(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to Ask Allison. Y'all ask the questions about having a fun and thriving practice and I answer them. We have a worksheet for you today so you can bring this answer into your life. You can access that at abundancepracticebuilding.com slash links, where you'll also be able to ask any questions you have for Ask Allison. If you want more support, we've got some free trainings in there too.
If you can't get enough Ask Allison, check out our YouTube channel for our entire Ask Allison library. Welcome back to Ask Allison. Here is today's question. Should I have a blog? Short and sweet. Before I answer that, I would like to thank TherapyNotes for sponsoring Ask Allison. I've talked about them for years. Know their features by heart at this point. You may too, but I really want to talk about what actually sets them apart and that is that they genuinely care about your experience.
It's not just about troubleshooting, they actively implement user-suggested features. Everyone at TherapyNotes believes in the product and they want you to love it too. Plus they're independently owned, which means no venture capital and no pressure to prioritize their investors over their customers. This independence allows them to keep their prices fair, to focus on innovation and to prioritize their customers' experience.
With over 100,000 therapists already on board, they have proven that you don't have to compromise success for quality. If you're ready to see for yourself, I want you to try TherapyNotes for free for two months. You can use the code ABUNDANT at therapynotes .com. All right, first things first, let's talk about why you might want to have a blog for your therapy practice. A lot of therapists hesitate when it comes to blogging.
They think it's a huge time investment or they just don't see the point, but the truth is a blog can be one of the best ways to make your website more visible and to give potential clients a taste of your personality and your approach. So the very first reason to have a blog would be to boost your search engine optimization, SEO, basically getting on Google. The first and most important reason, in my opinion, is SEO. I really want you to question blogging if you're not doing SEO.
We'll get into why it might still be a good idea, but SEO and blogging is like peanut butter and jelly. It just goes together. So this is how you get your website to show up when somebody Googles something that you do, right? A blog is an SEO powerhouse, and the more content you publish on your website, the more Google has to work with when it comes to showing your site and search results.
So if you have a page that just lifts your services, you can only say couples therapy, couples therapy so many times without sounding weird and robotic. But with a blog, you can naturally work those key phrases into your posts. Like when I see couples in my office in Sacramento, so it can feel a lot smoother because blogs are more conversational. It also helps you target your ideal clients with the words they're actually searching for.
Now, just having a blog is not going to make you have SEO on your website. It might increase visibility some, but you're not going to get on the first page of Google. So know that if you are choosing blogging, you're probably also choosing SEO as a marketing strategy that takes a different skill set. Another good reason to have a blog is that it can showcase your approach and your values. So your blog is your chance to show potential clients who you are and what you stand for.
Maybe you've got a unique approach or you specialize in a niche area of therapy, and your blog gives you a platform to explain that. For example, let's say you write a blog post titled five ways to save your marriage after infidelity. Potential clients who read that will get a feel for how you handle these tough situations like infidelity.
They're going to understand that you're committed to helping your clients work through difficult problems rather than just throwing in the towel with these kinds of traumatic situations. So if that's what they're looking for, then they're going to find you. They're going to read that and they're going to choose you. You can also attract ideal clients. So imagine that you're one of several therapists a potential client is considering.
Let's say they're given three names and therapist A, therapist B, and you are all on this list. If you and therapist A both have blogs, but therapist B doesn't, therapist B is probably out of the running just because they have more data points about you and therapist A. So by having a blog, you give clients the opportunity to read your content, to get a sense of your vibe and your expertise and how you approach therapy, how you approach their problems.
That means that they can make an informed decision. So if they choose therapist A, that's okay because you're looking for your ideal clients, not just anybody who walks through the So let's say therapist A is like how to get rid of your ex when he cheats on you. And you're like, how to work through the relationship with infidelity. The person looking for either of you is going to find you.
And that gives you the opportunity to explain in more detail what it is you're helping most of your clients with. So let's talk about how to get a blog done. You might be thinking like, this sounds great, but I don't have time to write blogs. I don't know where to start. I haven't written since grad school. I've got you covered. Let's break down the process into like little bite-sized bits of information. So first, I want you to start with a list of topics.
A big part of writing a blog is deciding what to write about. And the wonderful thing is that you don't have to sit there staring at a blank screen, trying to come up with brilliant ideas every time you sit down to create, to write. If you've already created a list, it can be like in your notes app, in your phone, every time, let's say you finish a session and you're like, Oh, something that that client said is something most of my clients say at some point to write a blog post about that.
If you have a list of topics that matter to your clients, it's the most important thing. Please, please, please make sure it matters. Then you can just look at that list when it's your blog writing time and see which one feels the most fun to write about. Think about what your clients ask you over and over what they say over and over. What do you talk with them about in your sessions? What do you wish they knew about therapy? These can all be great blog topics.
Next is to make your content valuable. This seems obvious, but it's worth saying don't write a blog post just for the sake of writing. Every single post you publish should provide real value to your ideal niched clients. So whether you're sharing tips, you're offering insight, you're answering common questions, make sure that that content is useful to the people who are reading it.
If you're just throwing something together to check it off your to-do list, your readers are going to notice it's going to hurt your credibility. The more valuable, the more helpful your content, the more trust you'll build with your audience. You need a niche for this. If you're writing about depression one day and relationships another day and anxiety another day and eating disorders another day, you don't seem competent with any of them.
So make sure that you are writing about the nuances that aren't going to be big headlines on, you know, like puff post blogs. So the third is I want you to write like your talk. When you're writing a blog, don't make it sound like a blog post is one of the biggest mistakes that therapists make. You want your blog to sound like you're having a conversation with your ideal client.
If you read any of my blog posts, you watch any of my videos, you probably know that I like, I talk like this, it's casual, it's conversational, it's real. And that's how I want my content to feel. You want your potential clients to read your blog and feel like they're getting to know you a little bit better, not reading a really stiff academic article. Write how you would talk to your therapy clients in session. That way it's a fair representation.
Fourth is to be consistent, but there are ways to do that without it being super stressful. So I know consistency is difficult. Life is busy. It's easy to push this kind of thing on the back burner, but consistency is the actual key to making this make any sense at all. It doesn't mean you have to publish a new post every single week, though that's a really great pace if you can do it. It just means you need to decide how often you're going to post and stick to it.
I wouldn't do any less than once a month. The important thing is just to be super consistent. And the way that I make that easier is that I batch every writing thing I do at all, whether it's a blog, whether it's Ask Allison's, whether it's social media posts. So instead of writing a blog every single week for that week, I set aside one or two days to write several posts at once and then schedule them to publish automatically.
And that way it's a lot less stressful than having to write on a really tight deadline every week. Number five, don't overthink it. This is a biggie. I know many of you are perfectionists, but try not to overthink it. Your blog does not have to be a masterpiece. Just get your thoughts down on paper. You can always come back and revise it later. The important thing is to get started. As long as the content is valuable, your clients won't care if your post isn't 100 % perfect.
It's okay to have a couple typos. It's all about progress, not perfection. Number six is to expect to feel vulnerable at first. When I first started sharing my thoughts and ideas online, I felt really vulnerable. It was scary to hit publish. What if nobody likes what I had to say? What if people judged me? What if nobody liked it? And some people probably didn't like it. Some people probably judged me, but that's okay.
You have to get comfortable with the fact that you are putting yourself out there and not everybody will resonate with your style or your message. You are looking for the people who do resonate with you, not trying to please everybody. So be kind to yourself and embrace that vulnerability. Seven, don't rely on AI. You can use AI to help edit or to bulk up your post. If you're using this with SEO, you want it to be at least 800 words. Sometimes we can write 500 and we just can't go beyond that.
You can go to AI and say, please use my tone and expand upon this blog posts until it's 800 words. You can do that and then edit it heavily. Please edit it because we can all tell when we're reading AI, if it's not edited, it just sounds awful. And people won't read the whole thing because it's sterile or it's cheesy. Now, if you want to kick it up a notch, you could also consider adding video content to your blog, a vlog.
I know the video is really scary for a lot of people, but it's such a fantastic way to build trust with your audience. Video allows potential clients to see you, to hear your voice, to get a much deeper understanding of who you are beyond just the words that you wrote. You don't need anything fancy. Your smartphone is more than enough. If you're not comfortable in front of the camera, that's okay. You can start small and practice and get more comfortable over time.
We have trainings in the Abundance Party for both blogging and vlogging far more in depth than this can do. If you need help getting clients in the door and you want to build a thriving, sustainable practice, then message me the word party and I will send you a link. Now we have a free worksheet today. If you send me the word sheets, I will send you some blog brainstorm topics for your practice. In 30 minutes, you can have 50 blog posts ideas.
And I will link to the previous worksheets as well with that link. So any of our free worksheets, you'll have access to all of them. All right. I hope you have a great day and I will talk with If you're ready for a much easier practice, TherapyNotes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code ABUNDANT for two months free. I hope that helped.
If you have questions for Ask Allison, or you want to get your hands on the worksheet for this episode, go to abundancepracticebuilding.com slash links. 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.