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Abundant Practice Podcast
Episode #683: Why Authentic Websites Work Better, feat. Ellie Miller
00:27:16
joins me in today’s episode to talk about showing up authentically in your marketing and why it matters for therapists. We dig into simple, effective ways to uncover your natural writing voice—like gathering feedback from loved ones and paying...
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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Alison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy filled private practices. Just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support. Go to abundance practice building.com Links all right, onto the show. So I've talked about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep. But there are a couple things I want you to know about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script. First is that they actually care if you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for. Like Therapy Search, an included listing service that helps clients find you internal and external secure messaging. Clinical outcome measures to keep an eye on how your clients are progressing. A super smooth, super bill process. Real time eligibility to check on your client's insurance. In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that? Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up. Innovation plateaus. Making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus. With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months free@therapynotes.com with the coupon code Abundant. Welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm your host, Alison Per, founder of abundance practice building.com and I'm here with Ellie Miller, who runs Ellie Miller design company. We're going to talk about websites. We're going to talk about what your website needs to have, how you need to communicate on it, maybe even some common mistakes people make so that your website can actually work for you. Because I'm sure, Ellie, you and I both see lots of websites that absolutely do not work for anyone.
- [02:26]
A
Yeah, yeah, totally. What's the best place for me to start, you think?
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B
Well, I mean, I'm just kind of curious. I love an origin story. So like, what got you into design? I know you're a therapist. What Got you into designing websites too.
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A
Yeah. So it all started when I made my first website because I know we have to have a website that's pretty much all I knew. I didn't know anything else about it. I also have, you know, a creative, artistic background, so I fell in love with this part of the marketing process. So anytime I was procrastinating on networking or any of the harder stuff, I just spent hours and hours into my website. I was like, redesigning it fully once a month just for fun.
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B
Which was.
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A
Enjoyable, but maybe not the best use of my time. So I started to have other therapist friends, like, ask me to help them with their website. So I'm like, okay, maybe that makes more sense to spend that time towards that. And yeah, just got in a deep rabbit hole learning about all the user experience, all the science behind what works in websites, what doesn't, like what to include, the order things should be. And one of my favorite deep dive things I learned about was authenticity and how to show up authentically on your website. So I thought it'd be helpful to talk about that today because I think it's a really powerful thing we can do.
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B
Absolutely. And it feels counterintuitive for a lot of therapists. I know. Because of our training, we're just supposed to not be human beings.
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A
I know.
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B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
I would say, like, the first iteration of a lot of people's websites is way more stiff.
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B
It's stiff and it's like there's a trying to prove yourself that.
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A
I see.
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B
Exactly. That is like distancing ultimately, because nobody wants your five dollar words. Your five dollar words make people feel stupid. Nobody wants to hire the therapist that makes them feel stupid.
- [04:24]
A
Yeah. It's distancing. I think it causes a lot of burnout on our end because then we're feeling like that. That feeling that we have to prove ourselves carries into the first few sessions. And that's training. So if you just show up as yourself at the beginning, you just get to be yourself and wear less masks throughout.
- [04:43]
B
Yeah. And I. I mean, I think about authenticity being tough for a lot of people in general. Right. Like, yeah. How many of us had really good parents who were like, just go to this social function, just be yourself though. Right. You know, and it's like, I don't. I still want to show up as the person that people want me to be. So I'll be liked, so I'll be accepted, so I'll be chosen.
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A
I know.
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B
We've got that layer too.
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A
Yeah. It's a bit of a leap of faith. But I, I just have found through experience, the more you show up like you, there's people that are really going to connect with that. They're really going to thank you, you know, 100%. We need all kinds and people who.
- [05:18]
B
Are not going to be interested in you as you show up as your authentic self.
- [05:22]
A
That's great information too, right?
- [05:23]
B
Fantastic. Because those probably aren't your people. Like, they're the people you would feel so awkward with in session. We want to call in our. Our people.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And it's like such a spiritual, emotional practice along the way as well. Like. Yeah, the more you do that in your marketing, you get to get better at that in real life, which is great.
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B
It's really fantastic Personal development. This whole like having your own business.
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A
Thing that all of it is right. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So would it be helpful to talk about some of the exercises I found most helpful?
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B
Yes, that'd be awesome.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I love an actionable thing. Thank you.
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A
Okay, cool. So I'm going to break it down to like how to find your brand voice or your authentic voice, what to do with that information and how to apply that in your writing. So the first exercise that I find to be really helpful for myself and the people I work with is to. This one's a fun one. I like it. This is an easy check off one. So you pick like three to five friends or family members who you feel comfortable with and you send them an email asking a few questions, saying something like, hey, I'm working on my website. I'm trying to sound more like myself. Can you give me some feedback on some of these questions? And you could include things like, what adjectives would you use to describe the way I communicate? Are there any specific words or phrases that I use A ton that really make you think of me? Is there a certain way I leave you or people feeling after we communicate? And then something like, yeah, is there anything unique about me and the way I speak that stands out about me? And I say this is fun because you just get emails back with all these compliments and like, what's special about you? And it's always nice to have that because a lot of the private practice building is comfort zone pushing. So I like sprinkling in. Just fun one.
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B
I love that. Yeah. And it, it also helps you see how you come across in ways you might not realize.
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A
Exactly. It's so hard to self judge some of this stuff.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So, yeah. Yeah. So once you get those emails back, just Start tracking any patterns you're seeing, anything that rings especially true to you, and jotting that down. The next exercise is to go through casual communications that you already write naturally. Areas where you don't have that self judgment filter on as much. So that could be like personal social media posts or DMs. It could be emails with friends. My favorite one to do is just texts with friends. So you just take out your phone and pick three to five people that you text with regularly, the ones that you're not, overthinking what you're going to say or worrying about their response, like the easy ones, and scrolling through those conversations, looking at how you write naturally. And some things you can scan for are like, how do I say hello? How do I sign off in conversations? How do I say how are you? Like checking your version of some of those common phrases? I also like to look for some people call it like you isms or me isms, like those phrases or words that you're always saying. Like, I noticed that I end a lot of words with S, I, E S, like, oh, cutesies, funsies, like, so that's natural language for me. But you'll find things that you say that are like, oh, I do do that a lot with my words. And those are fun things to sprinkle into your copy throughout to like make you sound human and like yourself.
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Yeah.
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A
And another thing to look through with that is like your style of writing specifically. Like, do I capitalize words a lot? Do I bold things? Am I a big ellipses user? Are you like me and you way overuse exclamation marks? Or like, which emojis are you using most frequently? So I think that can be helpful. Some of those pieces of that styling can come into your website copy as well.
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B
Yeah, yeah. I have always used a lot of EM dashes and now that's so associated with AI that I'm like, I swear I wrote this. Oh, no. Yeah, it's all right.
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A
What do you do? Are you gonna switch it up or just stick true to yourself?
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B
I don't know, I. I kind of play with it sometimes. And I also do a lot of parentheses, like.
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A
Yeah, like asides.
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B
Yeah, like I'm full of asides. I know I have to edit out.
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A
A lot of asides. Yeah. Okay. That's your style. Yeah.
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B
And I love this because, like, we all do have a natural writing style. I think when therapists sit down to write website copy, those are website copy is the words on your website. Yes. When people sit down to write Website copy. They. They kind of come from this more academic place as if they're writing their dissertation. And so they are associating this field with stuff people don't actually want to read. No offense, y'.
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A
All. No, it's true. But that's. Yeah, it's such a natural starting place. Like, I get why that's where we start.
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B
Yeah. But I love that, like, you say and go through and, like, look at the emails you've sent your friends, look at your social posts, like, you already know how to write.
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A
Yes, yes, yes. You totally. Yeah, it's there. And then the last exercise I'll give is a pretty common one, but recording yourself, speaking, transcribing it, doing voice to text, and answering the questions you're answering on your website, the questions that potential clients are trying to find the answers to. So what do you do? What's your style? What does a session with you look like? What are the next steps? And with that one, I would recommend, like, doing it a few times, because I think at first, when we're recording ourselves, we still have some of that filter, but I think if you do it a few times, it drops a little bit and you can start to see again. Just gathering information about patterns, style, tone, frequently used words or phrases. And you're just really compiling all this information from the exercises and seeing the common trends that you notice.
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B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting, too. We get so in our heads when we are, especially the first time we're writing for a website or we're building our practice, we get so in our heads about it, and we just so significantly doubt that what might feel natural is. Right. Right. Even though that's who you are as a therapist. Like, how you show up in the room is how we want you to show up on your website.
- [11:59]
A
Right, exactly, exactly. That ultimately, is the final filter. Reading through something like. Does this sound like something I would say in a session?
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B
Yeah. One of my favorite things to do is read my copy aloud. Yes. If it feels wrong in my mouth or it sounds dumb or creepy or, like, stilted in my ears, then I'm like, okay, this isn't like, this missed the mark.
- [12:21]
A
Yes, it is. That's like the number one filter.
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B
Yeah. And I mean, like, I've written a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. And I still find things when I read them out loud, you know, It's a really good, easy, free tool.
- [12:35]
A
Yes. Easy peasy. Yeah. Yeah. I notice you're so good at writing and your voice and all your, like, emails Your what? Like, I know this is my interview. I'm curious, like, if you have anything that's helped you with the authentic voice and, like, getting to that over time.
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B
I mean, I've been doing it so long, just practice doing it for over a decade, so. And I think I am kind of a writer. Like, I love to write.
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A
Yeah.
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Emails are one of my favorite things that I do.
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A
Yeah.
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B
In my job. So. I do really love to write, and I always have. And I will say, like, writing more authentically always came much easier to me than writing academically. So for some people, it's most. I don't know about most people, but a lot of therapists I work with, they. They retrain their brain in that academic way with their writing. And that was just kind of like pulling teeth for me the whole time. Have to do it anymore. I had, like, written copy for our website for our counseling and psychiatric services at the university I worked for. Yeah. I think I'm just lucky that it came a little easier to me. But having written for that, I, you know, that that's an organization.
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A
Yeah.
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You know, there's a big we there that is more formal than me.
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Yeah.
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So I think over time, I've learned I. I also give myself permission to mess up, you know.
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Totally.
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I don't think I'm going to do or say anything that's going to get me canceled because I don't think I have cancelable thoughts or feelings. Yeah. Yeah. Let's knock on wood.
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A
Yeah.
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You know, who knows?
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I don't want to jinx you.
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Yeah. Yeah. But I think just being, like, sometimes people will be like, oh, I didn't. Like how, you know, you excluded or you didn't say or whatever. And, like, that's just good feedback. Yeah. Willing to take the feedback.
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Yeah.
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And I want to say, y' all listening probably are not going to get that kind of feedback because you don't have an audience of tens of thousands of people like I do.
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A
Yeah. It's a little scared of that different risk level. Like, the risk is much lower. Yeah. And I also noticed you do a lot of, like, storytelling in. In your copy. And that's another. Especially with, like, the rise of AI writing. Like, that's one thing that you have.
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B
Over AI, And I think that's something we really, as human beings, we connect to stories more than anything. And I keep looking at the ways. I don't hate AI. I think that there is a place for AI, But I keep looking at the ways that we as individuals who know our Clients get results because of our relationships with them. Right. Like all the data says it. Like, we've all heard this since grad school. Like, it keeps being reinforced. Which is why I'm not afraid of AI taking our jobs.
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Exactly.
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Um, but I think with the rise of big therapy tech, there is risk of these companies who have far more money for advertising than we ever will, to get the lion's share of the clients out there.
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Yeah.
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But what they can't do is connect individually the way we can.
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Yeah.
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Like, our websites are going to be so much more compelling than you have space for in your little blurb on one of those big therapy tech sites.
- [15:43]
A
Yeah, it's so true. Yeah.
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B
Really like looking at your website as probably your most valuable asset in your marketing, in your practice. Like, I think of all the other marketing strategies as responsible for getting people to your website. But that website needs to work.
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A
Yeah, it needs to work. It needs to build trust. You need to seem like a real person that they can feel comfortable with. So then, like, once you kind of go through some of those exercises and distill all that information, I find it really helpful for people who don't feel as natural writing in their normal voice to distill it down into like an authentic voice cheat sheet or like a brand voice cheat sheet that can just be in your Google Docs when you need it. But I like to include things like top three adjectives that describe my brand voice, my you isms, me isms, things I say a lot. Phrases I say a lot. Just notes on, like the general tone of how I write. And then also including like a list of no, no words or copy. Especially if you're using AI to kind of draft stuff. Like you're going to need to know right away certain things to scrap out that are just so off. And I also like to do a little conversion table of one side are those common words or phrases in everyday language. Hello, goodbye, thank you. And on the other side, it's like translating that into your language. Like, how, how do you say that? Do you say most people don't say hello. Like you're gonna say something like hi with five eyes. Or like, oh, hey, you know, like, how are you actually saying that when you see your friend? And you can have all that information for any copy you're writing, blog, emails, social media. And then like, how to use that cheat sheet. I either like have that out before I'm writing copy or after is like a touchstone to check, like, am I in line with this? And then again Speaking of AI, one way I found it to be really helpful is using it with like one of your copywriting templates, filling that out on your own and then editing it in Chat GPT with your voice. Say like, hey, can you help me tweak this? My. To sound more xyz using some phrases like X, Y, Z. And don't use words like this. And that's obviously like not a final copy. It's just a draft still. But just another tool to like take some of the energy off and make it sound more unique.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think about the. A lot of people, especially people who don't consider themselves writers who are not comfortable, will go straight to ChatGPT and be like, I'm a therapist, Write me a homepage.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And it's terrible.
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A
So generic.
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B
It's so generic and it's so cheesy. I don't know why the default of ChatGPT is cheesy, but it is.
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A
It's so cheesy. Even when it's doing like it's voicey version of it. I'm like, yeah, too much, like tone it.
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B
Yeah. There's definitely like finger guns.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like if Chat GPT was a person.
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Totally.
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B
And so to know that you're going to have to edit heavily if you're using AI.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It can be a tool for editing. Like you said, like you can create something, have it edit, then you're editing that edit and it is honing it. It's getting better and better.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But it's a lot more work if you start with Chat GPT.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Because then you're basically like scrapping all of it.
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A
Yeah. How do you feel about the idea of like starting with a template and then voice as a. Yeah, I think.
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B
A template can help.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I think there's just so much heavy editing.
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A
There's still more. It's not the end. Yeah.
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B
If it's, you know, if we're selling widgets, I can see how it might be fine. Yeah. But we like ChatGPT knows a lot, but it doesn't fully understand human emotion like a therapist can. It never will.
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A
No.
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B
Not until it becomes sentient and, you know, starts dating humans and such.
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A
Oh, God. Started already a little, right?
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B
A little. But it can't, it can't understand the way we do. It's what makes us as therapists, such better marketers than like any other group of people out there. Like, we know what our people think and feel. They tell us.
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A
It's so true. Yeah.
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B
It's like we have the Cliffs Notes.
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A
We really do. We don't have to go out and do like market research. Really. It's like naturally happening in our day to day life. Yeah, man. Do you, do you come up with against people like being afraid of sounding too authentic on their website? I have, I bump into that sometimes too. People worried about being too much or.
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B
Yeah, I, I hear it from select groups of people. Some of it are the people who are just afraid of being seen. Yeah. And so like starting a private practice is a real internal journey. Totally. Because there's so much putting yourself out there. I mean it's like those, those consultations feel very therapeutic in a lot of ways. Right. And I have to remind myself, like, they can talk about this part with their therapist. I don't, I'm not supposed to touch this part.
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A
I'm coaching them.
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B
I think about like psychoanalytic folks. There is a different level of boundaries for psychoanalysts than there are for like, you know, an ACT therapist.
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A
Right, right.
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B
And so I want to always honor their boundaries and what feels right for them. And we just kind of lean more into like, how can you describe this ideal client? Because there's also a I don't want to niche that often goes along with analysts.
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A
Oh really?
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B
You don't want to, but will you if it helps fill your practice faster? If that's your goal?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Because you're still going to get people outside your niche. It happens for all of us.
- [21:29]
A
Yes.
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B
So are you willing to niche and then we can just like write in a non academic voice about their experience if we're just focused on their daily lived experience. You don't have to share about yourself like you're about me. Does not have to be about how, you know, you two have been through this or whatever. You don't have to talk about that. Yeah, but. Or people. And then there's that third group of people who are just like, is this allowed? I know, like, am I, am I breaching something? Because the way I was taught was like, don't even. I mean I was in grad school back before we had smartphones and back before, like we had like the real Internet, like social and things like that. And it was, it was very much like, don't even have a picture of your family on your desk.
- [22:10]
A
Oh, wow. Yeah.
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B
And so like breaking through some of that programming of like, if you like don't take up any space at all in the therapy room. Even though that's not how I work.
- [22:21]
A
Right.
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B
You know, if you're very authentic and real with your clients in session. Whatever level of real you are, try to bring that to your website.
- [22:29]
A
Exactly. That's the guide post. It's like, would I feel comfortable sharing this information in session? It's like self disclosure. Would I feel comfortable sharing this? Would. Is this for me or is it benefiting the client? Which it is, you know, in a lot of cases benefiting the client if you're showing yourself. I think I know for me, that would ease a lot of my pre therapy anxiety and calm my nerves. I feel like I'm getting to know them a little bit.
- [22:57]
B
Yeah.
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A
So again, I guess it depends who you work with and what your style is that's gonna differ.
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B
Another filter I'll put it through is like, if my most dysregulated client saw this, how would it impact them?
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A
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [23:12]
B
And so that way I know it's fine. Yeah. I don't take a lot of super dysregulated clients, but if. If your favorite clients are pretty dysregulated, then you need to bear that in mind when you're writing your website.
- [23:24]
A
Yeah. Yeah. It all kind of ties together.
- [23:28]
B
Yeah. And it's why it's really important to know who you really want to work with because it can impact your tone to some extent. Because like my authentic way of being with my in laws is my authentic way of being, but it's still different than my authentic way of being with my best friend.
- [23:41]
A
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
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B
Gotta kind of like make it make sense with your clients.
- [23:50]
A
Yeah, I agree. But it's definitely very freeing. I highly recommend, like digging into this side of things for people who are scared to show themselves. It's really nice.
- [24:03]
B
And you get the best clients for.
- [24:04]
A
You get the best clients. Like, I swear I don't get emails from people anymore that are like, I have to send off. Like, it's just, oh, I can already tell we're gonna be great, you know?
- [24:16]
B
Yeah. Yeah. 100. Yeah.
- [24:19]
A
A video too. Another great way I feel like I tell everybody to do a video because that's just like authenticity who you are in 3D, you know?
- [24:28]
B
Huh. Yeah. And I think also, like, it's okay if you don't show up super authentically on video the first few times you do it. Like, expect that you're gonna suck at video.
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A
Oh my God.
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B
And practice, practice.
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A
It took me literally a full day to make my first psychology today. Little 15, 16 seconds. But I got there and now it's less scary.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. I was such a cardboard cutout. The second any sort of camera was turned on me, like, it was. I have a whole training in the abundance party about how to be good on video. Because I was so bad.
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A
Yeah, because you have to amp it up. Like, it almost feels, like, unnatural, but, like, some stuff falls flat through the screen and.
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B
Yeah. And, like, I'm a naturally very energetic person, but I get nervous whenever a camera is on. And so, like, I didn't. I didn't even keep my normal level of energy. I, like, went down. And so I was like, My name's Allison, founder of Abundance Practice Building. You know, like, painful. Nobody's going to watch that. And I had to, to get better. Like, I had to watch bad videos. And, like, that's the worst part. Like, filming them, uncomfortable watching, rewatching them. But it's part of how you evolve and grow and learn to, like, loosen up and be yourself on camera.
- [25:42]
A
And so would you say now after all that practice, you feel, like, totally fine?
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B
Yeah, like somebody could follow me around with a camera all day and I'd be like, all right, whatever.
- [25:49]
A
Are you hinting at a reality show? Oh, God, no. Darn.
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B
Never. Never. You do get used to it, you know, but you have to kind of put yourself through the paces of, like, honing that skill.
- [26:03]
A
Yeah. And same thing with, like, the authenticity on your website. It can be, like, a gradual process. It doesn't have to be like, 0 to 100. You know, your website is a living thing. You can put out a little, see if that feels okay, and then come back in a month and maybe show a little more of yourself. It can be gradual.
- [26:22]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and you're going to do a training for the abundance party.
- [26:26]
A
Yeah.
- [26:27]
B
So for anybody who's not already in there, then, you know, come and join us.
- [26:31]
A
Yeah.
- [26:32]
B
We'll have the link in the show notes and for those of you who are there, show up live and that way you can ask questions.
- [26:36]
A
Yeah.
- [26:37]
B
Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Ellie.
- [26:39]
A
I really appreciate it. It's fun chatting with you.
- [26:42]
B
You too. Bye.
- [26:43]
A
Yeah.
- [26:46]
B
If you're ready for a much easier practice, therapy notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo co abundant for two months. Free. If you're listening, you probably need some support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.