Tips From a Mental Health Writer
— How to Attract More Patients to Your Mental Health Practice
Last Updated October 3rd 2020 by Declan Davey
Google’s #1 Health and Wellness Copywriter
If you’re a mental health professional who wants to grow their client base, creating the right online content is essential for 2020 and beyond.
The guide below shows you how you can be a leading voice in the mental health sector, with top tips such as:
How to inspire your audience with engaging content
Attract clients making location-based Google searches
Use keywords to get more counseling business clients
Make your website both modern and relevant
Want to bring in more clients with less hassle?
You can talk to a mental health writer who’s worked for NHS mental health clinics and written for psychologists.
Click the button below to book a call, or email me at: declanwritescopy@gmail.com.
Maybe you’re a therapist, counselor, psychologist, or mental health advocate?
Either way, you want to innovate in the mental health sector.
You want to lead.
You want to be the person who people facing mental health challenges go to for advice.
In an age of websites and online content, mental health professionals need to be making the most of digital channels.
Blogs, social media, video…
They’re all relevant to how health consumers are searching for help, these days.
The following tips will support you in creating the right kind of content for your audience.
Mental health professionals and brands can attract more clients with industry-leading online content.
Mental health writing essentials for the 2020s
Inspire your audience with engaging content
Here’s something to consider.
Do you know how many people Google search for mental health professionals near them?
Well, here are the monthly averages according to Google Keyword Planner (view this article to see how you can view the search quantities yourself):
‘‘Therapist near me’’ — 100,000 to 1 million Google searches per month
‘‘Counselor near me’’ — 100,000 to 1 million Google searches per month
‘‘Clinical psychologist near me’’ — 10,000 to 100,000 Google searches per month
‘‘Child psychologist near me’’ — 10,000 to 100,000 Google searches per month
‘‘Couples counseling near me’’ — 10,000 to 100,000 Google searches per month
‘‘Cognitive behavioral therapy near me’’ — 10,000 to 100,000 Google searches per month
‘‘Therapist near me for depression’’ — 1000 to 10,000 Google searches per month
I could go on, but I don’t want to bore you with too many stats in one go!
Now, here’s another thought. How many mental health professionals do you know that invest in a consistent online content plan?
While some therapy clinics have begun to optimize for the web in the past five to ten years, the reality is that 95% don’t.
They still rely on old-fashioned methods…
Word of mouth, handing out leaflets. Maybe a little print advertising if they’re feeling ambitious.
These methods do still work, don’t get me wrong.
But as a freelance copywriter, the clinics and mental health services I see thriving in the next 20 or 30 years are the ones who take a large part of their marketing online.
Remember this...
Consumers desire nothing more than convenience. It’s no different now than it was in 1980, or 1950.
And the same is true for the health market.
People want to access a product or service now, or at least as close to now as is realistically possible.
Virtual appointments and regular email check-ins are a great way for mental health brands to both modernize and cater to the needs of their clients.
But how do we move people along from merely being service browsers to real-life, paying clients?
Well, providing these browsers with a healthy dose of inspiring online content is key.
This doesn’t mean desperately trying to maintain eight different social media channels.
Please don’t do that! You’ll spread your brand too thin.
Rather, I recommend you get focused. Zone-in on questions such as:
‘‘What information do my potential future clients need?’’
‘‘Where do they hang out online?’’
‘‘What are their fears and frustrations?’’
‘‘Why should they trust me?’’
With questions like these at the forefront of your mind, you’ll find that you get a much clearer idea of what kind of content you should be creating and WHERE.
Don’t start posting on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
My advice is to choose two or three of the above.
Double-down on those. You’ll build a stronger, more committed following over time by choosing a few social channels, rather than every single one.
Okay, let’s move on to talk about blogs.
Blogs have been around for a while, but they’re still a leader when it comes to content marketing. Websites with an an active blog get 55% more visitors.
Sure, you can put out dull, short posts that don’t really offer anything, just to keep the blog active. But this won’t make visitors stick around.
Instead, aim for engaging and science-based articles on topics that are relevant to your particular mental health niche.
The average content length for page one Google results is a sizeable 1,900 words. You might think ‘‘I can do that easily enough.’’
And you might be right.
But in my experience, mental health brands struggle to keep this up.
They’re often juggling so many other business tasks that the content starts to fade away, or stop altogether.
Thankfully, this is where a freelance mental health content writer can come to the rescue.
You don’t need to hire them on a fixed contract. You can simply outsource the content to them for as long as you need it.
One post per fortnight is the minimal for a steady stream of organic traffic, but ideally you should aim for one to posts per week.
Attract clients by location
As you can see with the ‘‘therapist near me’’ style of search in the section above, mental health service consumers love to shop by location.
The reason for this?
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? They don’t have to travel far to access the help they want.
Plus, some people also like to support business in their local town, even if that business isn’t as well-renowned as a bigger practice in the nearest city.
Make the most of this tendency for clients to choose local by claiming your practice on Google My Business.
Claim your business on ‘‘Google My Business’’ for more exposure to consumers making location-based searches, such as ‘‘therapist near me.’’
After doing this, your future customers will be able to discover your business more easily through Google search and Google Maps.
But how can being on page one of a location-based search benefit your mental health business?
Let’s take a look at an example…
Here are the Google search stats for ‘‘therapist sacramento’’:
Stats for ‘‘therapist sacramento,’’ which gets 880 monthly Google searches. This shows the importance of optimizing your mental health brand for location-based searches.
Source: Ubersuggest
We can see that terms such as ‘‘therapist sacramento’’ and ‘‘therapist in sacramento california’’ are being searched for 880 times per month.
And those ‘‘SD’’ scores, what do they mean?
33, 26, 18, 18… that’s how hard it is to rank on Google for the search term.
Scores under 40 out of 100 are seen as being relatively easy to rank for. Scores under 20 are seen as very easy to rank for.
So, how exactly do you rank for these search terms?
With the right kind of content…
1000+ word blog articles. Long-form sales pages, About pages that show off your business and resonate with your customers.
They all add up to help you rank well.
We know that the top three search results get 60% of the clicks.
This means that when a customer searches for a mental health practitioner by location, such as ‘‘therapist in sacramento california’’ there’s a 60% chance they’ll click one of the top three results.
Let’s say, for example, that you get to the third spot in the search results.
You might be tempted to think hopelessly, ‘‘I’ll never get there.’’
But let’s fast-forward to 18 months from now.
You’ve been committed to a great content plan over those 18 months with the help of a mental health writer.
As a result, you’re in the top three Google results for the search term in our example above, ‘‘therapist in sacramento california.’’
(I know the chances are you’re not in Sacramento, but humor me for a minute!)
The upfront investment you made in marketing resources (e.g. writers, SEO software, etc) more than pays for itself when there’s a significant increase in customer enquiries to your clinic.
Let’s do the math…
According to the source above, for being in third spot on page one of Google, you’d get about 10% of the clicks.
10% of 880 monthly searches = 88 more visits per month on your site.
Over the course of a year, that’s 1056 more clicks and people coming onto your site.
They aren’t just any old clicks, though. They’re clicks from action-ready consumers.
These people aren’t browsing for cat photos. They want to find a therapist in their local area that they can book an appointment with, as soon as possible.
To take this further, let’s say that of the 1056 clicks, you convert just 10% of them into buyers…
That’s approximately 105 new customers per year.
Consider how much you charge for an appointment. Let’s say it’s $50.
105 x $50 = An extra $5250 for your clinic per year.
But let’s take this even further now… Most customers don’t come for one session, do they?
The average number of therapy sessions range from six to 20. Let’s go for a number in the middle — 12 sessions.
So, that’s $50 x 12 = $600 for one client who’s found you through Google search.
But it wasn’t only one client who found you, was it?
Nope.
It was 105 clients that found you, just from making your site discoverable for the search term ‘‘therapist in sacramento california.’’
105 x $600 = $63,000 more in therapist revenue per year!
Stats like these make me excited…
I get to work for mental health services whose work I support, and I get to be a big part in what drives them to impressive growth rates like an extra, well-deserved $63,000 annual boost.
How to get clients for your counseling business (or other mental health services): An extra $63,000 per year with a content plan.
Attract clients by mental health need
So, we’ve established how you can acquire new patients through location-based optimization.
But what about for people browsing by mental health need, rather than by their location?
Let’s go through an example, shall we?
Say there’s a cognitive-behavioral therapist who’s looking to grow their private practice.
What should they include on their site and social media (like Facebook and YouTube)?
The simple answer is this:
Put out frequent, educational content that targets audience-specific keywords.
The cognitive-behavioral therapist we mentioned above has a lot of keywords they can choose from.
They could drive traffic to their site or social media by attracting clicks from people searching for terms like:
‘‘CBT therapist’’ — 22,000 USA searches per month, 30/100 ranking difficulty (quite easy to rank for)
‘‘What is CBT therapist’’ — 2,400 USA searches per month, 8/100 ranking difficulty (very easy to rank for)
Therapist marketing tips: Create useful content that can rank for terms such as ‘‘what is CBT therapist’’ for more traffic to your site.
Source: Ubersuggest
A long-form article (1500 words or more and SEO-optimized) that explains in depth what a CBT therapist is will attract traffic, mark my words!
It may take time (at least three to six months) for Google to figure out ‘‘hey, this is an awesome article and we should show it to more people.’’ But a little patience pays off here, I promise.
And we don’t need to finish there…
Let’s think about what kind of problems someone who needs a CBT therapist may have, and how we can help them.
‘‘Depression counselling online’’ — 260 USA searches per month, 30/100 ranking difficulty (quite easy to rank for)
‘‘How to calm anxiety’’ — 18,100 USA searches per month, 16/100 ranking difficulty (easy to rank for)
‘How to calm anxiety attack’’ —2,900 USA searches per month, 9/100 ranking difficulty (very easy to rank for)
A 1500-word, well-researched article with a headline like ‘‘‘5 Tips on How to Calm Anxiety’’ or ‘‘How to Quickly Calm an Anxiety Attack’’ would generate extra traffic to your website.
What if you’re too busy to write these extensive articles?
Well, you don’t need to!
Or at least, not all of them. Instead, a knowledgeable mental health writer can create them for you.
They’ll get to know your brand and preferred tone-of-voice. Then, they’ll research keywords that will be relevant for you to pursue in order to bring in more site visitors.
Now obviously, I’m biased in saying… choose me for this mighty task! But there are other freelance mental health writers out there, such as Sarah Graham and Juliet Austin.
Get a mental health copywriter to perfect your website
This one’s underrated.
Some mental health businesses think they only need a basic website to get an endless stream of new patients calling and arranging consults.
Wrong, wrong, wrong…
For a start, I’ve seen far too many mental health clinics and services that don’t even have the essentials.
I’m talking about designated pages that a site visitor would expect. Pages such as:
About
Services
Contact
The most important of all is the home page.
Please don’t waste the brief opportunity you have here to hold on to someone’s attention.
It takes about 0.05 seconds for a visitor to form an impression of your site, which… isn’t long at all.
And it takes 2.26 seconds for the visitor’s eyes to land on an area of the page that attracts their attention the most.
So with this in mind, what needs to be at the top of a website home page?
A headline or opener that perfectly sums up what you do and how you can help.
Here’s a good example from My LA Therapy:
A well-written and designed home page from My LA Therapy.
Source: My LA Therapy
‘‘Give your mind a hug’’ is a simple, welcoming, and very relevant headline.
This is what a mental health copywriter can support you with, if you want to make sure you’re getting your messaging right.
They know about the power of word choice and placement. They also know how to build connection with specific audiences.
It’s a useful combination!
And they don’t just write headlines, either…
Mental health writers will examine your site page-by-page.
They’ll let you know what’s working and what’s not, and see how your site compares with your competitors.
If you think you could do with a freelance mental health writer to analyze your site and see what could be improved, feel free to send me an email so we can discuss your business goals.
Conclusion
As you can see in the points covered above, there are a variety of methods you can use to successfully bring in more leads for your mental health practice, clinic, or service.
To sum up, the main things to consider are:
Creating content that educates and inspires
Attracting patients by location-based search
Appealing to patients by their mental health needs
Website copy and design
I hope you’ve found the article helpful and have some tips you want to takeaway and try out.
I’ve included a short form below in case you have any questions you’d like me to answer for you.
Best wishes,
Declan Davey
Get help with attracting more patients to your mental health practice.
Fill out the form below and I’ll be in touch ASAP.
Marketing for therapists:
“Declan has been unfailing in his willingness to work at a high standard, deliver on time and show commitment and creativity.
Having worked with him over a number of years on varying types of projects, he has been consistently willing, engaged and eager, no matter how many times I’ve changed my mind or asked for more work. I have no hesitation in recommending him.’’