How to create a great directory site profile

The Business of Psychology

How to create a great directory site profile

Links for this episode:

Instagram: @rosiegilderthorp

The Business of Psychology: Episode 32: How to get your blog post seen with Vicki Jakes: SEO for psychologists and therapists

The Business of Psychology: Episode 19: How psychologists and therapists can use an ideal client avatar to co create and market their services

The Business of Psychology: Episode 54: How to write for your website: Copywriting for Psychologists and Therapists with Allie Linn

The Business of Psychology: Episode 20: How to find the people you want to help online. Online marketing for psychologists and therapists

The Business of Psychology: Episode 76: Marketing strategies for psychologists and therapists: Three styles of marketing to get more therapy clients or grow your practice

Full show notes for this episode are available at The Business of Psychology

Welcome to today's episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. Today I want to talk to you about directory site profiles, because the state of play is changing in private practice, and while I'm very confident that it will all be okay and the marketing will continue to work (it always has, private practice has always been here and I am absolutely sure it will continue to be here), one change that I've started to notice in the marketing landscape is that it is slightly more difficult for our own websites to rank on Google. If you don't know what I'm on about when I'm talking about ranking on Google, don't worry, we've got an episode on search engine optimization, which will explain that for you, but basically, it's getting a little bit more difficult to get our websites seen. That does not mean that you should not be trying, I still think it can be done, but it is getting a bit trickier, especially for our generic therapy services pages. For that reason, I think it's extra important to have a good presence on some of the key directory sites, because they have the kind of budget that means that they will usually be at the top of search engine results, whether they're paying for that, or whether they've got content writers that mean they're able to stay there organically. I'm talking about sites like Psychology Today, Counselling Directory, Find a Therapist, Find a Psychologist; these are sites which are 100% dedicated to search engine optimization, and they've got marketing budgets that support that. Yes, it costs you money to be on those sites, but I think as we're seeing a rise of companies like BetterHelp (for example) taking up a lot of space on Google, I think is important to use some of these directories to make sure that your ideal clients can find you and choose to work with you directly rather than having to go through a third party.

So that's just my little thought on why directory sites are probably more important now than they were before, so if you're not on them already, I'd very much recommend getting on them. And if you are on them, I think it's really important to make sure that little corner of the directory site that you occupy is optimised to speak in the best possible way to your ideal client so that the people that should be working with you, will get the best results from working with you, are able to find you amongst all of the noise that's out there.

So I want to share with you some tips for making sure that your directory site profile stands out of the crowd, and I also want to share a couple of principles for good writing and some stuff that you should really try and avoid when you're writing your directory site profile. I hope this is going to be useful today; it'd be a good idea to get a notepad and a pen or the notes app on your phone and make some notes as we're going through because there's some really simple stuff that you can implement today, which will make your directory site profile much better if you're not doing it already. It's one that's worth taking notes and taking action on straightaway.

A professional picture

I'm going to start with the first thing, the most obvious thing that people see when they land on your directory site profile, and that is the picture. It's a really good idea to have a professional picture for your directory site profiles. I know some of you will be listening to this and thinking, "Ah, Rosie, I can't afford to do that! It doesn't seem like something worth spending my precious early pennies and pounds on", and I completely understand and I resisted this myself for a little while. But actually, there's quite a lot of evidence that people choose us based on our pictures. It's not about looking like a supermodel in your picture, but it is about having really good lighting and a pose and a stance that makes you look open, honest and approachable. Bad lighting can literally make you look shifty and untrustworthy. If you don't believe me, take a picture of yourself; take a selfie with the light coming from behind you so you're silhouetted in the picture, and then take another picture of yourself but where the light is behind the camera and just look at the difference. It is a massive difference. And while you know tips like that can help you take a terrible picture and turn it into something passable, actually professionals are really clever at working out what the best angle is for us, helping us to get comfortable, take a decent picture, and making that light really work for us. So I'd really encourage you to get a professional to do some headshots for you and to use one of those for your directory site profiles.

Another good reason to do this is the networking prospect. I've always had my pictures done by people that I've met at local networking events. It's a way of really getting to know somebody in your local community who's in a completely different field from you, and who may be able to send referrals your way further down the track, but it's also just about building up that local visibilit - they're quite likely to want to share their pictures of you with their network, and it's getting your face and your name out there in your local community through another way, so there really is a double benefit to having your photos done professionally. And I can't emphasise enough, the research tells us people do judge us by our pictures, and a good picture will help people to trust you. So very, very important if you possibly can to get a professional photo done. If you really, really, really can't because there is literally no money in your bank account, then I would encourage you to follow some YouTube tutorials on how to take the best one you possibly can yourself, and then upgrade it as soon as you've got a bit of money coming in. That's what I had to do when I started, I've shared my story in private practice before, and you know, it was okay, but I did upgrade it after a few months and I'd really recommend that you do that because this is about standing out amongst the sea of rubbish images and terrible profiles that people will be coming across, and a professional picture is obviously a professional picture. I would say, especially if you're charging at the higher end of the spectrum, it's really important that your clients perceive you to be worth that, and a professional picture does help.

Questions that help your ideal client to recognise themselves

The second thing that I prioritise in all of my profiles are questions that help my ideal client to recognise themselves. This could just be something as simple as 'Are you staying awake at night worrying about your children's 11+ scores?' That’s just an example from something we were talking about in the membership today, but it has to be something which will enable your ideal client to raise their hand and say ‘Oh, my gosh, yes, that's me, you're talking to me’ at the same time as making people who are not a good fit for you, who don't fit that ideal client group to scroll on by. So for example, that 11+ issue, that's really, really niche. Only people in specific areas of the country will be concerned with that, only people with specific value sets will be concerned with that, so you're really speaking directly to something which is a big concern for that ideal client group, and is not a concern at all for the other 99% of the country. And those questions should really do that; they should speak very directly to only the people that you're trying to target. So if you're not sure at the moment who your ideal client is, or how to frame those questions, I'd really encourage you to go back and listen to our episode on the ideal client, and also to our copywriting episode with Allie Linn, because that skill, if you can nail that, getting those questions right that enable people to go 'Oh my gosh, she's talking to me' through that profile, 'this is the therapist who cares the most about me specifically', then that will make all of your copywriting far, far better, and will really enable your directory profile to serve you in the best possible way. So I'd check those out if you haven't listened to them already.

Explain why you want to help these ideal clients and how your qualifications enable you to do that

The third thing you want to do on your directory profile is explain why you want to help these people, specifically, these ideal clients, and then how your qualifications enable you to do that. So an example of that might be saying something like, 'I know firsthand how hard it is to live with depression, so I studied X, Y and Z so I could help people like you to come through it feeling stronger, just like I did'. So if you've got personal experience and you're willing to own it, that can work really well. Because that's the rationale right? That's why you got your qualification, that's why you're passionate about helping these people. If you're comfortable to share that, that can be really powerful. Or it could sound like something different, it might not be about your personal experience. So it could be something like, 'Over my 10 years of practice in the NHS, I noticed many parents coming to me with trauma symptoms, several years after the birth of their children. As a psychologist, I knew there were effective therapies that could drastically improve the symptoms and I felt it was a damn shame that they'd missed so many years of enjoyment of parenthood. So I trained in EMDR therapy, and I now offer this in my private practice so that no one has to suffer with birth trauma symptoms for years before they get help, you deserve to be able to enjoy your baby now'. So you see how those two ways of framing it (not the most eloquent, I came up with those off the top of my head, you'd probably want to make them a bit less clumsy, make them sound a bit better) but those are two different ways of framing your passion, why you want to help these people, and then how you're going to do it. So you're mentioning your qualifications, you're mentioning your experience, but in the context of your desire to help these specific people. In one of those it's all about personal experience, in the other one it's not about personal experience at all, it's about professional experience, but they both let the person reading it know that you are all about helping people like them and that you're qualified to do so. Those are two things that people are looking for when they read our directory site profiles; they want to know that you want to help, and they want to know that you can competently help them, so we need to make sure we cover both of those bases as succinctly as possible.

A short list of issues that you can help with

The next thing I would include in a directory site profile is a short bullet pointed list of issues that you can help with. This is where I see a lot of people going wrong, because a lot of people implement this but they put almost every condition under the sun in their bullet point pointed list because, especially for people with a really broad training like mine was as a clinical psychologist, it is tempting when you start out in private practice to be like, yeah well, I can do anxiety, I can do depression, I can do stress, I can do PTSD, because maybe you've done all of that in your training and technically you are qualified to work with all of those conditions, but I'd really encourage you here to just stick to the ones that are likely to be the main concerns for that ideal client group. For example, for me, because I'm dealing with perinatal and my particular interests are birth trauma and pregnancy mental health, including stuff like severe sickness, I'd be likely to only really mention pre and postnatal depression and anxiety, birth trauma recovery, dealing with the symptoms of severe sickness (although nobody knows they need that yet, that's one of my passion projects to get that out there a bit more), but I'd only mentioned three or four things that I work most commonly with my ideal clients on and that they are most likely to be looking for support with. That could be things like sleep or anxiety, but I wouldn't name every single thing that I can help with, or that I do help with; I'd pick the ones that are most likely to be the biggest concerns. Because what you do not want to do on your directory site profile is overwhelm people, you don't want to give them loads to read, you want to make it really clear, really punchy, so that they can make a decision about whether you're the right person for them very quickly, because it's highly, highly likely that when people come to your directory site profile, they are very stressed, they want to solve a problem which is looming large in their mind, it is likely they're in fight or flight (less likely to be freeze because they're taking proactive action) but they are likely to be worked up, so if you then give them reams and reams of stuff to read, it's just going to be hard for them to take in. So keep it short, keep it to the few conditions that people are most likely to be coming to you looking for help with.

A strong call to action

Finally, I would make sure that you include a strong call to action. I know it might seem really straightforward, I know a lot of the directory sites have clear calls to action on them, but you need to write one yourself. People will miss things, especially if the call to action on Counselling Directory (for example) is at the top in the right hand corner - I don't think that's where most people expect to see it, so a lot of people might miss it if it's there. But also because they're in that fight or flight frame of mind, the way that our eyes track changes, and we might miss some of the more subtle calls to action on these sites, so you need to put in as many as you possibly can and I’d definitely have one at the bottom. Make it really strong, something like 'Book your free consultation here', 'book your first session with me here', and then if you possibly can hyperlink to those direct pages on your website, some of them allow that, some of them don't. If they don't, put the phone number, put the email address, so that it's just really straightforward, nobody has to click around to find that information. If it is a site which has their own button, and they have to click that button to book in a consultation with you or to contact you, then put something like 'hit the big purple button’ to book in a free consultation with me or to book in your first therapy session or to contact me and find out more. I really like the more direct calls to action, like 'book in your free consultation now' or 'contact me to book your first session now'. I prefer that to 'click here to find out more' because I think we need to work with the fact that people are likely to want to move quickly when they're visiting these sites. So I would always put the strongest call to action that I can, which is ‘click here to book in a free consultation or your first session’. But it's up to you.

Key principles

We've covered all the stuff that I would make sure that you include in your directory site profile, but there are some key principles that I just want to make sure that we've covered before we move on to the stuff you definitely shouldn't do.

The first thing is just to make sure that everything you write is what you would say to somebody who you came across who was really stressed about this issue. You know when you have those conversations on the bus, or in a waiting room, where somebody that you don't really know, tells you I'm really struggling with this thing? What would you want them to know? What would you say to them? And try to make sure that you don't go over and above that by very much.

The second thing is you do want to reference your core qualifications and your registrations, but most of these directory sites have space for those things that is separate to your personal statement area. So if it's already been covered off separately, you don't need to go into very much detail at all. Something like the examples that I gave earlier, where you're just saying, 'I really wanted to offer something more for people like you struggling with this issue, so I studied X, Y, and Z’. You don't need to go into much more detail than that if you've already got your registrations in another part of the site. If you haven't, then you do want to list your core qualification and registrations, but you can just have that as literally two sentences. Do not go into your CPD record here, because although it's interesting to me and other professionals, it's not interesting to our ideal clients. If anything, it can sometimes undermine your core qualification a bit to see lots of 'certificate in...' '3 CPD hours in...' because they might not appreciate that that's in addition to what you've done in your core qualification, it can...