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Private Practice Startup Podcast
Episode 94: SEO For Therapists: Get Google To Love You
00:33:20
Perry Rosenbloom
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to the Private Practice Startup, where we inspire you from startup to mastery. We chat with entrepreneurs, experts in the mental health and business arenas, and successful private practitioners to give you the tools needed to make your dream practice a reality. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, and so much more. Here are your hosts, Dr. Kate Campbell and Katie Lemieux.
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B
Hey there, Startup Nation. Welcome back to another episode of the Private Practice Startup podcast. I am one of your hosts, Katie Lemieux.
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A
Hey, everybody. Yay. We're excited to be here.
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B
It's Kate Campbell and it's really cool because we got this really cool, awesome podcast. Boom. I almost feel like we're a radio station now.
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A
It feels like we're legit. Like we are now officially podcasters, right?
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B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
And we're almost at 100 episodes now, which is amazing.
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B
And we actually got this suggestion from our guest today, which is Paris Perry Rosenblum from Brighter Vision. What's up, Perry?
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C
Not much. Hi, ladies. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm so glad to be here.
- [01:02]
A
This is round two with Perry. We had you on the episode 43 on how to. What was it? Four tips on how to grow your private practice using marketing automation, which was a really fun episode. Super value packed. So if you guys haven't heard that episode, definitely go back and listen. And we're excited to have you here today talking all about SEO and how to get Google to love you. Who doesn't want to get Googleicious, right?
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C
Everybody wants some Google love. And you know, there's a lot of great things that you can do as a private practice owner to help get some Googleicious love flowing your way. So I'm really excited to talk about that.
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A
Hashtag Googleicious. Love it.
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B
Ninja tip. Googleicious. Anyway, so, but before we get started, if you're a longtime listener and part of our Startup Nation superhero family already, thanks for joining us again. And we hope that you continue to get value, gain value, and most importantly, share the wealth with your colleagues. So before we had Perry on for today, last week we had Danielle Kepler from Be youe Own Biller, or BYOB for short.
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A
Byob.
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B
Byob. When you're talking about insurance and billing, sometimes you need to byob. Anyways, she had talked about the myths of insurance based practices. So that was last week. You want to definitely check out that. And if you're a first time listener, we want to say welcome. We want to just give you a virtual big hug because we're huggers and wanted to welcome you to the Startup Nation superhero family. We have a special gift for you. Head over to our website, private practicestartup.com head over to the resources tab and download your A to Z cheat sheet essentials for building and growing your dream practice. And if you want to hang out with us and thousands of therapists across the globe, join us on where else?
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A
Facebook.
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B
Just look for the Private practice startup Facebook group and ask to be part of that. So not only do we have Perry as our guest today, but Brighter Vision is sponsoring this podcast.
- [02:57]
A
Yes, we are honored to have Brighter Vision sponsoring the podcast today. If you guys have not heard of Brighter Vision, they are amazing. They build extremely beautiful, uniquely designed WordPress websites, and they do so for an extremely reasonable price. I can't tell you guys how long it takes to to build a website from scratch. I built seven of them. Don't make the same mistake I did. Seven. Give me your finger again.
- [03:25]
B
I need to slap you.
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A
Yes, someone slapped me. Never again. You guys hear me? I will never do it again. So it's amazing to have a company like Perry and Brighter Vision. We refer to you guys all the time and always get such great feedback from our referrals, and you guys do a great job. So definitely check them out. And for anyone who is listening to this podcast, Perry and his team are offering not one, but two free months of Brighter Vision. So definitely check them out. And after that, it's 59 bucks a month. That's it.
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B
That's easy peasy.
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A
Yes, easy.
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C
That's it. Include your website, your support, and your SEO, which we get to talk about today.
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A
Yes.
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B
Awesome. So we're going to put a link on the Show Notes page so you can grab that. Just let them know that you heard it on this podcast that they are giving you two months free, which is $118 value. So what's up, Perry? Let's talk about some SEO.
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C
Yeah, SEO. So I'm not sure if you know, but do you know that our original company, way back in the day, before Brighter Vision, was a search engine optimization company?
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A
That's like, all my heart, I didn't know that. Yeah, you and SEO go way back.
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C
We go way, way back. You know, initially, we actually got started from George Bush's stimulus check. Got a $300 check, and I started a website on Glacier national park and taught myself search engine optimization. And so SEO and I are old homies. You know, we've been through some rough times. We've been through some good times. But ultimately, you know, we go way back, we're good buds and you know, love to be able to share the love with people and help them understand, help them take the, the scary part away from SEO, because it's really not a scary, scary thing.
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A
I would imagine that learning SEO from scratch probably was moving at glacial speed. I would imagine just have to say.
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C
That, you know, it was, in some ways it was much easier, gosh, a decade ago than it is today. If you knew what to do, it was easier. But in other respects it's actually become a lot easier today, especially if you're a legitimate business. You know, seven, eight years ago you can manipulate Google if you knew how. And it was fairly easy to manipulate Google. These days, Google's a lot smarter and it really is helpful to the private practice owner, the small business owner, because it sort of has kicked out all of the spammy manipulators of Google. And so that's paved the way for you to step in and get some Google ishious love.
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B
As you talk about back in the day, I remember there was like, you know, tips, tricks and hacks like you would like, you would stuff your page like a Thanksgiving dinner with like all those keywords and say it a gazillion times. I remember I would hear like pornography sites would put the words like wash machine. So when people were looking for washing machine, they'd pop up. Pornography sites.
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A
Really?
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B
Yeah, like people used to do all these crazy things.
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A
Sneaky.
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C
That was even further back in the day when I got started. Some things, you know, those kind of tactics were already. Google had wisened up to those tactics, but you could still manipulate the search engines with pretty mediocre content and some aggressive link building campaigns. And by link building, I mean getting a link from one site to point back to your site. And it was pretty easy to do. But it's so much better now as a user of Google, if you're searching for information, you can find more relevant information. And that really helps the small business owner, especially that small business owner, likes to write, is more introverted and wants to focus instead of going out and networking, would rather be able to sit in front of their computer, type up a really helpful blog post or article in about 90 minutes as their, as their marketing effort for that day and then move on to other things.
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A
So we're assuming that people know what SEO is and why that's important for private practice. But let's start there. Why is it important to have really good SEO search engine optimization on your private practice website?
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C
Sure. So search engine optimization, SEO, all it's about is about relevance. So you want to be able to communicate to Google and to Bing and Yahoo what your business website is about. You want Google to know that, hey, I am a therapist in Boulder, Colorado that specializes in teens and depression, for example. And if Google knows that about your website, then when people are searching for phrases that might be relevant to you, Google is going to want to show your website as if it is relevant for those phrases. So it's SEO in a nutshell is all about relevancy and making sure that your business is as relevant as possible to what you do and that Google can understand that.
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B
So what are some really key and important things that, you know, therapists need to do in regards to SEO for like, their homepage or their services pages, things like that?
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C
Sure. So your homepage is always going to be the most important page on your website. It's going to have the, the most power in the search engines. And that's where your opportunity to rank for very competitive phrases will come into play. But that's not necessarily where you should be focusing your SEO efforts. So once you write your homepage and you have your website up and running, you know, if you're a brighter vision customer, we're going to go through and write what's called your titles and your descriptions for you. If you're not a brighter vision customer, you can go ahead and do this yourself. The titles are like those blue links in Google. You click and the descriptions are the words beneath it. Once you have your homepage SEO kind of dialed in, there's not much needle moving you can do. If you pour a lot of time and energy into trying to, you know, make your SEO stronger on just your homepage, it's not going to move the needle in any dramatic fashion. The thing that's going to move the needle the most dramatically for you. And this is something I've been harping on for a year, and I'm going to keep on harping it. But the best thing that you can do in your private practice for your SEO is to write specific service pages on your website. So going back to relevance, if I'm a therapist in Boulder, Colorado, and I specialize in working with teens, I want a page on my website specific to the work I do with teens and what types of teens I work with, what they could be going through. And you know, it's going to need to be really well written and ideally targeted towards the parent because the parents can be the one who's searching for their teenager. But you know, what kinds of issues are teens struggling with? How do you help them? What is your process like? So about 400 to 600 words on how you work with teens in the Boulder, Colorado area.
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B
And one thing that we want to say, and Kate and I are really passionate about the foundation of marketing and copywriting is not to say your modules or all that stuff. It's that the results that you help teens and their parents get the way that you make them feel after they've been working with you. So from depressed to, you know, happy again, enjoying life, it's not, I use solution focused or DBT or what they could be in there somewhere, but that's not the focus. So that's our passion.
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C
Stay away from the Alphabet soup.
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A
You know, all the therapists jargon, it's a disconnect, not a point of connection. And you really want to be able to connect and convey, connect with people in an emotional way, help them to see what life.
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C
And that's the same with Google. You need to connect with Google in an emotional way. So when somebody is searching for, you know, therapy for teens or my teens depressed help, what do I do? Your website is going to be relevant for those phrases. And having a specific page targeting those phrases that people are searching for is going to be so helpful for you to rank well. So let's say you work with teens. Let's say you also work with, you know, general population suffering from depression or anxiety. You want a service page for every single one of your specialties, A unique page of 400 to 600 words. Stay away from the Alphabet soup. Talk about how you're going to make someone feel afterwards and what it's like working with you. And that right there is going to increase your relevancy for specific phrases people are searching for and allow you to rank better in the search engines.
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A
And as you write those specialty pages, it's also really cool to have a blog that you can link back to the specialty page. So if you have a page about anxiety therapy that you do, being able to connect blogs and have links within there that people can see, oh, anxiety specifically for relationships or anxiety about flying on a plane or whatever it is so that you can build those spokes out within, that helps SEO too.
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C
That's a really great analogy. The wheel on the spokes analogy that's used often in SEO, that you have a service page and then you have all these other spokes leading off of it. So if you work with teens, maybe you're writing a blog post about anxiety about the school year starting back up. And you can link from that post back to your service page and that's going to make your service page more relevant. And so really just making sure the search engines understand through the content on your website, who you are, who you help, and in what geographical area you work in.
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B
So I always feel like the big thousand million dollar question is like, well, what are those words, what are those phrases and how do I figure them out?
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C
That's a really great question. Those phrases have become less important as Google's become smarter. So the way that you used to do SEO would be spending some time on a tool like Market Samurai, which pretty much which you would dig in and do some keyword research, find out what phrases people are searching for, what the overall competition is. So how many pages in Google are targeting this keyword and then write a piece of content targeting that specific keyword. And while that's still helpful from a small business perspective, it's not as crucial as just having good content. Google's smart enough at this point that it can understand what you're trying to target and rank you appropriately for it. So now what that can be helpful though is for coming up with actual ideas of what to write. And you can do some keyword research around that. And what I generally recommend people do is do a search in Google for, you know, therapy for teens suffering from depression, then scroll down to the bottom and see the suggested suggested search queries, the other suggested search queries that would be related to it. And often you're going to find questions. People type in a lot of questions into Google specifically in the health related field. So scroll down, find a question, and if that question is inspiring to you, that's where you can write a blog post on.
- [15:43]
A
Or.
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C
The other thing you can do is as you're typing therapy for depression in to Google, you'll see all these Google suggests pop up. And if something like that, Google suggesting those, because that's what people are often searching for. And if one of those topics, one of those questions feels compelling to you, you can write a blog post about that or a more specific service page about that.
- [16:07]
A
That's a great idea. Being able to use that, that research and analysis directly from Google and then also being able to do that in your research that you do with clients, with your ideal clients, the clients that you love working the most with that you want to attract more of. When you think about the phrases that they use in session or the pain points or how they're talking about the areas that they're struggling in most or the areas that they're longing for, the ways that they want to see their life change. Being able to use that, use your client's language, essentially, which is what we're trying to do as clinicians. So you already have this skill to be able to do that as clinicians and use that to craft your content.
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C
So there, there are two types of keywords that people talk about with SEO. There are head or short tail. Keywords which would be like, that are more competitive, such as Counselor Boulder. If somebody's searching for Counselor Boulder, you're going to have a very difficult time. Well, for one, they might not be your ideal client. They might not be the type of client that's best for you to work with because they're just doing more. They're more doing a generic search. They're still very early on in their search process of actually finding a counselor. They're doing a lot more research and trying to determine if they want to even go to therapy. Two, you're going to have a hard time ranking for a phrase like that because the intent behind it is not looking for you, it's looking to do research. And so that's why when someone searching for Counselor Boulder, you're going to see, you'll see a few local results, but they're mostly, the results are mostly going to be dominated by Psychology Today or GoodTherapy.org or other directories. Because when somebody's searching for that, they want to go and look and find a variety of counselors. They're not so focused on a specific, unspecifically finding help. However, someone's searching for. And so you're not gonna be able to rank for that. You're not gonna ever outrank Psychology Today with your private practice website. However, someone's searching for, you know, Addiction Counseling Boulder, Colorado, or Opiate Addiction Counseling Boulder. That phrase is much more specific. They're looking for somebody with a specific specialty. And that's where you can rank. Well, if you're, if that's what you provide. And that's why those service pages are so crucial and so important to your SEO success.
- [18:39]
B
And, you know, it's cool to hear you say that because it just again, like, makes our hearts sing because we're so passionate about people working with their ideal client. And I think that whole scarcity mindset comes up and it's like, well, if I just say counselor and Boulder, you know, okay, I'll have so many people. But you just made the point that Google says, nope, no, you Have a lot of research, but no, you won't. And so it's really important to be a specialist. It's important to niche and have an ideal client, both for yourself, but also, you know, you're showing us that that's just what's online.
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C
Yeah, absolutely.
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B
That's cool.
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C
There's another really important topic I'd love to chat about with SEO beyond just the content on your website. And that's related to link building. So acquiring links. And this gets a little more nebulous to people, but it's a really important concept to digest and implement in a way that's going to help your practice. So let's say that I'm one of 30 therapists in Boulder that work with teens suffering from depression, and my website has great content. And the other 29 therapists that specialize in this, well, they all have really great content on their website. Really great, relevant content targeting people who are searching for therapy for teens with depression. How does Google decide which website to rank?
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A
Good question.
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C
One of the primary factors for that is how many votes your website has. And a vote for your website is a link. So if I'm a therapist and I work with teens who are suffering from, you know, from depression, and the only link to my website is Psychology Today. Well, okay, cool. I have a link from Psychology Today, but you know what? So do the other 29 of my competitors. But if I have a link from, you know, goodtherapy.org, let's say I wrote an article and it got published on goodtherapy.org and there are other therapists in my area that I refer to that are linking to my website, and I'm linking to theirs. And maybe a local newspaper gave me a quote about the opiate crisis that's been hitting our area, and that newspaper mentioned my name and might be linking back to my website, well, all of a sudden, Google's seeing additional votes and additional relevancy or additional relevance for your private practice outside of just your website. And then all of a sudden, Google's gonna say, hey, Perry's private practice, you're mentioned in this local newspaper about the opiate crisis, and you're being linked to from this goodtherapy.org article on teens suffering from depression around the school year. Well. Or from anxiety or depression. Well, I think you're a lot more relevant because of these factors. I think Perry's private practice is a lot more relevant than the other 29 people who have equally as good content as you. So I want to show your website above those other 29 people. Because it's more relevant for this specific content and for these specific search queries. And that is just as important for your private practice success as having relevant content. And it's something that therapists often miss out on just because they're not even aware of how important it is.
- [22:36]
A
It's almost like a popularity contest. And then I was thinking that, well, is it really about a popularity contest or is it more about this word relevance that you talk about? Because someone could be popular and having links from all sorts of different types of sites. But are they the really, does it matter what type of sites you're linking to to make you be relevant?
- [22:56]
C
It does matter. So, you know, I couldn't if I got a link from, you know, Kate's sprinkler repair company linking back to my. Perry's private practice who works with teens suffering from depression. Well, Google's gonna look at that and it's gonna be like, something doesn't feel right about this. You know, why is Kate sprinkler repair company that's located in Florida linking to a private practice that works with teens suffering from depression over in Boulder? Nuh.
- [23:29]
B
I can't even make up something on the spot. I was trying to make up something funny.
- [23:34]
C
I mean, there you could definitely. I'm just looking at the grass right outside our office here.
- [23:41]
A
I had a sprinkler repair company at my house yesterday. So that's interesting.
- [23:46]
C
So relevant. But you know, Google's gonna look at that. It's gonna be like, no, no, no, this isn't legit. I'm going to either A, completely discount this link, or B, I might even penalize Perry's private practice and Kate's sprinkler repair company for linking like that.
- [24:09]
A
Interesting. So this one is kinda darn smart.
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B
Makes a good argument for guest blogging and things like that on relevant places and having those links back to your website and vice versa, certainly. Yeah. So this is always interesting to me. I know basic enough about SEO. It's not a topic that I like to dive into. And so I just feel like this is such a good argument for, like, people to really, you know, that's not only the website stuff, but the se. You know, I always explain, like a website, it's like you decide to open a candy store, right? So that's your website. Like you're a brick and mortar. You keep candy store. No one knows you exist unless they drive by. It's like, how do you get recognized? And that's what SEO is, right in the Brick and mortar days of things. It's kind of like, oh well, you send out flyers or you post stuff in the yellow pages or you know, you run a special in the newspaper or whatever. So you have to. It's great to have a high converting website, but if you don't have SEO, they go together and so obviously Perry knows what he's talking about and so doesn't his team. And so I just feel like this is also a good reason to, you know, work with you guys if you are looking for a website or like Kate said, you know, websites evolve over time. I've had four. Well, you've had seven different ones and you've evolved two or three times with your Bayview.
- [25:25]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Bayview's gone through three different website, like full blown website revisions. First one was on Dreamweaver which was like way back in the day. I know myself on Dreamweaver, like way long time ago.
- [25:37]
C
I'm so sorry.
- [25:39]
B
Picture like burned in my mind because I remember it was in supervision and I asked you and you actually showed me and I do remember, we can say this now. How horrible.
- [25:47]
A
It was so bad. I think it was like, like a.
- [25:49]
B
Column of things here and a column here. I did the columns too.
- [25:54]
A
So that was like 12 years ago. Yep. And then I had WordPress and I went through like two different versions of WordPress and now I'm actually on Wix which.
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C
Oh cool.
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A
Transition off of WordPress. I got tired of dealing with all the updates and things not syncing and integrating and I was just. Even though there's a lot of great SEO value to being on WordPress, I transitioned over to Wix and they have a whole different way of doing SEO. And I've really enjoyed being on Wix.
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C
Yeah, you know, Wix, WordPress SEO is SEO. There used to be, I believe it was weebly had some major SEO issues based off of how they were rendering content. But ultimately one platform is not better than the other, generally speaking, it's if you're actually doing it properly. And at BrighterVision. One thing that I find it's pretty unique about us and that has been very well received by our customers is our emphasis on SEO. So much so that we have one full time staff member who is our SEO specialist and her name's Katie, ironically. And Katie, she's in our support desk. And our support desk answers between 80 and 100 tickets a day right now. And Katie, she answers maybe 7 to 10. And the reason for that is all she does is the SEO tickets. For our customers. So when someone's concerned about their SEO, concerned about how they're ranking, wants to know what they can do to improve, it's basically like you have an SEO consultant at your fingertips at BrighterVision to help provide you with the guidance and expertise needed to help your private practice move forward. And so she prepares like these massive, really well, not massive, that's the wrong connotation, but really well thought out, detailed spreadsheets and responses to our clients to help them understand SEO a little more clearly. Things that Brighter Vision can do to help you with your SEO, things that you need to do to help you with your SEO. And it's been really well received by our clients. And if you're currently listening to this and you're a Brighter Vision client and you have some questions about SEO, or if you have had questions about SEO, write in. I'm sure you've spoken with Katie. She'd love to answer your questions.
- [28:16]
B
That's awesome.
- [28:17]
A
Ultimately, Perry, what do you want people to take away from listening to this episode.
- [28:26]
C
Service pages? You know, that feels like the easy way out, though. You know, I feel like I've been saying that for a year now on basically every podcast. So that's too much of an easy way out.
- [28:41]
B
What's the more complex answer then?
- [28:44]
C
I don't want to take the, I don't want to take the easy way out here. So what do I want people to take away from this? I'd like people to understand that SEO is very much like a garden. You plant your seeds with the good content and the good title tags and the good descriptions and all that really important thing, those important things that Google needs to understand about your business. But you still need to be watering your garden on a daily basis. You need to be making sure that there aren't bugs eating your plants and, you know, pruning your plants and tending to your garden to help it grow. And when you're, whether you're just getting started in private practice or you have an established website, if you're just starting to focus on your SEO, you're basically starting from, from planting a seed. Maybe you're able to get a little further ahead by buying, you know, a foot tall tomato plant or something already, but you know, you're just getting started and you need to put the time and energy in and it doesn't need to be a lot, you know, but you need to, it's something that should be thought of at least on a monthly basis of what can I do to water my, my garden? This month and grow my SEO to become more powerful. And over time, you're going to get a really thriving garden if you're paying attention to it on a semi regular basis and not just ignoring it. So that's the harder answer there.
- [30:30]
A
I like that. It's all about giving your garden the love so that Google will love you back.
- [30:34]
C
Right, Exactly.
- [30:37]
B
I was thinking we went from glaciers to sprinklers to gardens. Yes.
- [30:41]
C
You know, it's almost springtime here. You know, it's sunny. You guys are in Florida, so it's always sunny by you. But you know, we've escaped the throes of winter here in Colorado and are excited to get out and hike. And so I guess that's on my mind.
- [30:58]
B
So, Perry, thank you so much for joining us today in Startup Nation. And like we said, Perry and Brighter Vision are giving two months free to listeners of this podcast. There'll be a link on our Show Notes page and just make sure when you do reach out that you let them know it's the two months and next time. This was actually we're doing. We did a podcast and this was a request from a starvation superhero member. Yes. And so we're going to be joined by Allison Preyear of Abundance Practice and John Clark. Yeah. From Unconditional Media, talking about how to relocate your practice. So for those of you who are thinking about moving, have moved and need to kind of take this on, that is going to be a great podcast.
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A
Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun to be. To have the foursome on the podcast. We've had Allison on before and John Clark on before too, so it'll be really nice to have them both back again together.
- [31:45]
C
Yeah, that'll be a superstar team there and a great topic. That's something that I don't, I don't know if I've ever heard in a. In a podcast about private practice before.
- [31:55]
B
I think actually Alison and John have done one together, so we're going to.
- [31:58]
A
Get both of them.
- [31:58]
B
That's kind of cool.
- [31:59]
A
Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah.
- [32:01]
B
So, Startup Nation, thank you so much for joining us today. Don't forget to tune in next time and make sure you visit the Show Notes page for all the resources, tips, gives, giveaways. Also check out the previous podcast that we did with Perry and that will be also on the Show Notes page. And look, if you're a therapist, you should have a website. So if you are in the shops. No, that's not what I was going to say. If you're in need of website, check out Brighter Vision for sure. So join us next time. If you actually have a colleague that needs some SEO help or is wondering about SEO, this is a great podcast to share with them. They will thank you so much. Startup Nation thanks and have an amazing day. Thanks for allowing us to inspire you from startup to mastery.
- [32:41]
A
See you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Private practice startup. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, attorney approved private practice paperwork, and so much more. Sam.