Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses

82 SEO for Counselors: In Conversation with Jenny Melrose

• Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor • Season 3 • Episode 82

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Unlock the secrets to increasing your practice's visibility and connecting with your clients on a deeper level as Dr. Kate Walker and SEO maestro Jenny Melrose join forces. This power duo offers a masterclass in optimizing your online content to not only reach but resonate with your potential clients. Prepare to be armed with the tools to create content that answers the real questions plaguing your audience, from parents grappling with children's ADHD to adults seeking self-improvement, while learning the art of transforming website visitors into loyal subscribers.

Step into the world of online counseling with strategies that extend beyond the therapy room. From morning routine guides to checklists for managing emotional changes, discover how to provide immediate solutions that forge meaningful client relationships. Dr. Kate and Jenny also explore income diversification for counselors—think online workshops and digital products—ensuring your expertise yields rewards even when you're not in session.

Finally, we navigate the dynamic landscape of social media, pinpointing exactly where to share your crafted messages to engage your targeted audience. I'll guide you in establishing content pillars that keep your topics fresh and highly relevant, especially for those counseling parents of children with ADHD. Whether you're selecting the best platform or devising your social media strategy, this episode is your blueprint for standing out in the digital space and making an impact where it counts.

Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

Speaker 1:

okay, get back. So we're stacked. Okay, am I in focus? I'm in focus. Right, I'll put my glasses on in a minute. Okay, sucked in a huge wad of spit. Let me try that again. Hey, it's dr kate walker and I'm so excited to have Jenny Melrose on today to talk to us about SEO and marketing. And Jenny is more than just an SEO expert. She is my business coach and I think she's marvelous and I can say without a doubt, without blinking, she has literally doubled my business income in the past 18 months. Hands down, made me more efficient with my marketing and anything that you see about me out on the interwebs is because she has taught me how to make sure I cut through the clutter and I get in front of your faces. So Jenny is the owner of and I'm putting on my glasses influencer, entrepreneur. She's a blogger, she's a podcaster, she's an influencer. So, jenny, tell us anything else I'm missing here.

Speaker 2:

Yes, no, kate. Thank you First of all, so much for having me come on and speak to your people. I'm super excited to be able to speak to more counselors. I think that their services are so needed, having had a daughter that has had all sorts of different services and needed that extra help, so I'm excited to be able to get help them figure out how to market better so they can get out there and just find the people that are needing to find them. I, like you said, I'm a business coach. I work one-on-one with people but also have group programs, and my kind of superpower is marketing and understanding, kind of, like you said, to how to cut through all of the crap and figure out what's going to work best for you and what you are trying to accomplish with your business, which can be very different from one person to the next.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and so I came up with some questions to ask you and, unfortunately, we did have to record this, so I'm going to be inserting things that will relate to ethics with counselors. So, counselors, listening to this, I'm going to talk about your website, copy what you have to have, what the state says you have to have, and so you'll see me kind of cut back and forth from the recording and plus, if I haven't already told you live, I will be taking your live questions, because this is a live webinar with a recording. So how cool is that? So the first thing I think at least comes to me and I hear this a lot, actually, maybe I noticed this because it's missing from the questions that counselors ask me how does blogging or creating content relate to SEO and getting found by Google?

Speaker 2:

Yes. So I think that this is such an important question. I think a lot of people will get scared off by the term blogging, because 10 years ago, blogging was you went and you talked about what you ate and what you did that day, and there was definitely just this kind of it wasn't very professional, it was just people putting up crap. It has very much changed, where now, when you are blogging, you are creating SEO, researched content that you are being able to put out there, trying to solve the problems of your audience in order to attract them to you so that they can see she or he knows all their stuff about this specific topic. They are the expert, they are the one I want to work with, and the way in which you do that is through that content. So a lot of people hear SEO, search engine optimization they get a little freaked out. Really, all we're talking about is doing keyword research, which means we're looking for terms that your people would put in, that they struggle with, in order to find you, because you're going to answer that problem. So if you deal with kids that have ADHD, what are those parents putting in? One of those pain points, and I want you to write an article that's going to tell them how to circumvent that problem. My daughter won't get up in the morning. Here's a chore chart. Here's different things that you can do. Five tips to get your ADHD child started in the morning.

Speaker 2:

That's a blog and a lot of people get scared off by that. They assume like a blog I got to do all these. No, it's a big piece of your marketing. It's putting out that content, because now what happens is when someone goes to Google, that mom, me goes to Google and puts in what do I do with my ADHD child? That will not get their butt out of bed in the morning your article is going to get presented. Google is going to pull it and put it in front of them because you've answered that problem for them. And now, once you have done that and they read your article and they're like oh, they really know their stuff. Now we want to get them onto your email list so that you can continually get in front of them with all of your content, including your paid products and services that you offer.

Speaker 1:

I love this. So I knew you were going to get to the call to action, right, okay, after they read it, now what? And counselors all just probably had a little collective shudder when you said and get them onto your email list, because you know, I know we all kind of go email list because you know, I know we all kind of go, ooh, I don't, I don't like email. You know this is I don't, I don't know about that. So I know you're going to talk about that, but before we do, I'm going to circle back, because counselors love to talk maybe right in terms of counseling counselor lingo like here's what depression is, here's what ADHD is, here's the DSM-5 criteria for and you're not talking about that, right, I mean, you're talking about what the mom, what you are looking for.

Speaker 2:

On the other, side, yes, your ideal person. What are they looking for? What are they struggling with? Because, you're right, I'm not going to put in those words, I'm not going to tell me the definition of depression. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm saying these are my symptoms, these are what I'm seeing. How do I circumvent this? What do I do? Those types of things?

Speaker 2:

You can break it down within the article and explain, maybe like some of the science behind it, because some of us want some of that research-based information. But you also wanna remember, like, who is your typical client that walks into your office? Would they want that? And if the answer is absolutely not, then there's no reason to put it because that's not your ideal client. They're not gonna want that anyways. That's totally gonna overwhelm them potentially. But if they do want that, then put in a little bit of it in order to answer that.

Speaker 2:

But again, like, the big key thing that you have to remember is what problem are you solving?

Speaker 2:

So, thinking about your key audience and who it is that you're trying to get into your office. Or if you're really smart and you've created a course, like Kate is, and it helps that same clientele because they're coming to you for a reason. But that same mom that has the child with ADHD may want a course that teaches them how to get them programmed and ready to go for the day and they don't need to have one-on-one services that are going to take time out of their day to drive them to therapy to then be able to go back and you're only seeing them for an hour once a week. Totally speaking from experience here, I may want a course that says mom, you still can do therapy, but here's some things that are going to help you to know what to say if she starts to go off this way or she starts to go off that way, and it can be that course that now you have a paid product, so you're diversifying the income you can make within your counseling business.

Speaker 1:

So the you, you took me in in two places. My brain went two places. Right, we're going to be, I can. I know right now we're going to be. I know right now we're going to have people listening to this who are brand new and they're like what do you mean? I'm not going to have a first session with these people. I don't want to put them off from right, but I hear you say so often how many times do we have to get things in front of people before they'll buy? I mean, this could be the mom who's gotten the first note home from school and they're not really sure and they're going to give it some time. They're going to talk to their physician first. They're going to talk to their neighbors and their right, I mean. So how many times do you? I mean, I don't know what you say, I forget. How many times do you have to get stuff in front of people? Really, do you think?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so people need to see things from seven to eight times. And that is just seeing it that you offer service. So one time of them seeing it in Google of you own a practice is not enough to get them through your doors. In order to get them through your doors, you probably have to have multiple articles that answer that. And maybe you've been lucky enough that you're servicing the public and you're in a Facebook group a mom Facebook group and you get mentioned that way.

Speaker 2:

It's that all of the different ways in which you can get in there 17, eight times, and I think I really want to emphasize the fact that it's not that you're not going to do one-on-one counseling with them. You still are going to do one-on-one counseling with them, but let's make more money than that and help them with some of the things that they need help with outside of the practice, especially if you're dealing with kids or you're dealing with a husband and wife, like there's certain things that the partner or the parent need to have as far as skills that are going to be able to help them with the patient that you have, and I think that that's really key. And I don't know, kate, if this is ever. I have a psych background, so that's actually where my degree is. I don't think I've ever told you that so, but that's where my brain goes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yes, Okay. So so tell me some of the things, cause you've mentioned pain points, and I know that's that's not a term that we necessarily think of when we're creating content. I'm speaking as a counselor now. So what are the pain points that a mom with an ADD kiddo is going to be Googling?

Speaker 2:

Cause this is what they're Googling, right? Oh, 100%. And, for those that didn't catch it yet, child with ADHD. So it could be anything from how do I get them out of the bed in the morning to why do they feel like they can't pay attention, what's wrong with their short-term memory? To why, all of a sudden, does she seem depressed? What is happening? Especially, I have a girl that's getting ready to go into the next stage of life. For her, and of course, that comes with lots of emotions, so the depression can be a piece of it as well.

Speaker 2:

It's just really thinking about that person that walks into your office. So I can think of another client of mine that you are very familiar with that works with police officers and their wives. And what are those police officers coming in to your therapy office with a problem with? Like that's what I want you to think about. Even if you do marriage counseling, what are they coming to you with the issues that they're Googling? I can't get my husband to listen to me. I can't get my husband to talk to me. Our sex life sucks Like. Whatever it might be that you address in your office. Doze the articles.

Speaker 1:

So you've answered my question that I was saving, which is do you work with counselors? And Jenny works with counselors. She speaks counselor, so she understands, like SEO for our stuff that people are searching for. So is this a good time to talk about the call to action?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we can definitely talk about the call to action, absolutely. So when we talk about when you're saying the call to action, kate, you're talking about when I talked about the idea of having an email and getting them onto your email and I can see you getting scared and I get it, because email for a lot of people seems like a techie thing, and you're talking to someone that's over 40 and techie things I hate, so I get it. But there are softwares as far as for email that will allow you to make it super easy. You have to have an email list, and I'm not talking about like they walk into your office and you put their name on a piece of paper. That's fine, you can still continue to do that. But if we want to do things bigger and better, we need to offer them something in exchange for their email.

Speaker 2:

When they are finding you online, when they find that article that is meant for the ADHD mom that has the child that's ADHD, she wants something that she can have, an immediate kind of like fix for her issues. So if she has found you and she has come to you because she's looking for how do I get my kids started in the morning, you're going to provide them with, potentially, a guide that's going to show them. Here's 10 things that you can do, and here's an example of a chore chart that you could use in order to show them. Here's 10 things that you can do and here's an example of a chore chart that you could use in order to get them going. And you can within that guide and when I say guide, it does not need to be more than 10 pages. This is something that you are simply making for those that are unfamiliar Most of you, I feel like, will be familiar as Canva.

Speaker 2:

It is software, again, that you can use for free, that you create images. You can create this guide there and it's simple and easy. And if you're getting overwhelmed, start with a checklist One page. Give them a checklist. You just wanna give them something. They feel like I can do this. It gives them that sort of relief that, yes, I want to hear more from them. I want to hear what else they have for me to do, and that's why they're going to continually come back to your site as well as come to you for your products and services.

Speaker 1:

So I'm the ADHD mom with ADHD kid which, by the way, I am and I've got my guide and I'm looking at this branded guide right, because the guide's going to have the counselor's name on it, right, and how to get in touch with them. And I'm now I'm bonding with this counselor, right? I'm thinking like, oh, this, this person gets me. So, whether I'm ready to book or not, I'm in a relationship with this person. At least it feels like it on my end, right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, absolutely. And if you are, there's so many next steps that you can take where you know. I again want to emphasize the fact that I'm not trying to tell you you shouldn't have people into your office. People that are wanting to get in person are going to find you in your area Like that's just going to happen. Coming from experience, I found my person, my therapist, in person for my daughter and there was no question of how I went about finding that.

Speaker 2:

But what we're looking to do online is to diversify, have other ways that we can have income so that we're not trading time for money where you have to be in your chair. You have to be in the office. You have to be in office having clients come through the door. Ideally, what we want to be able to do is make money in our sleep, even as a counselor. Offer a workshop that a mom can do at nine o'clock at night that you charged her 19 bucks for and she went and did it and you were sleeping at nine o'clock. There's no reason you can't do that and as long as you can get and Kate's going to talk about all the ways to stay compliant as far as like your copy and things like that, but diversify. Look at ways that you don't have to again trade time for money by it being one-on-one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because you're going to get found. I mean, if you do the things that Jenny is talking about, you will get found, you will get full, you will have a waiting list and that means, okay, now you've got these people on your waiting list, or, if they're not on your physical waiting list, they're hearing about you at the PTO meeting and they're hearing about you at the Kiwanis Club meeting and they're wanting more of you, the more pieces of you, and so this is something you've given away the guide. Then maybe they purchase the $19 course. They're with you, they're getting more of you and you're diversifying, like you said. I talk about the ethics of money and I'll probably hit pause and talk a little bit more about that during the live webinar, but this idea of diversifying outside of the therapy room is so important, and so I'm glad you're mentioning that that this means you aren't just seeing every client that walks through your door like a dollar sign, which there's a temptation to do, especially when things are slow.

Speaker 2:

Yes, no, it definitely gives you that ability to diversify and I've, like I said, I gave that example of another client that that was a counselor. I can think of another one that works with women that struggle with their eating habits and she's also no nutrition background, but she does the psychology behind it. Again, course workshop, there's a need for it. Those people are searching for certain issues that they're having and why not provide them with it? You have the degree, you have the experience, you're better.

Speaker 2:

I think one of the things that I've noticed people will struggle with, even my counselors, is that they feel like who am I the expert? They can go and do all their research and it's going to be like a edu, it's going to be a gov, it's going to be a psychotherapy magazine or it's going to be the mom that's trying to share the information based on her own experience, without the psychological background that you all have. So you need to speak up and walk them through things, because otherwise they could be going to someone that doesn't really have the background that you have, doesn't have the degree, doesn't have the education. So put it out there and solve those problems.

Speaker 1:

I love that. All right, so I don't know if this is the time for it, but I'm going to drop it in. Where does social media play into what you're telling us and teaching us about SEO and blogging and creating content?

Speaker 2:

Yes. So social media I'm kind of known for saying this social media is rented property. You cannot build your entire business on social media. That's why we're talking about blogging and email list. First and foremost. Social media is an added way. It builds awareness. It is much more difficult to get someone to take action from social media. Social media, again, is going to put you out in front of them. When we talked about those, seven to eight times, that's what social media helps do, because you can create content and then get found through social because you did something and it went viral. It was a reel, it was a TikTok, it was whatever it is, but people are less likely to take action as compared to your email and your blog.

Speaker 2:

So, when it comes to social media, I want you to think about again where are your people? If your people are 40-somethings, they're not on TikTok looking for information about their kid's ADHD. I'm going to tell you that right now, that's just. I'm not there looking for that. I am looking to space out. I am looking for it to be entertaining. I do not want to have to go to TikTok to do research about my child. I might look on Facebook because, again, I'm that certain age. Right, you got to think about the age of each platform. Facebook has an older audience, instagram has, like that, probably 25 to 45, even 55 audience. And then you've got TikTok, who's just much younger. They are 14 and well, probably younger than that and all the way probably like 25, I would say so if you have an audience within there, like when we were talking about my other counselor that works with women who struggle with eating she may have a younger audience. She's gonna go to TikTok and do content there.

Speaker 2:

It's deciding on starting with one platform, not all of them. Pick one that you know your people are going to be on and try to create consistent content. It is meant to repurpose what you are already doing for your blog content and your email content. It's not. You're going over to social media and creating brand new content just for that to feed the beast. That has no purpose. And the other piece of social media is there always should still be a call to action. Every post that you do tell them what they're supposed to do. That is the biggest mistake I see people make with social media. They get on just to kind of like introduce themselves, which is fabulous, but there's no way, they're not telling them how to interact with them. Whether it's to make a comment, whether it's to share, whether it's to hit you in the DMs with a question they may have, whatever it might be, you have to give them a call to action.

Speaker 1:

And that takes us back to the website that we're hoping is getting found, because it's been optimized using SEO, right? I mean, there has to be a place for them to go. Yes, Okay.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So social media again, I hear counselors say, well, I need to get a social media manager. That's going to be my next big purchase. And I'm like, ooh, but wait, you need to put some content out there. So I like what you just said, because I want to circle to the pillars idea, because you have just kind of blown my mind in the past six weeks with how you can take an idea and chop and slice and dice it into these other things, because I get writer's block. I mean I'm looking at this going, oh my gosh, how much more can I talk about what a supervision contract is? And then you taught me about the pillars and I'm like, oh, okay, there's my content. So, okay, talk to the counselor again who is they're specializing in women with ADD, with ADD kids under the age of 16. What are, what are some content pillars that they can come up with to create that content for blogs and social media?

Speaker 2:

Yep. So all content pillars are are the main categories that you're going to talk about. So if we go back to that ADHD child, what is that mom searching for? One is definitely going to be getting started getting moving to get them to do anything. It's like having a snail in the house. The other is likely going to be the inability to follow directions with attention. Right. They're gonna. It's gonna feel like you're saying things 85 times. How do I get her to listen quicker? Maybe the third is going to be trouble in school and what that is going to entail. There's a whole other thing, because now you're not, the mom isn't there, but there's obviously things going on in school that are a problem. So even if you have three content pillars, you can have four. I wouldn't go more than five content pillars, but it's categories of topics based on a problem.

Speaker 2:

So let's go back to that first category or pillar that I said with getting started. So now you don't have to just think about, like you talked about, we want to spider off of getting started for that child that has ADHD. Well, first we're going to talk about morning, because that's obvious, right. Then we're going to talk about transitions from one thing to the next, Then we're going to talk about after school activities and what that might look like, and then we're going to talk about maybe the weekends and how there's no schedule and that child's mind just gets blown and they're an absolute disaster because of it.

Speaker 2:

So, within that one pillar of just like I was able to spit off four of you four of them you obviously, as counselors, could probably spit off 18 other ones. That's what you're looking for. What are the little pieces off of it that you could continue to develop? Because I want you to talk about morning routines, I want you to talk about transitions, I want you to talk about school and I want you know within that. So you're really starting to try to think about how can I fully answer this question? Because the problem is getting started and that isn't limited to the morning.

Speaker 1:

Right, so you just basically filled out someone who's watching this. You've just filled out their calendar for about six months If they're producing a weekly blog. I mean, that's, you know, that's a ton of content, and I didn't ask you before about how long should a blog be.

Speaker 2:

It really depends upon answering the question. I have some posts that I would say are probably like maybe 750 words, and then I have other ones that are probably close to 5,000. It depends upon how much information you're going to provide them with and it might be that you end up what we call a cornerstone piece of content, which is just the main category content pillar of getting started, and within that getting started article you are linking to your article where you talked about the morning, where you talked about transitions, where you talked about afterschool, so that everything it's seen almost as like a resource to everything else that they need to know about getting started, and that type of article is going to be much longer.

Speaker 1:

Then it'll be like your 5,000 word or so the example I remember you giving me of cornerstone content was sourdough starter. Right, Because my cohort of my coaching, where I go to group coaching a lot of food bloggers, right. So this idea of I'm going to create a lot of recipes but I'm going to use sourdough starter, and so the link for these articles that I'm going to write about, you know, cinnamon rolls, or I'm going to write about how to do Thanksgiving biscuits, it's going to have sourdough starter in it and it's going to link back to the sourdough starter because the sourdough starter is my cornerstone content. So, whatever your cornerstone content is, so whatever your cornerstone content is you're, you know, the ADHD, the ADHD mom, the ADHD kid any article you write after that links back to that cornerstone content.

Speaker 2:

That's optimizing right, yes, and that is more high level. Honestly, I'm not going to like. I feel like that's something that you and I have been really diving further into in probably the last three months even, and you were already ranking for things. So for those that are going oh my God, what in the world is going on? There's so much information being thrown at me. Start basic, start with those problems and then, as you continue to build out content, then you're going to be able to create that cornerstone concept piece, because you need all those other little tiny pieces off of it before you can get to the cornerstone anyways.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so talk about let's back up then, because I know everybody understands ranking. So when you say that I'm ranking for something, I know that I'm ranking for online 40 hour LPC LMFT supervisor training in Texas. I know that I rank for Kate Walker training what?

Speaker 2:

do you mean when you say ranking for blank? Yeah, so it's. You're trying to come up first in Google and for those of you listening and going all the how well, what? When you Google something, you want to be on the first page. You want to be in the first 10 suggestions that they give. You're often going to get beat out by anythingedu and anythinggov. That's just the way it is, because they have a higher domain authority because of it. But your ranking you want to be in those first 10 suggestions made by Google and we want to even get up as high as we can Third, second, wherever we can get underneath those edu and gov. And you're trying to make and the way in which you do that is answering all the questions that someone would have about that topic and that's what Google is looking for. Are people staying on your page? And when they do that, that is a signal to Google that, hey, people feel like this is answering their question. It needs to continue to rank or move up in ranking.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so they write the blog that answers the question or addresses the pain point. The call to action is at the bottom and it's a click here or something like that. Yep, and the click will go to collecting an email or getting them to some sort of a guide or something like that. So, yeah, so this may sound really silly, but I know that there's a counselor out there thinking so this link means they're going to email and blow up my inbox.

Speaker 2:

No, okay, definitely Good. I'm glad you thought they would be thinking that. No, the link that we're putting in there. When I say we're trying to get them onto your email, all we're doing is giving you their email, so now you can start to send them regular emails when you create new content. So when you create that blog post about a morning routine, you can now email them and say, hey, struggling with getting your child started. There's a couple few tips that you need to know in order to get started, find out more, and that clicks through the blog post. And then, within that blog post, maybe you have a workshop or whatever it is that you can then offer them as a paid product. But when we're talking about email, they're not going to email you unless, of course, you want them to, which that's a different portion of your website, like your contact form.

Speaker 1:

It's a whole nother story here, but you are getting their email in order to email them about what you offer. Excellent, okay, so hang on just a second. Let me see how I'm doing on time.

Speaker 2:

What question am I not asking? Oh, kate, you threw me off with that one. I feel like we've answered a lot of the questions. Honestly. I think we've kind of like we can go into a ton of depth. We've obviously you've worked with me for 18 months and we continue to have things to talk about, so I think that that is like a big piece of this is that there's always ways to continue to develop.

Speaker 2:

I will say, as far as the social media piece, pick one, test it out. Pay attention to how others within your industry are using it to see what works. If you see one of another counselor has a reel that goes viral, that's relevant, not her complaining about her husband or complaining about the laundry not getting done, but is relevant to counseling and what you counsel about. Look and see what it was that she did or how she went to go about doing it. Because social media is constantly changing, it is going to feel like a hamster wheel. So putting it out there and just trying to get consistent with it is going to be key. But the first place you need to start is that blog content and writing that email.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. And if people want to ask you questions, how do you want them to tag you?

Speaker 2:

connect with you? Yes, so you can email me, jenny, at JennyMelrosecom. I'm happy to answer any questions, or you can send me a DM on Instagram if you're more comfortable with that. My Instagram is at jenny underscore melrose. I do like I said. I work one-on-one with clients. I also do group programs and I also have courses that teach you. If you're looking for getting started on blogging, I have a course called Blog Like a Pro that walks you straight through it to really get started and confident with it, and then all different elements that you can add in with time Excellent.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate this so much, and I know you're going to get tagged and asked all the questions, and I'm going to get asked questions that I don't know the answer to, so I will bug you about those as well, and we'll make sure to get all these counselors informed about how to get found in their communities to solve all those problems, because your community needs you All. Right, this is Dr Kate Walker, and I will hit pause and then talk to you in real life in just a second. I don't know how I did this stuff, but