Watch the replay with Lindsey and Cory Miller as they walk you through creating a simple, impactful website for your private practice.
Lindsey and Cory use their combined expertise to help you:
- Identify the key elements for your one-page website
- Choose from expert recommendations for website software, domain names, handling email, and more
- Put all of these components together so you can build your own one page website
Webinar Transcript
Speakers: Lindsey Miller, Cory Miller
Cory Miller 00:03
Hey everybody, welcome back to another AllCounselors.com webinar. And today’s topic is building your one page practice website. Now we talked about one page for specific reasons, we’re going to get into all of that. But first, I want to introduce my guest expert I’ve had I have on the webinar, her name is Lindsey Miller. I’ll give her Give me a second Lindsey to introduce yourself and tell us more about what you do on on this webinar today, but I want to first thank ILC Integrative Life Center based in Nashville, Tennessee, a mental health treatment center in Nashville, awesome, awesome people. I think Lindsey even you work with them quite a bit, and a great, great center and a team there. And they are today’s sponsor for this webinar. So thank you for being here, too. Okay, so let and you can go to IntegratedLifeCenter.com and learn more about ILC. So first and foremost, Lindsey, could you introduce yourself to the audience? And then I’ll do so as well.
Lindsey Miller 01:10
Yeah, absolutely. So Hi, everyone. My name is Lindsey Miller. I’m the founder of content journey, which is why I’m here today so I can talk to you about content and websites. And that’s what I get to do in my everyday life. Fun fact, though, is this month, I will be graduating with my masters in clinical mental health. And will be sitting for the National OPC exam in the spring. So I have a little bit of a dual background and to be able to talk to anyone at AllCounselors.com and because I do have both perspectives. So thanks for having mehere. And I’m excited to be talking.
Cory Miller 01:46
That’s exactly you, you’ve got a wealth of experience why we had you on asked to be on the this particular webinar, but we’re gonna have you on more, because you have one: extensive content marketing, digital marketing experience. And it’s what you do every day with contentjourney.com, but also that you’re getting ready to start studying Well, you’re graduating this month, and you’re going to be studying for your exams and tests and things like that and so you represent part of our, our community here too, as far as a new clinician in the world.
Cory Miller 02:19
So yeah, okay, well, Lindsey is going to be chiming in, I’m going to be asking her questions, because I want to leverage her expertise and experience. But here’s some of the outcomes from the building your one page, website, practice website, is, we want you to know what’s really important and why you should have a website. I’ve been doing Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Cory Miller. I’m the founder, co founder of AllCounselors.com prior to that, I had a software company for 10 years starting in 2008. In 2018, it was acquired software company, but really this, what I did in my past pertains what we’re talking about today, my company built products for a platform called WordPress. And you may be familiar with WordPress, it’s kind of known as a blogging software. But the big deal about it is it’s it powers one third of the Internet, and my company, my previous company, built products for it. So I’ve been doing web design, digital marketing for quite a long time. And I’m really excited to share some insights of my own too as well as Lindsey’s and help you make progress on establish, establishing your website. So, you know, we want you to know, what are the purposes and goals really of the website?
Cory Miller 03:31
We’ve been thinking through Lindsey and I and our team at AllCounselors.com and thinking about, okay, how do we help clinicians, counselors, therapists get a plant their flag on, you know, on the web. And as I’ve worked with counselors over the last year or so, one of the, we realized, we, I want people like you, Lindsey, for instance, your little unique in that you’ve got both this online experience, and you’re becoming a therapist. But for most, we want you to be able to, you know, focus on your practice on your what the work you do with your clients, and not have to have all these irritations known as technology or marketing, things like that. So we put this together to help you get started. So we want you to have just that, that’s number two there and then have confidence in what you’re buying and building along the way. And so one page website is really about just getting a flag planted on the web, but we’re gonna give you some tips and recommendations that’ll be a start, and that you can grow from too. So I have this mantra you’ve heard this a lot, Lindsey is Don’t you know, how do you eat the elephant? One bite at a time: that’s not mine. It’s something I adhere to a mantra of my life. And that’s really the principle here. Lindsey, you know, in built in starting with just a one page website. I think actually, we get some questions in before this is why not just a website, you know, and as you and I talked in preparation for this, it was okay, plant a flag in a one page website. Go Make it a very easy bite for you, for clinicians to make.
Lindsey Miller 05:06
Yeah, absolutely. There’s always like going up from there. You know, even for contentjourney.com. It’s mainly a one page site. But it does everything I needed to do. It speaks to my potential clients, and it does a really great job. And maybe I’ll build it out further. I do have a blog, and I do have a contact. But mostly it’s, it’s everything’s on one page. And I like that it’s streamlined, it makes it easy for people to understand what I’m offering and why I’m offering it. And so I think that can apply across other industries as well, like for counselors or other clinicians.
Cory Miller 05:40
What a great case study. I mean, you’re a service based company, you offer content marketing, meaning blog posts, and ebooks and things like that for your clients. But even as your business, you’ve got a great business there. You’re saying, like, you just need one page to basically showcase what you’re trying to do. That’s a great example for our therapists today, because a lot of the tenants will see can be reflected on the contentjourney.com homepage.
Lindsey Miller 06:06
Yeah,for sure.
Cory Miller 06:09
Well, let’s dive in. And as always, every webinar we do live event we do at allcounselors.com. We want to make sure this is highly practical, number one and two interactive. So if you have questions, please post those in the QA button right below the video where you’re seeing our screen share and our pictures, and we’re here for you or use the chat. We’ll be watching that as we go.
Cory Miller 06:30
Okay, so step one is, this is where we start. Lindsey, you know, I know you work with your clients extensively about, hopefully, they’ve got the website kind of under, you know, this purpose statement. But I know you say, Okay, what do you want your content to do? And you help lead and guide them too but when we’re talking about therapists, this is a this is a key question. What do you want your website to do for you? Because we believe it should work for you and your practice.
Lindsey Miller 06:59
Absolutely. I think that there’s like this idea where a website’s just sitting out there, and what is it doing? And I know that you’ve started doing this with people, AllCounselors and talking about it, but like, setting up appointments, handling payments, like there’s something else that can be done with that website. So is it really just a resume and a business card? Or is it something that can actually be, you know, more integrated and useful? So aren’t? Do you want to set up meetings from there or schedules from there? Or take payments? And if no, is the answer, that’s okay, too. But that’s why you come back to this core question of like, what do you actually want your website to do for you?
Cory Miller 07:41
And I think that’s key because like, if we use content journey as a parallel, is that like, that’s your number one, I would guess your number one sales mechanism, the way you help pull clients in to what you’re doing, showcase what you do and sell. So I mean, it’s pretty vital to kind of step back, and but I know you do a lot of referral base, which is very parallel to what I’ve heard from therapists and counselors. But it’s, it’s your main marketing vehicle.
Lindsey Miller 08:10
Absolutely. I mean, I want somebody cuz you’re right, we do get most of our clients through referral basis. But I think that typically, when someone’s referred to us, they say, go to contentjourney.com, and then call Lindsey or email Lindsey, it really always does start with that website. And you can schedule a meeting from there, you can also go ahead and like make purchases. So kind of similar to what you would do, even as a therapist, like, I schedule a call or schedule a session. But I still feel like that’s the first place people start. Are they going to like me? Are they going to like what I have to say? And are they going to make that next step to actually contact me?
Cory Miller 08:49
Yep. Oh, this is so good. I don’t want to steal her Thunder here. But, you know, I didn’t even think about how good that particular example would be for for this, but Okay, so let’s talk about what we believe the purpose and goals of a website should be. So, you know, we were talking about a one page website, some of you might already have websites out there. So we’re trying to get those that have not started a website started. But the principles you’re gonna see can be grown from not just a one page, but to a multiple page or site, you know, a bigger site kind of in question.
Cory Miller 09:23
But when I think about one page website and thought about this for you all at allcounselors, it’s, it’s a one pager, which is just a starter flag to plant on the web. But it’s probably what I typically think about and I think you do, too, Lindsey is a brochure or bizcard kind of site, just to get you started. Like, I don’t want you to do too much that you know, isn’t needed. I want you to get the bare essentials, but it should serve every website. Lindsey should serve a purpose for the business or organization that involves that that’s not always the case. We see a lot of people just wanting, you know, to build beautiful, like, beautifully designed websites. And really you’re like, what’s, what’s the point of this? I know from your work, like everything you do, like a blog post, for instance, has a, what’s called a call to action. You know, we think of that at the same as you know, a one page website should have a purpose and goal. But also, can you talk a little bit about the home base of all of your marketing efforts?
Lindsey Miller 10:27
Yeah, so one other thing, too, is I think that whenever you’re figuring out your purpose, and your goals of your website, there’s also this pressure to say, like, I love x psi, and it may be 15 pages, and then you like, never get the website launched, because you’re like, I have to create 15 pages here has to be perfect. And it has to be huge. And so I think that we need to like really lean into that fact that the reason there’s a one page site is because it is easy. You don’t have to have 15 pages, you don’t have to compete with I don’t know Psychology Today, or some you don’t have to do that you really can start out really simply. And I do think it is home base for all marketing efforts. Because you see people that have really robust social media following followings. They’re in a Facebook group, maybe they’re on Instagram, there’s some really cool people doing therapy work through Instagram right now. But if you look like there’s one notes from your therapist, so that’s a an account that I follow on Instagram, it’s really cool. And so this person is writing notes, they take these awesome pictures they put on Instagram, but there’s no link back to the website, like for Instagram, in general, doesn’t do that super well, because they want you to build their platform, they don’t want you to take people off of Instagram to your site, which is really what you want. You want everything to have go to your website, because you control the message, you control the journey, you’re asking people exactly what you want from them to call email, schedule a session, whatever that happens to be. But if it’s on Facebook, or Instagram, you’re just building Facebook and Instagram, you’re not building your brand. And so the website really is the core of everything.
Cory Miller 12:08
It’s it’s we talk about this a lot specially in digital marketing and online work is the difference between owning and renting. Can you unpack that? Because one thing we didn’t we didn’t talk about ahead of time. But really like, know, somebody might be asking today, why should not just have a Facebook page is my online presence. And I mean, you’re you’re hinting at that. But could you share a little bit about the difference between owning and renting?
Lindsey Miller 12:32
Absolutely. So you know, I do content marketing. And so everything is about owning the content. So for example, if I’m writing about specific modality or something along those lines, there are people out there that are paying for advertising for that same modality. So if I would do brain spotting in my practice, for example, and so I’m talking about that on my website, because I want people who are interested in that, and I am an expert in it, and I actually but I’m, you know, qualified to do it. So here’s the thing, well, then there’s people who are buying ads against the same things I’m writing for. So what that means is when they buy those ads, then they could get some of that traffic that I’m writing for The best thing is, is when they run out of money, or if people will rather read some great quality content, I win that and I own that, and one piece of content or a really well done website can actually outperform some of those ads for a longer period of time. So you spend effort on it once. And you may rank on the first page of Google for years to come for that piece of content. So you pay for it one time, that’s kind of the buying and versus renting.
Cory Miller 13:45
Well, and also the renting side is so if you’re only on social media, and that’s your web presence, your at the whims of a Facebook, Twitter link, right? And whatever social media, but if you have your website, you own the domain, and your website and all of that. And we’re going to get into all of that in a second. But that’s why it’s important. And I think the difference between it’s we’re not saying that you shouldn’t have social accounts, but we’re saying it’s the hub and spoke model. So well, if
Lindsey Miller 14:15
if everything’s built on Facebook, and Facebook goes down, then you lose all of your potential referrals overnight and you can’t do anything about it.
Cory Miller 14:22
Yeah. Or they change on a whim which they do. You’re, you’re at their you’re at their whims. But the hub and spoke model is to have the center be point back, just like you said, with Instagram, you’re doing this great built this great presence, but they’re not pointing back to the hub. It’s important to have that spoke for instance, that person’s probably got a great presence there. But it needs to point back to your point to the hub, which which is your website.
Lindsey Miller 14:49
Right? Well, if anyone here follows integrative Life Center on Facebook, they do this as a really great example. So every single time that they post about something at ILC on Facebook, there’s always a link that goes back to the website. So they may very well, you know, be saying something, but they’re not really giving you all the information on Facebook, because don’t really want you to stay there, they want you to go back to the website. So if you’re not following them on Facebook, go ahead and go like them. And watch how their content is ran.
Cory Miller 15:20
Yeah, so the spoke over here on facebook facebook page pointing back, but engaging people there too. Yeah. Okay, of course. Right. So that’s the purpose and the goals that we wanted to kind of share with you and lead and guide you. So you don’t have to make this up from the start, we want to give you our guidance for you as you start to build your web hub.
Cory Miller 15:39
So next part is let’s talk to the key elements of the website. And by the way, there’s many of you are came to, to get exactly this, I’d invite you to pull up like Microsoft Word or a document or something and start writing down some notes about your website. Now let’s get started. This is this is part of the practical side, we want you to okay intro put intros at the first and start typing, you know, some thoughts there maybe an outline. But the key in the key elements of a website, the one page website, and this is specifically thought through for therapists, clinicians, counselors, is you know, when you go to the website, the one page, you know, the first is an introduction to who you are, and your practice. So once your practice name is probably, you know, somewhere off the top of the left side. But, you know, we were talking before, in preparation for this Lindsey that, you know, it needs to include likely a prominent picture of you as the therapist like, you know, if you’re going to share the vulnerable things in your life with someone else, you probably want to know, you know how to recognize them in the crowd, for instance. And so you know, that top section is a great place to showcase your photo, as well as Hi, my name is Sally. And I do this in in the world. So when we get into the key elements, we’re talking about the nuts and bolts, and this is where your outline can be really and we start to type, Okay, first part, you know, the header section of website, this top part showcases maybe says your name, and it might not even have what’s called a navigation or menu side that you see on many websites. one page is designed to like everything on one page. And we tried to boil this down to the keys that we’ve seen across many looking at many websites for therapists and helping therapists to do this. So the first key element is just, hey, they’re coming to know who’s the therapist on the other side of the website, right Lindsey?
Lindsey Miller 17:35
Yeah, absolutely. And I think anybody like this feels like a no brainer. If you’re a clinician, right. It’s like sometimes people feel nervous about coming into your office. And so if you’re able to show your picture and help them feel more comfortable before they ever even make that appointment or come in to see you, then like that relationship has already begun in some ways. So it’s all about especially for this niche is helping them feel comfortable with you before they ever make a phone call.
Cory Miller 18:05
So by the way, so you’re like hey, I don’t really have a nice headshot right now. So if you have an iPhone or smartphone like an Android, those typically have really really good cameras in them now, then one way to do that and this is a sidebar for you all kind of a bonus but one way to get a headshot especially in the era of COVID that we’re under right now. Make sure you’re well lit maybe you know dress up a little bit as you would be if someone walked in the door because you want them to to know the expectations like okay, this is probably what Lindsey’s gonna look like when I come in, you know the door or see her on zoom or some telehealth video option. Get outside in natural environment where the clothing that you’re probably going to be wearing is similar to what you would be on a normal day. Make sure the sun is hitting your face and filling up your facial features. So there’s not like a dark side there’s a window right here so it hits natural light here but also have you can’t see it ring light coming over here to make sure my face looks pretty good next day probably a little darker a turn my ring light on
Lindsey Miller 19:06
I don’t have that that’s why my face is half and half.
Cory Miller 19:09
So get maybe not not high noon but somewhere where you’re not like looking directly in the sun but you’re well lit naturally lit and have your partner spouse or friend you know take some pictures and get you laughing get you smiling and things like that. And make sure there’s green space behind you or something you know, and or maybe it’s at your desk you know, or where you would be sitting in your therapy office and take a bunch of photos and be relaxed and then crop those for your website and there’s some little tips to get a profile picture that works you know it’s not necessary taking a selfie. But you can do these things and don’t you know make sure the phone I’ll show you make sure the phone is not here you don’t want to go up you know you don’t want to see from it. For instance me Here You want to get the photo more kind of like this and as relaxed as possible. So don’t take the first three shots you do cuz you’re probably going to be tense and a little feel a little artificial in your smile, get relaxed, have the person start talking to you and get you in your element. Like right there, Lindsey, I could have taken a picture of you and go Okay, that’s more, you know, you know. So there’s,
Lindsey Miller 20:21
let’s go back to the website.
Cory Miller 20:22
Well, this is important, because I mean, you need to have a good photo on your website, we’ve been across a lot of counselors, websites that don’t have good photos of themselves, or it’s maybe an ancient photo, you know. So, okay. Intro you and your practice. You mentioned to Lindsey like, also what the building looks like, also, what your inside of your office looks like, in preparation for this, and I think those are key to to be able to show. Okay, somewhere on your website.
Lindsey Miller 20:51
Yeah, I agree.
Cory Miller 20:52
Okay, because of your background stuff. Can you talk a little bit Lindsey about who you help and what you offer?
Lindsey Miller 20:59
Yeah, so
Lindsey Miller 20:59
I think that, um, sometimes we definitely as like clinicians get into, we can, we can use acronyms. And I think that whenever you’re writing your content for your site, you really need to, like, explain things and not say EMDR, like, not, not necessarily, right. And really make it so that anyone can understand what is on your site, make sure it’s easily read that, you know, I think when we get to writing, sometimes we want to use big words, I want people to see that we’re really, really smart. But the truth is, we want to make it like at a lower reading level so that anyone can access it and not feel like we’re out of touch or out of reach. And so when you’re talking, you know, go ahead and put it exactly on there like who it is that you help. And what you offer. Are there specific groups of people? Are there specific you know, things that you’re helping, so is it are you LGBTQ plus, is it trauma focused or like, what is it that defines you? And who are your ideal people that you’re working with? And that just helps people self selected? So they say, Oh, yeah, I want to talk to this Cory Miller person. Oh, and look, he says he specializes in grief. And so you know, and then they automatically look okay, this could be a person that I want to talk with. Because that’s, that’s the thing that I want to come in and talk about. And so whenever you, you probably have these identified in your head already. And it’s okay to put it it okay to put it on your site. And you should, but just whenever you do make it so that anyone can understand it. Does that make sense Cory?
Cory Miller 22:39
Yes? Yeah. Like as not the clinician here, you know, I, I know what EMDR is, for instance, but not everybody knows the jargon, you know, these names that you spent years practicing and training for, but think about your client, in this scenario, who you help says, Okay, I work exclusively with adolescents, for instance, you know, or these age frames, or couples. And then the what you offer is to, you know, be really careful, I see a lot of the profiles, for instance, on Psychology Today, and they’re like, well, they have all these modalities. Now, someone could be searching for those. But for the person that ends up on your website, they may not let’s say, they don’t know what an EMDR is, maybe you list it. So those that know what it is go Yes, I’m like, I’m, I’m where I need to be. But say this is kind of what that is. So people understand that’s a part of your approach to therapy. And from a marketing standpoint, I’ll say that’s great to put on a website, you got to put it, you got to translate it for those of us that haven’t been to the years and hours of training that you have.
Cory Miller 23:47
Now, this is a key one, Lindsey, because I know most of for instance, you drove almost all of your client interactions, prospective prospects to through a simple contact form. We highly urge you don’t just put your email address. That’s spammers know how to harvest that and put you on the spam list. And also, it’s just not as easy. Someone has to click on that. And maybe it fires up their phone. Like for instance, I’m on an apple laptop. And I don’t use Apple Mail. For my stuff. I use Gmail. So if I click that, it always fires because I don’t have a setup, right? Probably. But it always fires by Apple Mail, much rather do a contact form. Now, Lindsey, could you walk that through for just a second for people a contact form on your website?
Lindsey Miller 24:30
Yeah, I mean, I think everything comes down to making it easy for your users to do whatever it is you’re wanting them to do. Like that’s kind of sounds like a complicated answer, but like, is it contacting you? Is it booking an appointment? Is it downloading something that you’re offering, and so you got to make it easy to do. So the contact form is, you know, like we said about contentjourney.com. It is a single page website, but we have a separate we have a contact form on the main page. We have a separate Page, that’s just the contact form. And then we have a blog, which kind of keeps this like new and fresh content coming. But really the main of this is the one page site. And we make it really easy. Like there’s several different buttons where it’s like, call me call me call me book an appointment, or email me. And so we just make that like in front of everyone, because that’s really what I want them to do. I want them to come to the site, I want them to like what I have to say, and I want them to contact me in whatever way they’re comfortable contacting me.
Cory Miller 25:29
And, and so you know, we have a bonus here, it’s book an appointment online, you mentioned content journey, for instance. I mean, that’s part of your call to action and go on purpose, you know that if somebody contacts you through your contact form, you can reply back. But you really would love to get on the zoom call with them, and be able to walk through stuff. And that might be similar for your practice. So the bonus we put here is book an appointment online. And I know there’s software out there that you might be using for your telehealth remote therapy work in the era of COVID. That might help you with the booking software. But one of the we can talk about this in recommendations next, but is calendly. And I’ll put a link to that in the chat, depending on what video service you’re using. But I’ll tell you if you’re not using a video service, and you just want an easy way to save the back and forth from clients of figuring out what the time is, for instance, my counselor, it’s every time we meet, it’s like okay, when do you want to meet next? And I’ll go, Well, what do you have open next Monday and he’ll go, Okay, I’ve got 9, 10, 11, you know, or something like that. And I have to go to my callin and go, do I have 9, 10 and 11 open. This is self service. This is like a concierge using a service like calendly. And I’ll put that in the chat right now allows people it hooks into your calendar, but allows you to have a link so somebody can self serve and find it appropriate time for them, and book it instantly. So you save that back and forth. I remember the first time I’ve had my I’ve my current counselor, I’ve been working with him for about a year now. And I remember the first time we’re going back a couple emails about you know, what are the what are the openings and stuff? I’ll tell you we’ve talked to therapists specifically said this was the biggest time saver in their practice is just using something to book their appointments. Some telehealth services will integrate also like their video option, you can integrate the video option into a service like calendly. Like for instance, I use calendly. And we use it at AllCounselors.com. And it books, it automatically gets me a zoom meeting and does the calendar and all that stuff. It’s beautiful, because I never have to do that back and forth anymore. So that’s the last little bonus that we had too Lindsey. But any other thoughts or ideas for the one the key elements of a one page website?
Lindsey Miller 27:49
Yeah, I just want to like give one more example of the calendly thing because I think it makes people really nervous not to like continue down it because I think that we’ve you know, showcased it already. But it reminds me of so my mom’s a naturopathic doctor. And when COVID hit, she had to try to transfer everything to her own form of telehealth, instead of in person and so we meet like got livehealthyokay.life is her domain, you go on, you can book an appointment, and it goes into calendly. And she has three different locations. Now she exclusively uses that even for in person people. She’s constantly just sending people her booking link, they make their own appointment, it’s kept up to date with her calendar, and it has made her so happy. So anyway, this is definitely a good useful tool. Oh, Cory, you’re muted.
Cory Miller 28:42
I’ll give you real quick. I’ll show you. So let’s say I go this is self service. I’ve gone to let’s say you’re on my calendar, but you go 15 Okay, okay, Tuesday, then I see the available appointment times. And I can pick, you know, right there. And then you go through the confirmation process for for your clients. They see something similar to this with calendly. Yeah. All right.
Cory Miller 29:04
Next is recommendations. And we’ve got we’re saving times for QA and sheraz I believe is your name you’ve got questions here. I want to answer those really soon. Like, how does one get a domain in fact, we’re going to share that right here. But if you have questions, queue those up right now go ahead and post those in the q&a time Lindsey you’re going to be and I are going to be here until the top of the hour to help answer those questions and walk you through those. So at all counselors in my background specifically, we love WordPress. WordPress is open source software again, it powers about one third of the internet most so one third one out of every three sites you go to probably has some version of WordPress on the site using the site but for domain names, okay, so we want to make sure you don’t just rush out and buy something real quick. please email us hit our contact form and all counselors would love to help you walk this through, I don’t want you to do something and get into like non ultimate good long term thing. But for domain names, specifically to your question sheraz is godaddy.com is the number one or the top, you know, domain name registrar in the world. And also you can use hover.com. Now, I’m going to suggest godaddy.com, because you can also get web hosting. And that’s part of our recommendations today. So domain names, you can go to GoDaddy or hover.com, web hosting and web builder. GoDaddy does this too. And I’ll pull this up in a second and show you some other WordPress specific hosting. So domain name is like your PO Box, it points to where your server is, and GoDaddy, or and these others, they do the web hosting. But they also have software that’s called like website builders. Squarespace in particular has, it’s all in one, you can get your domain name, you can build your website, and it does hosting, all in one for one price and all together. Now, so we want to, we want to show that there’s a couple here, GoDaddy, squarespace.com, and wix.com. Lindsey and I’s background is all WordPress. But these are great platforms too. So we want you to just give you options that are good, and allow you to pick with some of the guidance we’ve offered here. Do you have any comments on domains or web hosting? Lindsey?
Lindsey Miller 31:28
No, not really, I think it can get really complicated. And once you have your site out for a couple of years, if you’re ready to like go bigger, or you have a lot of traffic and you need something else, then like maybe our recommendations would be a little bit different. But since we’re trying to stay very close to this is, you know, a startup website, for counselors who haven’t really done this before. This is probably where we would land. If you happen to be listening to this and you’re like, Okay, but I have you know, several 1000 people who are visiting my my website already, then, you know, hit up the contact form on AllCounselors.com and the recommendations may be different.
Cory Miller 32:08
Good point. Okay, so domain names, I hope we’ve kind of run through that. But domain names. That’s where it points to your server where your website is actually like the HTML and the CSS, the code and all the things that run your website that’s mostly there, right. So domain names point to the hosting, which is like GoDaddy or Squarespace.
Cory Miller 32:27
The next I’ll tell you, this is some something I see time and time again for and frankly, my counselor has this, I think your you told me yours does, too, Lindsey, is using like hotmail for their email, or even the non the Gmail. So it’s like [email protected] kind of thing. And I’ll tell you this is this is one way you can just showcase your professionalism to is by going ahead and getting an email professional email software with your domain name. And you can do that through the two I’d recommend. It depends on your familiarity. But Google workspace used to be called G Suite. But basically what that means is, it’s Gmail for your domain name, you can use the Gmail email software, with your domain name so [email protected], for instance, we use G Suite or Now Google workspace, I’ve given a link there for that. The other is, depending on where you’ve worked, maybe you’ve been an agency or whatever, and you’ve worked and you’ve got you use Outlook, for instance, use the one you’re most familiar with. But our our recommendation is use your branded domain name instead of a Gmail or an office.com, or hotmail.com. You know, thing, you’re going to have to pay a little bit for that. But there’s benefits to having either Gmail or, or I’m sorry, workspace or Microsoft Outlook. And that is you get all of their you get storage. And you get access to apps and things like that, like Google Docs, and Google Sheets, Google Slides, which is what I’m using here, actually. Or if you’re if you like Microsoft products, you can buy the office suite. And by the way, GoDaddy has some of those options with some of their packages where you can get that with your domain name and make it like the easy button. Any thoughts on email before I go on to the bonus, that is really your specialty? Yeah,
Lindsey Miller 34:17
just that you said that it can cost you a little bit of money. He literally means like a little bit of money, it can be as cheap as five to $10 a month to get that professional email. So there really isn’t an excuse not to go ahead and do it. And do you want me to start the bonus? material? So yeah, get it get a Google My Business profile, especially when we’re talking about location specific services, like a counselor who is in Phoenix, Arizona, and really only seen people in Phoenix, Arizona, they should have a Google My Business profile so that when people are getting on Google and looking for therapy that they find you easily. This is also a place where people can leave reviews, there can be more Photos if someone’s like that, what does that building look like again, that is the place that everyone is looking for. And so for all of my clients that we do content marketing for, basically at the if they are location specific service, we are doing a Google My Business profile. Oh, let’s see Cory’s gonna show us one location pack.
Cory Miller 35:25
So yeah, here we go a little bit ago, this is what Google My Business is, is basically I just googled therapist, I could do this the same for plumber, right? Mm hmm. And so you get this right here. So the same is this is a free service. And like Lindsey said, she uses this one all of her clients, this is this is totally free. And you’d be amazed how much leads clients you can get from this. So to your point, Lindsey, do this, it’s free, and it’s really easy. gonna wait a couple days to get in now and get the card and start doing your profile. And if there’s interest from our community, we’ll come back and ask Lindsey to come back and talk more about Google My Business. But there’s why it’s key. Now in this, you look at the profile. And just like I think you were saying Lindsey is like, okay, I can go to their website right here, you know, and see who they are.
Lindsey Miller 36:22
You’re gonna read reviews, all that. So that’s another aspect right is get in there and have some of your clients who feel comfortable because their names do show up, and leaving a review for your services so that other people can also get a feel for you and the services that you provide.
Cory Miller 36:38
Google My Business is, again, here’s the hub, your website, your one page website, the spoke is one of the spokes is Google My Business now. There, they find you From here, you want to point back to this nice site that you built that showcases your, it gives you more freedom and flexibility, and also all your eggs aren’t just in Google My Business. Okay, thanks, Lindsey. If you do have any questions about that, please post those and the q&a button right below our video here. And we’d love to help you.
Cory Miller 37:06
Okay, so that we’ve tried to give you a primer on building your first website, building a one page website, something also you can grow. Now I kind of highlight WordPress the reason why we say WordPress is just like you were talking about with your business content journey. You can have a one page website in WordPress, highly recommend you go with one of the good WordPress hosts. GoDaddy is great one they partner with us on other projects. And we actually know people at GoDaddy and work with them. WordPress people specifically. But with WordPress, one reason to go there is simple. You start out with a one page and you can grow that website. So you decided I need something else. I need a blog. Well, that’s pretty much built in with the themes that WordPress and before I go on, I should probably show them Linds, the GoDaddy, let’s see here, let me pull it over to my site, I was going to show some of the free what’s called themes that GoDaddy has, again, I want you to pick what works for you best, but part of their package and I’ll put this link here in the chat is, if you buy one of their WordPress hosting packages, which I believe start at $6, you get these simple, but elegant and beautiful designs. So you can you can customize to your own liking. Maybe that’s not the best one. Here’s one.
Lindsey Miller 38:27
Yeah, that’s the one I think I pulled up earlier when we’re talking.
Cory Miller 38:30
So maybe this says Lindsey, and then hey, I’m here to help you. This is contact now see that just have a contact button, you have some photos, maybe this is modalities or who you help things like this, maybe you’ve got testimonials down here and the like so I just wanted to show you real quick this is a real fast and dirty to just like there’s really good base themes, starter themes that you can use in your website that you don’t have to pay 1000s of dollars to a web designer to do.
Cory Miller 39:02
Okay, so we’ve got some homework for you. So what I highly suggest what we started with a beginning is hopefully you’ve got that you know you’ve got some kind of text document open you got Microsoft Word often or Apple pages whenever you use and you’re starting to write down you’re going okay, what’s my intro section introduction section my about me, how am I going to talk about myself get next session bold it and then put some outline points is what who do I work with? I work with adolescents or couples or whatever that is, and then my modalities and explain this a little bit. What are the specialties I do? And then just start that that’s your homework. In most every webinar, we’re going to do it at all counselors calm, we’re going to give you a little bit of homework. And it’s not really to just throw stuff on your plate. It’s to help you take action to make progress to get your website going to help get you clients and getting more clients that you help on their healing journey in the world. Any any parting thoughts before we open open it up for q&a. Lindsey?
Lindsey Miller 40:04
No, just that it’s not, it’s not as scary as you may think it is. And it’s okay. And these some of these, like starting places really do help you get a good like foot in the door, so to speak, so that you aren’t starting from scratch.
Cory Miller 40:20
That’s great.
Cory Miller 40:22
Okay, so please post your questions in the q&a or the chat here. We want to help you make progress in this way we do that as you ask a question. We help you give guidance to take those key next steps. There’s already been some questions through and we’ll allow Lindsey some time to answer some of those and me as well. But while you’re doing that, I want you to know AllCounselors.com is here for you, we have a free membership, you go to allcounselors.com/join. And or just go to AllCounselors.com and click the big blue button that says join, join for free, it’s no strings attached membership. But you have access to our upcoming members, member events and training like we’re talking about now. And early q1 2021 we’re already prepping for some CPUs to roll out too, but please join the membership so we can help you. That’s what is here for you today. You get access to a lot of these things and things we’re working on next. Last but not least, I’ll tell you, thank you first Lindsey, for help for coming on the webinar today and sharing your experience and expertise. If you have questions for us, or don’t want to bypass that, that contact form fire up your email and say, [email protected] and invite you to do that. See, so Okay, with that. Let’s see. Here’s a question that came in. And I know you’re ripe to answer this question. How do we keep people interested? This is exactly what you do. So you’re going to be smiling. How do we keep people interested in our website, if they have been on it before, but create new content all the time on a blog?
Lindsey Miller 41:59
Yes, absolutely. And I don’t think it’s just necessarily to keep them interested to come back. But I think there’s something really important about providing information, education, and just generally like being a resource to people who may be looking for the service that you’re providing. And so there’s lots of ways of getting new people to your website, and one of those is through the blog. So it’s not just about, you know, trying to keep people interested, it’s not actually about trying to get people to your website on something that you’re not actively doing. So it’s not ads, it’s not Facebook, it’s nothing else. It’s you sharing your expertise. And then people are googling about that specific expertise. They find your website and are like, Oh, my gosh, well, that’s exactly what I wanted. And now I found a new counselor, because they’re talking about, you know, this thing that I need, or this thing that’s affecting me. And again, you can actually go to integrativelifecenter.com go look at the wellness blog and look at the type of content that they’re doing. It’s stuff that Yeah, thank you, Cory. It’s all content that applies to the programs they offer. And they’re constantly adding new content there. Because people are finding integrativeLifeCenter.com because of the blog. And then once they find it, they’re going okay, so like PTSD, that’s the top one right now. So they go, okay, they know PTSD, I have PTSD. And now they’re talking about all of these things, speaking directly to me, I’m more likely to use them as a service, or go to them for what I’m looking for. And but yeah, this is a great example. So yes, yes, is the answer. I think a blog is a really important second step after you get your one page website open. And make a deal with yourself that you’re going to write two posts a month or one post a month, or you’re just something that you’re putting together and you’re putting on your site to showcase your expertise and who you want to help. Is there something else you want to add to that to Cory?
Cory Miller 44:06
Yes, so it’s all about, you know, time and effort. You, you might be searching for ideas for that for a blog and blog is one way to do this, you know, you could say, well, I just don’t like your point. Your example earlier was the Instagram therapist, for instance. And maybe you want to be able to, again, use the hub and spoke, you know, but a blog is great, because I I’m sorry, I was trying to get over to the website. Not sure if you mentioned search engine optimization getting found
Lindsey Miller 44:37
I didn’t.
Cory Miller 44:40
So search engine optimization is basically if you don’t know the concept, if you’ve ever looked for anything, and went to Google and typed it in, that’s it’s optimizing for that type of search thinking through someone might be saying it Forgive me for just using the same example but EMDR Google knows if I type that in, I’m sitting in my office in Oklahoma City, and knows that so like, that’s trying to go okay EMDR like, the profile came up, actually, I guess I was on the–. So on that, yeah. But see, okay, this person likely has EMDR in their, in their Google My Business profile. That’s one facet of optimizing for Google, for instance. And a blog is a great way to get found in the search results and get virtually free leads. Because this is what Lindsey does everyday for her clients is helped help them get found in the search engine rankings, pairing, what the prospect or the customer wants, with the products and services you’re offering. This is a multi billion dollar industry, by the way, but it’s something simple that if you do do a blog, you’re not just to your point a second ago, Lisa, you’re not just keeping them coming back to website, but you’re potentially being found by new people.
Cory Miller 46:05
Okay, please use the q&a button at the bottom of the zoom app, we’re here for you will stay. We’ve got until the top of the hour, we get Lindsey until the top of the hour. But if there’s no questions, we won’t keep you here belabor this anymore more. But the key is we want you to make progress on establishing your website, your online hub, which is your one page website. I think some people in in the, in the pre, we’re in the registration process that already had existing sites. If you have that, if you have questions about this, put them here. Now we’re here for you.
Lindsey Miller 46:39
I think one thing that I came in today kind of wanting to talk about to something that I’ve noticed with my my current clients, one ’cause I look at analytics, and I’m looking at SEO and like how people are finding their stuff. And that I think really could apply here is that people aren’t just googling modalities, they’re actually googling your name. So like, we have a friend who is like a, he has an accounting firm. And so whenever I was looking at his sites, like it wasn’t people looking for necessarily his business name over his personal name. So we have to like think about that, too. So when you’re doing your one page site, your about me section is actually vitally important. It’s important that your full name be there. And that you own that so that if somebody is looking up, you know, googling Cory Miller, that they’re not finding Cory Miller’s name on, I don’t know, waterbottle site because he like reviewed it or something. But that it really does go to corymiller.com. You know, and but I think that really applies to therapists, especially, we may have, I don’t know, the peaceful sanctuary therapy office as our LLC name. But really, people are going to be looking for your name, too. So you really have to optimize not just for your business name, but your personal name on your website.
Cory Miller 48:05
Shiraz says asked, does one need to pay to create or keep up a website? Once they’re in then what’s a reasonable amount to be paying given I have a small part time practice. The first quick answer is we highly suggest you do pay only because there’s free options out there and the but the best options, and I’ve been doing this a long time Lindsey’s been doing this a long time is is you pay you get what you pay for. Now, what’s a reasonable amount of price to pay, you can get plans for what we’re talking about, like a domain name typically costs about $10 a year, a web, your web hosting, like, I think Squarespace might be $25 a month. That’s a reasonable expectation to pay for a website. But you can get there are cheaper options. In fact, GoDaddy that we mentioned earlier, does have the $7 a month, I believe, website option. And do you have any thoughts on that?
Lindsey Miller 49:05
No, I totally agree with you. I mean, yeah, you don’t want to really go out there and get free stuff. Because the worst thing that could happen with that is that you get hacked, which happens all the time, even on really, really small sites, you may not think it does. And then next thing you know, you have advertisements for things that have absolutely nothing to do with your business or your practice on your site. And sometimes it can be really difficult to get that off. So yeah, you know, $5 to $30 a month is probably what you what you want to do. And also so I see this as well, especially with early starting sites for therapists is they’ll use WordPress, but they’ll get like Lindseymiller.wordpress.org, or whatever it is or.com thanks I started using anyway. So they’ll get that big, huge long thing because for them, it’s easier to do that. And then they get that domain little like, that doesn’t look very professional either. So it really is worth either purchasing your business name or your personal name at a .com. And owning that domain forever. Because it’s I mean, it’s short, cuz it’s like real estate these days. It’s like, you know, buying a land or buying a house and renting it out and selling it 25 years later, for more, you can do the same thing with your name. So it really is worth the investment to get that domain name.
Cory Miller 50:30
Yes, absolutely. wordpress.com we didn’t mention is one of the options, but there are pretty good services [email protected] I believe it’s around $100, roughly for to use wordpress.com. That’s what’s called the hosted version. That’s the wordpress.com version. The word I won’t get into this tech, I don’t need to complicate that. Okay, we have another nine minutes on the webinar. If you if you have a question for us, please let us know. We’re here for you hit the q&a button at the bottom of the zoom app. And hit us with your with your best shot, we’re here for you.
Lindsey Miller 51:21
I’m not seeing any new questions coming in.
Cory Miller 51:24
So I’ll tell you real quick. We have some great events coming up next week. And we’ll be scheduling more coming soon. So next Friday, actually, December 17. We’ve got lee McCormick, He’s a legend in the recovery space. At one point, he had the ranch outside of Nashville, Tennessee, and now is one of the owners of integrative Life Center, he’s going to be talking about some spiritual and recovery type, work reenergizing work that you as a counselor can do. And I’m excited about that. We’ll get his event up here, but I’ll click the events calendar thing and share that with you. And then on Friday, we have your 2021 marketing plan to grow your practice. So we’re going to be talking about let’s plan out 2021 and help you with marketing, specifically your private practice.
Lindsey Miller 52:21
Okay, we got a good question. Again, back in my wheelhouse. So I struggle with writing content that I worry other therapists are also writing about, how do I find out how to keep my content fresh and relatable and not be repetitive. And so the truth is like, none of us are going to have unique ideas, especially when it comes to things that are research based, like, it all comes from somewhere may even come from the same book. However, I guarantee you thatyou have a unique approach a unique perspective and unique way of using it. whatever it happens to be. So just because so like the post that Cory brought up from ILC tips to stay home step tips to stay sober at holiday parties. And you may have your own tips, they may be different, they may be sort of similar. But that’s something that you could also write about. And that’s okay. Because you’re going to have a unique perspective, you’re going to have unique tips, or even experiential activities or how to do art therapy at home. Like all of those things are great things to write about. They’re things that other people are writing about, but you’re going to have your own unique spin on it. You definitely don’t want to plagiarize, Google will go ahead and go ope that is duplicate content. So we’re going to go ahead and we’re going to take that plagiarized post and not index it, meaning if somebody was looking for how to do art therapy at home, you just went ahead and went to the ILC site, copied the blog post and put it on your site so that you have fresh content, Google’s gonna see that and be like, Nope, it’s duplicate, like, we’re gonna send it to the original site. So as long as it’s uniquely written, even if it is inspired from something else, it’s totally fine and awesome. And that’s exactly what people do. And so just think about it and, and write your own thing. I one of the tips I tell people too is keep like your notepad on your phone open. And every single time you have an idea about something, you put it in there. And then when it’s time for you to sit down and write about it, you open up your notepad and see the ideas that you had, and then write about them then.
Cory Miller 54:29
Lisa, I love your question. And so it’s likely that you hear common themes in your client base now. And when you start to hear a theme, you know, once or twice, you’re probably on to something you could write about and that you’re not going to share that. Obviously you’re not going to share the client specifically but you can say hey, I hear often in my practice this and that’s great content. Because you know people and multiple people are struggling with that. Please don’t worry about other therapists writing that. So I’ll tell you real quick, I started this whole entrepreneurial journey in 2006. Because I wanted to start a blog in my field at the time, which was communications work for nonprofits. And I had all of the imposter syndrome stuff come up. And I thought, Man, I actually knew people in my same city that were way, like experts, but I was the one that chose to put myself out there, type it up, click Publish. And so first and foremost, please put your your work out there, because you all have so much good to do. And I love you being able to share that through your website, or your social media or whatever that is to put that on the world. Now, fresh content is right there. So look at our we’re in December 2020, we’re getting ready to in the united states do Christmas or holiday season or, you know, well, most of us are used to going to a big family gathering and well that probably not going to happen this year. So there’s an idea and but I’ll tell you, you’re hearing contextually likely from your your clients, what’s going on in their life. And you can, that’s such good stuff, put that out there. Now you’re going to naanum eyes, you’re going to do all that, you know the right way, because that’s what you’re trained to do. Right? So I’m going to tell you about that. But that’s great ideas, fodder to put out say, Hey, you know, you probably find yourself I would say in in in Lindsey, even you in supervision, I’m sure did this, or your internship, sorry, is probably reciting things across clients over and over and over little sayings or exercises and stuff. That’s great stuff, too. But then don’t let Mr. Mr or Mrs or whatever imposter syndrome, you know, the evil little devil on your shoulder go? No, no, no, someone’s better at that. No, no, no, someone’s already done that don’t do that please because you have an opportunity through your website to make even a bigger impact than just your one on one face to face for telehealth type clients. And by the way, I love that. But this is an A plus one that you can show your impact in the world by sharing that expertise.
Lindsey Miller 57:26
Well, and honestly too Cory, you showed exactly why would when you put in EMDR and Google just a minute ago, it didn’t pull up EMDR at Wikipedia, right? It’s pulling up EMDR with therapists that are local to where you are today. And so when you’re writing about that content, even if you’re using the acronym that we told you not to, but even if you’re using the acronym, or whatever it is that you’re talking about tips to say sober holiday parties, Google’s going to pull up sometimes, right people that are location specific, depending on the service that’s being offered to.
Cory Miller 58:01
So that’s really helpful use the acronym, but then just tell me as the lay person, what that means. How that helps, you know, maybe that’s your approach and stuff. So yeah, absolutely. Great points there. Okay, we’re here for you, Lisa, and others. And thank you, I’m glad that it was getting encouragement for you. But this is our purposes, our mission, at allcounselors.com. That’s why we pull in experts like Lindsey, to come and talk to these things. We want to help you with these things, you have such opportunity to make an impact in the world. And we just want to help you with it. We want to take some of the frustrations out some of the gaps in knowledge out we don’t expect you to be I don’t want you to be a website expert. By the way. I don’t want you to be a digital marketing expert. That’s what our team does for you. That’s what Lindsey pulling in and coming helps. I want you to be the best you can be for your clients.
Cory Miller 58:49
All right, well, thank you everyone. I hope you’ll come join us at allcounselors.com/join or just go to all counselors calm, hit, join, fill out the onboarding stuff. And we’re here for you long term. We want to walk with you as you do your work in the world and be there for you we’reyour sidekick and your buddy Lindsey, thank you so much. You can reach Lindsey at contentjourney.com. And to learn more about what Lindsey does too, and hit the contact form I guess if you want to say hi Do you mind them doing that? Lindsey?
Lindsey Miller 59:23
I’d love to. Hopefully it works perfectly.
Cory Miller 59:28
Alright, the contentjourney.com is where you can find Lindsey and allcounselors.com is where you sign up to have more events like this. Thank you so much for being here. Good luck. We’ll see on the next events.
Lindsey Miller 59:40
Thanks Cory.
Lindsey Miller 59:40
Bye, everybody.
