Transform Your Psychology Today Profile into a Client Magnet

Want to transform your Psychology Today profile into a client-generating machine? 

In this episode of the Therapy Business Podcast, we reveal actionable strategies to make your profile stand out. Through professional headshots that reflect your unique personality and carefully curated content, you can make an unforgettable first impression. We’ll also cover the importance of consistently updating your profile—especially as your practice evolves—to create a seamless journey from search to scheduling, ensuring you convert more visitors into clients.

But that's not all. Imagine reducing no-shows and building stronger connections with potential clients before they've even set foot in your office. We share the magic of leveraging video content and other online listings to create that sense of familiarity and ease. 

 Listen as we dive into professional experiences and personal stories that highlight how well-executed videos can instantly enhance your practice's reputation. 

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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl

Chapters

• 0:00 Optimizing Your Psychology Today Profile
• 11:50 Maximizing Your Therapy Practice Presence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Psychology Today is one of the top ways that therapists get clients. Just having a listing on there can get you noticed on Google, can help people find you more easily, and it's an opportunity to really differentiate yourself from the crowd. That said, differentiating can be difficult because it is so popular to list on there that it's pretty crowded. So today we're going to talk about ways that you can make your profile stand out to help you book more clients. My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.

Speaker 1: 0:45

This is the Therapy Business Podcast. All right, we've got a lot to unpack this episode, a lot of value that you can add to your profile. But before we dig into that, I just want to ask if you have been enjoying this show, if you have gotten value out of it. Would you please help us out by giving us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify? Or if you're watching us on YouTube, subscribing, hitting that like button, just helping get us out there to be more visible to other practice owners. All right, let's dig into psychology today and how you can vamp up your profile or your team, because, likely, if you are a therapist, you probably have a profile, and if you have a team of clinicians under you, ideally they're going to have their own profiles as well. Psychology Today is, at this time, $30 a month to have a listing, so it can be one of the most cost-effective ways to market yourself and get yourself easily accessible to other people.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Now, if you're a brand new therapist, this is usually the first thing you're going to do, and those of you who are seasoned veterans, you know, thinking back, that probably Psychology Today was your starting point. That's the first place you went to because leads were slow. Now, as you're growing, you've got a website. You're hopefully improving your SEO. You've got referrals. You have a lot of other lead sources coming your way. But because Psychology Today is so affordable, typically we see that most practice owners don't let it go, unless there are reasons. Maybe they're just really honing in on who their ideal clients are. They're trying to filter people more easily and Psychology Today may just be a little bit too exposed, exposing them too much to too many people. But, all that said, I'm gonna to assume that you are using it and if you're not, you might consider just starting again or looking into starting your own profile for the first time. Now, for those who do have it, let's talk about ways that you can revamp your profile If you're not getting the amount of leads that you would hope for. If you feel like the ones who are coming in are just not qualified or not good fits, or maybe they're submitting a request and reaching out for help and then they're ghosting you. You're never hearing back from them. There's some things we can do in your profile to help you be found more easily and to help convert and make that pathway from search to scheduling a lot smoother.

Speaker 1: 3:02

The first thing you want to do is have a quality headshot. Now, I know this might feel obvious, but you would be surprised how many pages have just that little gray silhouette or they have a fuzzy, blurry picture. They have a picture that doesn't really attract people. So a quality headshot really means just having something that is professional, that showcases your personality. You don't need to be buttoned up and not showing who you truly are. But what we don't want is a photo of you, let's say, a cropped photo of you, where you know those photos, where it's like a family picture, and you crop everybody out, and so there's you, and then there's somebody's shoulder just sitting right next to you. So we don't necessarily want that. That's not ideal. We don't want selfies. Ideally don't take a selfie and post it on there.

Speaker 1: 3:53

And there's a ton of those on psychology today. Again, it's such a little thing, but there's something subconscious about when you stumble on somebody's profile and you see some professionalism in their headshot, that's their first gut reaction. I remember searching myself through psychology today and I would look at people and before I would even click on profiles, before I'd even read anything, I'm a lot of times looking at their pictures because that is the instant. Whether we want to admit it or not, we judge books by their cover. We're trying to see who do I feel like, looks like they know what they're doing, who might be able to connect with me, and then I'm going to start reading more about them, because otherwise there's so much information I'm trying to read through as I'm scrolling.

Speaker 1: 4:33

The picture is typically the easy go-to, so it doesn't mean you have to go pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for quality professional headshots. You can just have somebody with a good phone camera take some pictures of you, you know, just up shoulders and above. It's not hard to do and I would, like I said, somehow showcase your personality. So, for example, when I started my business, my first website had me wearing ties, me buttoned up, and that's just not who I am. That's not who I am. The clients I want to attract know that I'm a t-shirt guy. I'm a t-shirt, I'm a hoodie guy, and so when we redid our website, if I had a button up on in a picture, it was a more casual one and I definitely didn't wear a tie and I took photos in my t-shirt because that's who I am. So that showcases my personality a little bit, whereas when I first started I'm going oh, I'm a finance guy, I need to look like a guy from finance, so let me whip on a tie and try and impress people. So showcase your personality a little bit. Have something that looks quality and professional and you're already light years ahead going to be further along than most of the people on psychology today. Now, once people see your photos and they're clicking on your profile, this next piece is to have an engaging bio. Now this is where they're going to learn a little bit more from you. So the process would be they search, they see you, they click and then this next phase is let me see what they do, what they solve, who they are. So this is really your chance to get them to take that next step Now.

Speaker 1: 6:03

In a recent episode, we talked about ways to revamp your website and in that we talked about targeting all your messaging towards your ideal client. So in this blurb, this is not an opportunity for you to talk about your life story, talk about all your credentials and your acronyms and industry jargon that they're not going to understand or truly care about. This is really a chance for you to speak into their pain points. What are they struggling with? Who is your ideal client? What do you specialize in really well, and then speak into that. Talk about how you know what they're going through. You can speak about what the common problems are, because as you articulate those in your bio, they're going to feel seen, they're going to feel like you know what they're going through and they're going to more trust that you have guided other people through it as well.

Speaker 1: 6:51

I typically say, with this, of course, you want to add a little bit about yourself, because it's such a relational connection, it's such a relational engagement that we want them to get a little piece of who you are, because they're going to want to know who is this person. So typically a good rule of thumb is 80% client focus, 20% about you, and usually the about you is a personality sharing. Again, if you want to mention your education, that's okay. I would just do it very, very minimally because, truthfully, people don't care about that. People don't care If I went and hired a personal trainer and he's trying to tell me all about his degrees and his licenses and all these different physical exercise things, whatever, I don't care about that. I'm like okay, do you have washboard abs? Can you help me get washboard abs? That's what I really want to see and so that's what these people want to see too.

Speaker 1: 7:42

So listing your acronyms, listing all those things to an extent for their benefit, is not really going to help them move forward with scheduling with you. So focus on them. I would say, start with their pain points and then paint that picture of what life can be like as a result of therapy. So really walk them through that and, again, avoid that industry jargon. Once you have a good, strong bio, then we're going to add in a clear call to action. You would be shocked how many profiles don't have a clear call to action.

Speaker 1: 8:14

They don't have an easy way for someone to get in touch with you. People don't know what those next steps are. They're wandering around, they're clicking on links that go to dead websites. So, really, really important what is their next steps? And if you can, even verbally at the end of your bio, just lay it out, that makes it 1000 times easier. So what do you want them to do? Is it to schedule a consultation? So that's really what it should say. It should say if you're struggling with X, y and Z, schedule a consultation so we can get you the help you need. And drive them there. Click this button or go to our website and click the button to schedule a call. Whatever that process is, make it clear, write it there. Have links readily available. Really, take advantage of that opportunity to drive them straight to booking with you. And then here's what's super important and again I talked about this in ways to convert more from your website, but it's true here too, have them go straight to your calendar. Have a way for them to book themselves on your calendar.

Speaker 1: 9:19

What we don't want is somebody to have to go fill out a form, a contact form, wait for you to get back to them, to then try and schedule them and put them on your calendar right. Do you see how there's just all that unneeded, unnecessary work in between? And then worse, typically when they're searching on psychology today, they are at a peak point. They are at a point of I need help, and so them plugging into your calendar at that moment is going to. That's action taken. To see you, if what I've seen this thousands of times in our business somebody late at night is stressing about money, so they will schedule with us. If we didn't offer that opportunity, maybe when they wake up the next day they've submitted that contact form. We reach out to them the next day, but they've slept. Last night they were really stressed about the money. Today they're still stressed, but it's not a freak out moment anymore and so maybe they don't get back to us. They see that email from me and they're like I'll do that later. It's no longer a priority. We want to capture them while it's a priority. We want to get them onto your calendar. Get them while they're hot. So really focus on making that transition easy, that clear call to action. Throw it on your website all over the place. So if you're linking them to your website from Psychology Today, call to action all over, making it super clear on what to do, and then I urge you to have them scheduled straight to your calendar, to your clinician's calendar, whatever it is to schedule that consultation call, all right.

Speaker 1: 10:44

The other thing that would really help with your Psychology Today profile is video. I am such a proponent to video. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast on Spotify, apple or wherever you listen, it's also a video podcast and I put it on YouTube. I'm a big fan of video and what we do and what you do. Again, it's a relationship and so when people can see you, that breaks down some of that barrier, some of that nervousness, some of that unknown as they get ready to hop on a call with you. It sets you apart. So, having a video, when somebody's scrolling through all those profiles in Psychology Today, they find you, then they can watch a video and they can get a much better sense of who you are, how you speak, do you come across as empathetic, do you come across as somebody who understands, or do you come across as rigid and strict? So it's going to help really showcase who you are and that's going to bring more people in. Not to mention, I always recommend having your background where you work, where you're going to be for that consultation call.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Make those videos there so you can see here, if you're watching on YouTube, that this is where all my videos happen and this is also where my consultation calls happen. And so we've been doing YouTube videos for years and we get a lot of clients through those videos and when they come on they feel like they know. It's almost like sitting down in my office with me that they have been a part of for a long time Because they've been watching our videos. So when you have that, they're going to come on to your consultation calls already feeling at ease because again they recognize the scenery, they recognize the room and now it's just them sitting down in an office. They probably feel like they have been in before. So that's going to help bridge that gap. Video also makes you a person. It makes them realize that you are a person that they're scheduling calls with. I have seen this help tremendously with no-shows when people can see that you are a human being on the other side of this digital wall which the internet can make us forget. That when we're booking on a calendar, there's a human on the other side who's blocking time on their calendar for you. So video, video, video will really help tremendously.

Speaker 1: 12:55

Psychology Today as well. If you accept insurance, make sure that you're adding all the insurances you accept. Keep that up to date. So this is something great. If you have an admin on your team, maybe once every quarter they're going in and updating Psychology Today with any changes and maybe there's not many but updating your insurances, updating any links, checking everything to make sure it's all working, updating any copy that if you're changing focus or you added a new focus that you're doing, update those things. But insurances keep those listed and apparent, because if you're accepting insurance, you want people to know. That's a lot of times the first thing somebody's checking. If they know that you're gonna pay through insurance, they'll scroll down to the bottom to see what insurance does this person accept. So make sure you're keeping that up to date.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Finally, the last tip I have here is to diversify your listings. What I mean by that is there's other listings out there, while psychology today is the top one I would say in this industry, there is a whole list of them. I'll link in the show notes below where you can go to see a list of other listings that you can post on, some of them free, some of them paid. Research them a little bit to see is that worth the money? And truthfully they're usually low cost enough we're talking $10 to $30 a month that you could test it out for three to six months and just track. Have I been getting clients from this listing? Is it worth the investment or not? Pinpoint the ones that are the best, keep those and then keep trying new ones to see. How can we get out there more?

Speaker 1: 14:22

Psychology Today really is, and I have zero affiliation with them. I'm not singing their praises because I know it's a hit or miss. So it's. Some therapists love it. Some don't get a whole lot of value out of it. Really, like I said, the main benefit is it's 30 bucks a month, so it's kind of hard to even if you get one client a year from it. Usually you're going to make your money back. It's going to put you closer to the top on Google. It's going to make you more findable in certain zip codes that you target and certain areas that you target, and you're going to catch a lot more people, because when they search therapists in my area, psychology today is typically the top search result on Google, and so that's usually where they're going to go.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Again, I remember when I was looking for my therapist, that's exactly what happened. I searched therapists in my area. I went to psychology today. That's the first place I went in my area. I went to psychology today. That's the first place I went, and so everything I'm talking about here is not only experience that we have in coaching our therapy practice owners. It's personal experience on the consumer side. It's the process, exact things I was going through, the things I was looking for.

Speaker 1: 15:32

I was looking at their photos. I was reading in their bio to see about them. Not only about them, but how can they help me? I went through into their photos. I was reading in their bio to see about them. Not only about them, but how can they help me. I went through into their websites.

Speaker 1: 15:40

I literally watched videos, and if they didn't have a video, it wasn't a selling point. If they had a bad video, that was usually not good. So what I mean by bad. I saw somebody's and bless them. Maybe I should have messaged them and said, hey, heads up your video. They didn't edit out the outtakes, so they would start talking and then they'd be like, oh I messed up, okay, hey. So it's like they had their video and they had multiple takes and they just didn't splice it out. So that's where checking your listing and double checking it and having your admin go through and watch those again to make sure that it's all good is so important In those videos and I know I'm circling back to them now, but try not to be too buttoned up.

Speaker 1: 16:29

It's okay to have a script. Practice it enough so that it flows fluently. It doesn't feel like you're reading off of a screen, all right. So psychology today. Take advantage of this. I'm sure I'm missing some other tips and ways that you can revamp them. I would love to hear them. So shoot us an email, just info at dacycoachingcom, and I would love to see any other tips you have. Maybe we'll revisit this. There's probably a whole four or five more that we could talk about in a future episode. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.