purchasing your book, completing a contact form, or visiting a landing page).

7) Repurpose and reuse. Your posts and articles are resources you can repurpose into client handouts, share on social media sites like LinkedIn, submit as guest posts on colleagues’ blogs, or even collate into an e-book. Be sure to respond to comments on social media and in guest posts. You might write for directory websites, but avoid copy and pasting the same article twice because having duplicate material will harm both sites’ Google rankings.

8) Make your posts easy to digest. Many readers will simply scan your posts, extracting the information they need. Many people will be reading your posts from tablets or smartphones. Reading is much easier when text is broken up with sub-headings, numbered lists, images, bullet points, and bolded or italicized words

9). Post Frequently and Consistently. How often should you post? Search engines love new, high-quality content. So, posting regularly is critical for good rankings – weekly is best.

If you’re still not convinced that it’s time to create a blog, here are reasons to start writing today!

· Establish yourself as an expert. If you specialize, a blog allows you to establish your authority on the subject. Discussing your field and offering advice is a great way to establish your expertise. Once viewed as an expert, you can use your blog to help clients online via counseling, coaching, workshops, courses, books, podcasts, and more. Participating in online mental health forums is another way to establish your expertise and direct people to your blog. You can build trust with potential clients and colleagues, spreading the word among therapists who may refer to you.

· Offer support. Your blog content might function as a lifeline for people who can’t afford counseling, or for whatever reason aren’t seeking the professional help they need. Your blog might even prompt people who need help to seek therapy. Writing about issues in a non-judgmental and caring manner while distributing evidence-based information – and helping people feel better! – is incredibly rewarding. You never know how your writing will positively affect others.

· Become a conference speaker. Using your blog, you can apply to speak at conferences. You might get paid to speak, but the exposure you receive might be sufficient. Paid or not, conferences are an excellent way to advance your career

Your skills and expertise are very much needed – particularly during these unprecedented times. There is a mental health crisis, people are struggling, and you have the ability to help by sharing your knowledge and creating educational and informative posts.

The Top Ten Elements for a Successful Practice Website

The Top Ten Elements for a Successful Practice Website

Your website is the first impression potential clients have of you and your practice. With just a few seconds to grab a site visitor’s attention, it’s important to know what the most important elements are as you create your practice website.

All practice websites should, at a minimum, include the following:

Professional and clean design.

Clear and concise copy to offer a sense of your identity, answer important questions, attract specific clients, and illustrate how you will help them.

Copy, design, and branding that authentically reflects you and your practice.

This article will review the top ten elements for a successful website – one that will capture the attention of future clients and impress your colleagues!

Professional and Attractive Logo. Your website represents your brand and business, so including a well-designed logo on your homepage is important. Logos are usually located in the upper left corner or the top center of a website. While it can appear smaller on other pages, make sure your logo is prominent on the homepage.

Appealing Headline. You want a clear and simple headline that captures the attention of visitors, letting them know they’re in the right place. Let them know who you serve and the outcomes you help clients achieve.

Organized Navigation. It’s frustrating to land on a website and find it confusing to navigate. Poor user experience leads to visitors quickly moving on. One way to avoid this problem is to ensure information is clear and concise in your navigation menus. Put only the essential pages in the main navigation and nest secondary pages underneath. Menu placement should be consistent throughout your site. Remember to minimize the links within site content to lessen visitors’ confusion.

Choose a Great Template. Use a website template or theme that is current and flows, with a primary photo that pulls visitors in and compels them to explore further. Use one attractive and compelling primary photo or graphic – giving weight to your content while communicating what your website and practice is about.

TIP: People typically read left to right, top to bottom, so when you use multiple photos of varying sizes and shapes, they might compete with one another and lead to a “cluttered” look and feel – confusing your visitors. It’s fine to use smaller images below your larger, anchor image – just be sure everything flows.

Focus on the Problems You Help Your Clients Solve. Imagine potential clients and how they feel as they search for a therapist they can trust. Create your content from that space. You might include a headline on your homepage that explains who you help and what you help them achieve, or you can include questions or bullet points to connect with your visitors. Let them know you relate to their pain or challenges. Here are some examples:

Is it hard to enjoy the present because you’re focused on past pain or worries about the future?

Are you ready to live with more joy and intention?

I help people reach their full potential.

You can thrive, and I can help.

Is there any hope of turning your relationship around?

Introduce Yourself and Your Practice. Clearly convey the benefits of working with you to connect with potential clients. On your home page, write a brief introductory paragraph about yourself, your practice, and some of the results a potential client can expect from working with you. This can be a lead-in to your more detailed About Me page, where you include a friendly, professional, high-quality photo and a lengthier bio. Be sure to include your specialties and all services or packages you offer.  Research has confirmed that adding photos to websites significantly increases the likelihood that visitors will become clients. “Real” images – not stock photos – have the strongest positive effect.

Call to Action. Include a clear and strong message with a button. Make it easy for site visitors to get in touch, sign up for a free eBook, or schedule an appointment. Maybe you offer a free 15-minute phone consultation? Whatever you offer, consider what a visitor needs to do in order to become a client – and make the next steps simple.

Contact Form. Potential clients want to contact you, so make it easy by including an easy-to-locate contact form. Just providing your email address is inconvenient, because visitors need to open a separate email program in order to contact you. In addition, publishing your email address so anyone can see it makes it easy for spammers to harvest your email address. Include your contact page in your navigation, and label it something obvious like “Contact” or “Book a Session.”

Mobile-Friendly Design. Did you know that in 2014, mobile internet usage exceeded PC internet usage? In other words, it’s likely that more than half of your potential clients will visit your website on their tablets or mobile phones! Make sure your website has a responsive design, which ensures your site pages will automatically resize themselves to fit smaller screens. Test your site using Google’s mobile-friendly tool and on your own mobile phone.

SEO Strategy. SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” and it is essential to your practice website because search engines are one of the best sources of visitors (potential clients!). You can learn SEO basics and hire a professional to offer feedback, provide oversight, and fill in any gaps in your knowledge. There are also free SEO auditing tools you can use.

Now you know what it takes to have a successful practice website! In a previous post, we discussed the importance of including a blog on your website. You can read the post by clicking here {add a link to blog post}.

8 Tips if You’re Considering Creating An Online Course

8 Tips if You’re Considering Creating An Online Course

We are living in the digital age, and there are many opportunities for psychotherapists, coaches, and consultants to develop and sell digital products via online platforms – including courses, e-books, downloadable PDFs, audio files, apps, and more. These digital products are a great way to earn passive income, and they can be based on the information, skills, and tools you share with your clients every day.

One of the most effective ways to share your knowledge and specialized training (and develop new and engaging content) is through a lead-generating, impactful online course – transitioning your practice from one-on-one to one-to-many.

It’s predicted that by 2025 online learning will be a $350 billion industry. You might wonder if you should create an online course, and you’re probably unsure where to begin. Here are the top 8 tips if you’re thinking of creating an online course.

1. Do some research. Your online course has the potential to solve very specific problems for people in your niche market. Perhaps you’d like to teach other professionals about your specialty area, or maybe you have insights about the best ways to network online. Maybe you have a great idea for an e-course for your clients that incorporates DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skills.

Your first step is to write down all the things you are good at or have specialized knowledge about. You might send an email to friends or colleagues and ask for their input. What is a skill that comes easily to you but seems difficult for others? What is something you love talking about so much that you could spend an entire day discussing it

Google your topic and visit course platforms: Teachable, Thinkific, LearnWorlds, Click4Course, Zippy Courses, and Kajabi, are just a few well-established examples. Does your course exist? What’s included in the curriculum? What is the cost? If your course idea exists, what’s missing that you can add to make it better?

Ask your target audience questions such as, “What are your biggest challenges?” “If I could help you solve one problem, what would it be?” “What have you tried so far?” “What do you think is keeping you stuck?”

You might post surveys in Facebook groups or ask colleagues out for coffee. Collect as much data as you can to dig in about the problems your potential students have before you create your course.

Market research is important! Why create a course that no one is interested in?!

2. Understand what is involved in course creation. Creating and marketing a course takes time and effort, but if you do the research and create great content, you can set yourself up for receiving a recurring passive income stream. The income generated by an online course isn’t guaranteed, and is partially based on the following elements:

  • Fresh, engaging, and relevant content.
  • Students are willing to purchase your course.
  • Appropriate equipment – for example, microphone, lighting, backdrops, and so forth.
  • The ability to hire someone or borrow equipment if you don’t have it.
  • Comfort talking on-camera – if you’re uncomfortable being on camera, start practicing if you plan to include videos of yourself.
  • Your ability to be personable, open, and engaging on camera (if you’re using videos)
  • The tech know-how – do you know how to edit videos or create slide shows (using iMovie, for example)? There are simple tutorials online that can help with editing.

3. Create great content. Don’t take shortcuts because a poorly organized or overly complicated course, or one that doesn’t offer a lot of value, will probably fall flat. Focus on creating a well-designed course that actually teaches something of value that your audience can’t get on their own by surfing the Internet.

  • Students have different learning styles, so consider including videos, PowerPoint or slides, audio, infographics, downloadable e-books, and images. Your content should logically flow, and the concepts should build on each other.
  • Create an outline of what you’ll include in your course – be as detailed as possible.
  • Add value by including your own experiences and subjective understanding.
  • Write your script, and though this is time-consuming, if done well it will make course delivery far easier.
  • Construct a bullet point draft of key points based on the script.
  • Pro Tip: Teach well-organized and valuable information that’s not available for free elsewhere.

4. Test, adjust and test some more. As you refine your course content, test, tweak, and test some more! Even though you’ve done your research, you still might want to share your course with a small group and make changes based on their feedback.

For example, you could offer part of your course as a simple 30-day challenge. Each day (or week), send your beta testers an email with information and action steps. Create a private Facebook group to receive feedback, discuss insights, and offer the next steps. Use feedback to continuously refine your course – to make it even better! You want your audience to come back and purchase future courses.

5. Always over-deliver. Your students will be more engaged and loyal to your brand if you go above and beyond what they expect. If you’ve created a course to help solve problems, understand that new problems and solutions are inevitable. Revise and update your course as needed.

6. Offer free content. When you give away a lot of great content, potential students will assume your paid products are exceptional – and they’ll be more likely to invest in a course with a higher price point. To position yourself as an expert and successfully sell your course, allow your potential students to get to know you and how you teach by offering valuable (free) content.

7. Cultivate relationships. Consider the relationships between you and your students, because as more and more people complete your course and experience success, they are likely to share with others. You might even incentivize past students by offering free coaching to those who refer new students to your course. In doing this, you will create a true sense of community and grow an engaged tribe (which supports your marketing efforts). When you take the time to nurture meaningful relationships with other therapists, coaches, and consultants, they will be happy to spread the word about your online offerings. They can also serve as mentors and collaborators in future projects.

8. Have a marketing mindset. Plan how you intend to sell your course once it’s live. As soon as you launch your course, let potential students know! How you go about this is a topic for another blog post.

Online courses are a fantastic way to expand your reach, engage with a new audience, create passive income, and add a fulfilling new dimension to the important work you do.

Resources

Online course software provides everything you need to create and sell online courses. Some platforms even help you manage your entire Internet presence, combining elements of a content management system (CMS) with marketing and customer relationship management tools (CRM). Other than the course platforms referenced in this blog post, here are some others:

Kajabi, Kartra (works well if you focus mostly on video content)
WordPress plugins: LearnDash, AccessAlly (courses + membership site), Course Cats, LifterLMS (offers a great free version)
Online course platforms that provide ways to author and assemble courses plus provide an existing marketplace to sell courses: OpenSesame, Skillshare, Udemy.