The Short Version
Write for the Public
- write in the first person, I/we/you/your
- use plain English
- talk about the benefits of seeing you
- use the terms counsellor and counselling
Include an Issues List
- a potential client wants to know that you work with the thing that they think they have
- use terms familiar to the general public eg. depression rather than emotional dysregulation
- write the words and the abbreviation eg. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- format them as a bulleted list
Qualifications & Memberships
- people want to know you have some
- write them out in full eg. Diploma in Counselling
- put them in an FAQ
But Why .....
People and Search Engines often want different things
There’s often a tension on the web between what will help get a search engine to put your page in a search result, and what humans like to read when they get to it. In the end it’s a bit of a compromise. If you do some of the basics below, you’ll generally do okay.
Write for the Public not your Colleagues
The biggest mistake I see on member’s profiles is text written to colleagues rather than potential clients. These two groups generally want to know different things, and want to hear it in a different way. I think it’s often because members take the text from some assessment process they’ve done where the task has been to convince a marker that you are a competent and ethical practitioner. These tend to be written in the third person, focus on the therapeutic process, and are usually full of jargon and qualifiers.
By contrast a person looking for a therapist wants to feel connected to, and find out what the benefits of seeing you will be. They need to read this in language they understand. So, think of your Profile more as a conversation, let your professional personality be heard through your words and writing style.
Include a List of your Qualifications & Memberships
I’ve watched over 500 recordings of visitors using Talkingworks, and most of them take a look at the Qualifications. They might not know what they are, but they do like to know you have some. And again, it’s an easy opportunity to get some more keywords attractive to search engines onto your page.
Be respectful to visitors who might not know what the abbreviations stand for and type them out in full eg. PGDipHSc vs Post Graduate Diploma in Health Science (Psychotherapy), you won’t connect with someone who ends up feeling dumb because they don’t know what your qualification is.
And, because they’re not the most important info on your page it’s a good idea to put them in an FAQ box so they don’t clutter your page.
But I'm not a Counsellor!
But I’m not a Counsellor!
For professional reasons lots of psychologists, psychotherapists arts therapists, music therapists … don’t want to use the terms counsellor or counselling.
Problem is, those are the words New Zealanders generally use for the talking therapies. And, if they’re not on your page, google won’t bring someone to you who searches using those terms. I’d advise you to slip them in a few times.
Of course, if you are niche marketing to potential clients who know about and favour your profession/modality then leave them out.