How to write for your website: Copywriting for Psychologists and Therapists with Allie Linn
Today I am talking to Allie Linn, who has joined us all the way from Philadelphia in the US. Allie used to be a therapist, got burned out and found writing. Now she helps other therapists to write the copy for their websites and I am thrilled to have her here to give us some top tips today.
The highlights
- I announce that we are running the Find Your Specialism webinar again on 1st April 2021 at 7:30 00:01
- Allie tells us about her journey, and how she found herself where she is today 02:53
- Allie talks about why it’s helpful to be a therapist when writing for therapists, and finding the right fit 05:26
- We discuss the importance of knowing your own voice and how to find it 09:47
- Allie tells us the biggest mistakes she tends to see us making on our websites 13:22
- Allie tells us what bits of our websites are most important to work on, including how to rank in a google search 15:35
- We talk about crafting a good story, and where to use storytelling on our website 23:25
- Allie takes us through how we can tell if our writing is working for our audience 27:34
- Allie talks about when it’s the right time to use a copywriter 32:59
- We discuss some of the tools available to help with your writing 40:12
- Allie tells us the two action step she wants us to go away and do now 43:20
- Allie tells us where to find her if we want to connect with her 46:04
- I give a reminder about the Find Your Specialism webinar 46:35
Links to find Allie
https://www.allielinnwrites.com
Instagram: @allielinnwrites
https://www.instagram.com/allielinnwrites/
LinkedIn: Allie Linn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/allielinn/
I really wanted to take a moment to tell you about something very exciting that’s coming up soon. On Thursday, the 1st of April at 7:30 we are running our Find Your Specialism webinar. This was a big hit when we ran it back in January, and lots of you got in touch to ask if we were going to be running it again, and I’m very pleased to say that we are. So in the webinar we are going to cover why you need to specialise, the secret of a successful specialism, and then we’re going to help you figure out what your specialism can be. And I really encourage you, if you are feeling overwhelmed in your private practice, if you’re struggling with all the things that you could do, all the shiny objects that are out there, and you need a bit of clarity to move you forward, this is the webinar for you. I’d really encourage anybody who’s starting out on their private practice journey to join us for an hour of free training. I’ll be there as well to answer any questions that you might have about getting started in private practice. And there will be a special offer at the end for anybody who’s thinking about joining our next cohort of Psychology Business School in April. So that is the 1st of April 2021 at 7:30. I hope to see as many of you as possible there.
Link: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/webinar
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TRANSCRIPT
SPEAKERS
Allie Linn, Rosie Gilderthorp
Rosie Gilderthorp 00:01
Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy. Before we get started with today’s show, I really wanted to take a moment to tell you about something very exciting that’s coming up soon. On Thursday, the 1st of April at 7:30 we are running our Find Your Specialism webinar. This was a big hit when we ran it back in January, and lots of you got in touch to ask if we could, if we were going to be running it again. And I’m very pleased to say that we are. So in the webinar, we’re going to cover why you need to specialise, the secret of a successful specialism. And then we’re going to help you figure out what your specialism can be. And I really encourage you, if you are feeling overwhelmed in your private practice, if you’re struggling with all the things that you could do, all the shiny objects that are out there, and you need a bit of clarity to move you forward, this is the webinar for you. I’d really encourage anybody who’s starting out on their private practice journey to join us for an hour of free training. I’ll be there as well to answer any questions that you might have about getting started in private practice. And there will be a special offer at the end for anybody who’s thinking about joining our next cohort of Psychology Business School in April. So that is the 1st of April at 7:30. And that’s 2021 for anyone who’s listening in the future. And I hope to see as many of you as possible there. All the links that you need are in the show notes. So on with the show.
Rosie Gilderthorp 01:41
Today, I’m talking to Allie Lynn. Allie’s joined us all the way from Philadelphia in the US, so we’re really lucky to have her. And we’re extra lucky because Allie used to be a therapist, got burnt out and then found writing. And now she helps other therapists to write the copy for their websites. And I’m really thrilled to have her here to give us some top tips today. So hi Allie, welcome to the podcast.
Allie Linn 02:03
Hi Rosie, thank you so much for having me.
Rosie Gilderthorp 02:06
So I can’t wait to talk about writing, because I am a writer at heart. I’ve written my whole life. But I know it’s something that so many of the students on Psychology Business School, particularly struggle with, because it’s not something that you have to be good at to be a therapist or a psychologist. And it’s a real skill in itself to be able to communicate with the, with your audience through writing. So I’m really looking forward to getting your top tips. And I’m sure there’s going to be loads of notes that people are going to want to take. So top tip go and get yourself a notepad if you haven’t got one already. I’ve got mine. And I’m expecting to be making some notes today. But before we dive into that, let’s find out a little bit more about you and your journey. So how did you find yourself where you are today?
Allie Linn 02:53
Yeah, so I was a therapist for five years. Primarily, I was a dance movement therapist, although I did a lot of other types of therapy. And I worked mostly in inpatient psychiatric hospitals, which really burnt me out. I just am not built for that kind of setting. And I kept trying, and I kept trying, and it just wasn’t working. And I started getting sick. And I was getting stress migraines, and I couldn’t do a job. And it was just, you know, anxiety attacks. And I finally decided to step back. And around that time, I met a freelance writer, she writes for lawyers. But she told me what freelance writing was, I started looking into it. I’ve always been a writer myself, but, you know, I was more of a researcher in grad school, so copywriting is a completely different set of skills. It’s a completely different set of skills from writing books to and so, um, I found a course about a year ago, yeah, about a year ago now. And I, it’s very comprehensive, it kind of walked me through like, you know, what SEO is and how to write for, you know, marketing and how to use your writing in a storytelling way and how to write the way you talk. So once I found that it really helped me guide myself into being a business owner, which I hadn’t thought of myself for a while I kind of was like, I’m going to write I’m going to be a writer, but I don’t really know what that means. So once I found copywriting, it gave me a lane to go down.
Rosie Gilderthorp 04:44
Because I think a lot of people listening to this might have an interest in writing, you know, maybe they enjoyed writing academic papers, maybe they’ve written journal articles. But like you say, it’s such a different thing when you sit down you’re trying to sell yourself through your writing, I think a lot of people, they look at the cursor and it blinks at them. And it’s just a total blank. I know that’s how I felt when I came to write my first website. I just had no idea what to say about myself or communicate as me on there. So yeah, it’s great to hear that, that you managed to kind of find a way to channel your existing talent into that and learn that skill set.
Allie Linn 05:26
Yeah. And also, I think, you know, you don’t have to be a therapist to write for therapists, but I think it helps a lot.
Rosie Gilderthorp 05:34
And why do you think that’s so helpful?
Allie Linn 05:36
Well, because I understand the world of therapy. I have done CBT I have done DBT. I have done Creative Arts therapy, I’ve worked in different settings. So I know, what am I, I, I’ve studied, you know, different types of therapy. So when I’m talking to a therapist, for the first time I, I have a base knowledge of what their, what they want.
Rosie Gilderthorp 06:01
And that sounds so valuable, because I think our biggest fear often when we think about outsourcing anything in our businesses, is, you know, what, if I’m misrepresented in some way, or what if what I do is misrepresented, because you do see, you know, people making sort of unscrupulous claims, especially on social media. We’re like actually you can’t say that. I mean, the worst one I’ve seen was around EMDR, actually had to report it, saying that you could be cured from trauma in just three sessions. And it yeah, yeah, you’re doing the face. Allie is doing the face we’re all doing right now, where you’re like, no, that is not a promise that I want to make. And it, and it would be the worst nightmare, I think of any therapist that somebody might write for their website in that kind of way. Whereas I guess, with all your knowledge about what therapy is, what it isn’t, what the process is like, you can infuse that into the way that you write for people.
Allie Linn 07:01
Definitely. And I will say I’ve had someone reach out to me who did claim that they could cure of trauma in, wasn’t EMDR I forget what it was, but that’s… so Rosie’s now making the face that I was. Yeah, and it was definitely like, I don’t want to write for this person. And you know, that’s the great thing about being a freelance writer is you can choose who you work with. Just like they can choose to work with you, everyone is, you know, has agency in there.
Rosie Gilderthorp 07:33
I imagine that is really important in that relationship, you have to fit. Because I don’t do copywriting, the writing that I do for other people is blogs, usually psychoeducation stuff, and I won’t work with an organisation that isn’t a good fit, because neither of you is going to be happy. Because you know, your rights, what you believe in, what fits with your values, and if your values don’t align, then you’re just gonna get pushback, it’s not going to be fun. I imagine that’s even more so when you’re writing for somebody’s business and what they do in the world.
Allie Linn 08:07
It is, and it’s, it’s funny, because, you know, just like, as therapists, you decide who you want to work with, who’s your ideal client? I have my version of that, too. So, you know, in the beginning, you’re trying to just work for as many people as possible, and then you start to realise, oh, wait, if I’m writing for everyone, I’m writing for no one.
Rosie Gilderthorp 08:29
Yeah, that’s such a useful message in, in lots of ways, I think. And actually a lot of people listening to this, I run a business school, Psychology Business School for psychologists and therapists, and I often have to have that conversation with people at the beginning. Like, you don’t have to work with everybody. And actually, it puts you in a stronger position, if you say no, to some people who are not the right client for you. But that’s so hard to do at the beginning. Did you struggle with that at the beginning?
Allie Linn 08:57
Um, yeah, in the beginning, I was definitely taking on clients who weren’t necessarily a good fit for me, value-wise, but also culturally, I was getting clients, which was great for other countries. And it just wasn’t, it was really difficult to cross-culturally write in the way that they in their voice and the way that they needed.
Rosie Gilderthorp 09:20
Yeah, I can imagine that’s really difficult in what you do, because you’re literally trying to get into people’s heads and speak as them, so you need quite a high level of understanding, I would think between you and the client.
Allie Linn 09:31
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to only write for people who are exactly like me, but at the same time, you do need to figure out where your lane is and what’s best for the client and am I going to sound like you and fully represent you.
Rosie Gilderthorp 09:47
And you know, thinking about what, what makes a good client like what you need as a person, as a business owner to work with a copywriter, I guess you really have to know your own voice first. Would that be fair to say?
Allie Linn 10:02
Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And I think, you know, I know I started out writing blogs for myself. So just kind of practising. And then I, you know, I write my own blog on my website every week. So that’s something that helps me, yeah, find my voice and then realise how my voice is different from this client’s voice. And it takes a little while to get their voice, right. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a working relationship, that takes a little bit of time.
Rosie Gilderthorp 10:35
Yeah, I can imagine because I think often, through like challenges and things that I run in the wider Do More Than Therapy community, we do things like blogging challenges sometimes. And the difficulty there is often finding that voice that you’re comfortable with. Because we all know how we speak, but we speak differently with different groups of people, and trying to find the way of communicating which feels right for an audience of potential clients is actually really difficult. Even though I feel like if you, if you sit down a psychologist or a therapist with their ideal client, they will just naturally talk and they’ll be warm and communicative and they won’t use jargon, usually. Tapping into that in the written word is really difficult for a lot of people. Have you got any tips to how people can, can find that voice?
Allie Linn 11:29
How therapists can find that voice?
Rosie Gilderthorp 11:31
Yeah.
Allie Linn 11:33
I think that it’s important to think about who you’re speaking to the most. So who is your audience? Are you writing to your ideal client? Are you writing to people who you want to be clients? Maybe you’re doing both if you’re trying to reach your ideal client. So I think that that’s the first step is knowing who you’re talking to. Because like I said before, if you’re talking to everyone you’re talking to no one. So figure out who you’re talking to. And then talk out loud, record yourself. Write things and read them out loud. And also, don’t be afraid to write something that’s not good at first. I mean, that’s the big that’s the first thing, right? Sit down and write the crappy first draft, before you get to the polished step.
Rosie Gilderthorp 12:25
That is so important. Because we’re such perfectionists, I think as a profession, that often that’s what holds us back that we won’t put out that thing that’s going to flop. But with the blogs, if I go back to the first blog I ever wrote, that was not particularly good. But I learned so much from hitting publish, and getting feedback from people. And even just, once you’ve published it, weirdly, you look at it differently as well. And I noticed things about it once it was out there that I want wanted to change and adapt. So I really feel, I think you’re really onto something there getting something out there. And I love the idea of recording yourself as well. And seeing kind of how you naturally do speak. That sounds straightforward, but I imagine a lot of people really struggle with it still. So what are the biggest mistakes you tend to see psychologists and therapists making on their websites?
Allie Linn 13:22
I think a big use of jargon is the first one. I think writing the way you write for research paper is a big one. As a therapist, obviously you want to show authority in your field, you want to show that you have expertise. But I think there’s a way to do that, that comes across as user friendly to your clients and potential clients. So you need to really think about what are they cannot understand, what are they going to connect to? It’s all about them. And I think that’s another problem too. I see a lot of websites, for example and it’s like your About Me page is not actually about you. It’s about your clients and potential clients. So that’s something that I think, you know, sometimes people read like a resume. And that doesn’t engage people.
Rosie Gilderthorp 14:16
That is a really good point. I think I often say that really good marketing is actually really good listening. And it’s just about reflecting back what people need from you when you’ve gotten to know them a bit. But I think what I hear from people a lot is that people’s fear when they write their website copy is not what their ideal clients might think. It’s what other psychologists and therapists might think, that peer judgement fear. And I often wonder if that’s behind the massive list of qualifications, if it’s kind of screaming, I am good enough. I am, don’t judge me. Yeah, speaking from personal experience, it’s quite hard to let go of listing out all of your qualifications.
Allie Linn 14:59
Absolutely. And I think there’s a way to show your qualifications and show you’re qualified without it being a list of a resume, because every page of your website should engage your clients, you want them to stay on your website, you want them to read about your services, your them to read about you. And the About You really needs to shine through who you are as a therapist, and what you could do for them, rather than a list of this is my training, this is where I studied. People don’t care about that as much, they want to know your trainings and your qualifications, but they don’t really care where you studied, and what your last job was.
Rosie Gilderthorp 15:35
Hmm. So it sounds like the About Page for the website might be quite an important page? I was gonna ask you actually, what are the important bits to work on?
Allie Linn 15:46
Yeah, so um, number one is your Homepage. Because if you don’t have a strong Homepage, people aren’t going to stick. And it’s not just about making it pretty, although having a nice visual design helps. But you can get away with really simple, my website is very simple, I don’t have a lot of pictures on it. But it gets the point across. And so you want to make an impression on your Homepage. The About Page is important. If you show what people what they can expect, I think that’s even more important than the About Page, although people want to know who you are. And then I think having a blog is really important. And it’s important for a couple reasons. One, it offers resources to potential clients and your clients. It helps people understand your frame of view, what you believe in, what you want to, what you care about, what you do. Um, but also, we haven’t gotten to the copywriting side of it yet. But the SEO, Search Engine Optimization is huge. When it comes to blogs, it really boosts your SEO, which is what people search for. It’s what ranks you in a Google search. So if you have strong SEO, you’re going to show up, you know, first page second page, because people don’t really quick pass the second page on a Google search.
Rosie Gilderthorp 17:09
No, I don’t think, I think my attention is possibly lower than some but I don’t think I ever make it past page one.
Allie Linn 17:15
Exactly. And that’s, and that’s where we want you to be. And we do that through a lot of different ways. But one of them is consistent, relevant blogs. Because when you write as a copywriter, or when you’re writing in general, for marketing, you’re writing for three people, you’re writing for people who skim, people who dig, and Google, you’re always writing for Google. So you have to think about what is Google going to pay attention to? And there’s a lot of specific things that we can get into detail for or not. But um, there are very specific things that you need to do for a website to optimise it, and blogs are one of those ways.
Rosie Gilderthorp 17:57
Okay, so having a blog page is really important. And I’m glad that you said that, actually, because blogging’s something I love, and I talk about all the time. And I think I often think of it as like useful for building your authority, useful for having links to send to people if they inquire and have a question. But also it is, it’s telling Google over and over again, this is who I am and what I do. And I think where I’ve gone wrong in the past, I had a site once that was beautiful, but almost impossible for Google to index, because I had so much going on. And I had no thought in my head about what keywords I was using, that when I put myself in the position of one of the bots that like crawls around Google, that’s how I visualise it and doing a little crawly hand, I thought actually, I wouldn’t be able to make sense of what I did, either. So I can see how a blog would really help you to do that. What are the other bits that are really important for Google?
Allie Linn 18:58
Yeah, so you mentioned keywords, which are very important. And you know, so if you’re in let’s say, you’re a cognitive behavioural therapist, and you want to rank in a Google search. CBT or cognitive behaviour therapy is a very saturated keyword. So you’re going to want something that’s what we call longtail keywords. So it could be CBT for depression in Philadelphia, or CBT for anxiety near me. That’s a stronger longtail keyword. Still might not get you to page one, so you want to use other things, but keywords are really important things that you don’t think about like a meta description, which is when you Google someone and a title tag too, when you Google someone, you get their name. So when you Google me, it’ll say mental health copywriting, Alli Linn. And then underneath that there’s about two sentences that describe what I do that use my keywords. So I’m using mental health, I’m using copywriter, I’m using therapists, because that’s what I want people to search for.
Rosie Gilderthorp 20:07
Aah, you see, I think I’m really guilty of forgetting about those things. I like blogging, so I pay attention to it. But I’m really bad at remembering kind of all of these other little strategies you can use to try and get seen. But that sounds really important.
Allie Linn 20:26
Yeah. And there’s also I meant to mention length of pages and length of blogs is really important. So blogs, for example, Google won’t recognise anything less than 1000 words. So you want, it’s not enough to just write up, you know, 500 words and stick it up there. You need to be thoughtful about what you’re writing, you need to use your keywords in your blogs as well. And they need to be different every time, so you’re not constantly writing mental health copywriter in every blog for your keyword, that’s not going to do anything for you. But then also length of website page is really important. Because if it’s too thin, if it’s like 300 words, Google won’t crawl it. So again, there’s a fine dance, because you don’t want it to be over 1000 words on a page because no one’s going to read that and people are going to click away. So I find somewhere in like, the five to 800 word is a really good round to stay in, depending on the page, some pages are shorter, and some pages are longer.
Rosie Gilderthorp 21:33
Yeah, I think that’s really important. Because it’s… that’s a skill, isn’t it, like, that’s a skill that you will have had to have learned and spent a lot of time honing. Because I know even if I’m thinking about my homepage, now, kind of a faraway stare, because I’m just trying to like conjure up in my head, I think it’s probably too long. Because you think of all the things you want to say to your potential clients, and they tend to kind of come out of your brain and onto the page, when actually putting yourself in your clients position rather than yours, they’re probably quite overwhelmed when they get to your website. And they’re not likely to want to read masses and masses of text.
Allie Linn 22:14
So Rosie, you talked about what pages, you asked about what pages are most important, I forgot another one, which is actually something that you might not think you need. And that’s an FAQ page.
Rosie Gilderthorp 22:26
Ah.
Allie Linn 22:27
That’s a really great place to use keywords. So also, one tip for trying to rank higher in SEO in a more saturated thing would be to use the phrase like, what is, or how does x work? So it’s something could be on your FAQ page, like, what is CBT? How does CBT work for depression and anxiety? So that’s another page that is actually really important. And then also you want like a services page, as well.
Rosie Gilderthorp 23:01
Yeah, I love the idea of an FAQs page. I think somebody did mention it to me before that I should have one, I haven’t done it. So it is now top of my list. Because it does make sense, doesn’t it that if I am on Google typing in questions, which is what we will type into Google, then your FAQ page might be the thing that pops up as the right answer. That makes loads of sense. So you mentioned earlier that your writing, you need to you need to learn how to tell a story in your writing. And I’ve heard that that that stories are a really great way to engage people, and when I’ve done a bit of testing it has definitely turned out to be true. But how do you, how do you learn to craft a good story?
Allie Linn 23:45
That’s a really good question, Rosie. Um, I think, I don’t know for me, some of it is a little bit intuitive. I think sometimes it comes naturally to people who are storytellers. I think we’re all storytellers in our own way. But I think some people block that, and maybe don’t let it tap into what they’re doing. Um, but as far as crafting and good story, I think you just need to use your empathy, which all of you therapists have, obviously, and use that to think about what’s going to connect to my audience. What are they going to relate to? Is it my story, is it a story about a client? Is it, it could be it could be a variety of story telling, but I think that you know, you do that, and it’s easy to do that in blogs. I think you also can do it in newsletters, in email sequences. If you think about when you sign up for when you opt into an email sequence and you get those emails, they’re often stories, they’re often people telling you, you know, this is something I experienced. How about you, you’ve probably experienced this too? That kind of thing.
Rosie Gilderthorp 25:01
Yeah, that makes loads of sense. So would you say that there’s any space for storytelling on the main website? Or is it mainly something for our blogs?
Allie Linn 25:10
No, I think there is storytelling on the main website, I think, especially if you are someone, let’s say that you are a creative arts therapist, and you found your type of creative arts therapy through a certain way that will connect with people who maybe are artists, or maybe, you know, want to connect with their creativity, and they haven’t found a way to do that in therapy. So I think there’s a way to use not necessarily your own personal story, word for word on your website. But I think there’s a way to infuse that storytelling into the copy.
Rosie Gilderthorp 25:53
Hmm, yeah, I really like that idea. I think there’s always a bit of a fear sometimes in sharing ourselves in our in our copy. But certainly when I think about myself, as a parent, if I was looking for help for one of my children, or if I was looking for help for myself, I think, in this day and age, I would actually need a bit of that in order to trust somebody enough to use their service.
Allie Linn 26:21
Yeah, I have a client who is an equine therapist, and her we’re working on her website now, but one of the things she currently has is like what drew her to the horses. So it doesn’t have to be, you know, disclosing every little thing about you. Um, because you obviously don’t want to do that. But it can be as simple as what was my inspiration? What guided me to this place, because like you said, that is what’s going to help connect people when they’re looking for a therapist,
Rosie Gilderthorp 26:49
Because you need to be human. I think people have a fear often that the therapist will be judgmental, which is literally the opposite of what we do. But I think you know, when I’ve asked people what were your real fears before inquiring with me, it was always oh that you were going to judge me, that you’re going to tell me off, that you were going to tell me I was stupid for worrying about this or… I think that’s really what people are holding when they’re struggling to book that call with you. And just a little thing like that, like I really, really love horses, or, you know, I struggled with, with panic, and the horses really helped me through it, I can really imagine that just lifting the weight of fear off somebody’s shoulders.
Allie Linn 27:31
Yeah, definitely.
Rosie Gilderthorp 27:34
So I suppose I wanted to ask you whether, is there an easy way of telling whether your writing is working for your audience? Or whether it’s sort of missing the mark?
Allie Linn 27:48
Well, the first one would be, are you getting new clients? So that’s number one, are people finding you? Tangible, exactly. There are tools that I like to use to find out, you know, just analytically what’s happening with my website. You know, one of the things about SEO that I should mention is that it takes time. So if you’re starting a new website, or if you’re starting a blog, or if you just optimised your website, it could take a couple months, sometimes three to six months, depending on how often you’re updating, your you’re writing a blog every week. I mean, I took my web page to page one, by doing my blog, probably within a couple of months, I would say like, maybe three, maybe three months, but I already had a website that wasn’t optimised. So, um, yeah. So I think that that’s one of the ways… I actually forget what your original question was?
Rosie Gilderthorp 28:54
And so I was asking how we would know if our writing was working or not?
Allie Linn 28:58
Sure, sure. So yeah, I mean, I think the biggest one is, are people finding you? Are you getting more clients? Are you getting more referrals? Are people signing up for your newsletter email list? That’s a big one. If you’re on social media, are people engaging with you? I know a lot of therapists are on social media now. So, and I know you’ve had that on your podcast, and you’ve talked about that. So that’s something that is a big, and actually people don’t think about that as copywriting. But I write for social media too. I mean, I write posts for people to increase engagement and to get them to other people’s websites. So I think that there’s yeah, I think, I think it’s kind of a little bit like the proof is in the pudding, are people coming to me. But then also there, there are tools I use on all job one, Ubersuggests, which is a great free tool where you can like type in your domain name and it’ll do, it’ll crawl your website and you can find out, you know, what, you know, are people coming? Are people linking to me? That kind of thing.
Rosie Gilderthorp 30:12
That’s really interesting. I’ve heard Ubersuggest talked about before, and I’ll link to it in the show notes for people. But I didn’t realise that it could tell you what people are already using to find your website. That’s really interesting. I’d love to know.
Allie Linn 30:27
It’ll show you what keywords you’re ranking for, it’ll show you there’s something called a backlink, which is just when another website links to your website. And that gives you more authority. So it’ll show you how many backlinks you have, like, you can do a lot of stuff, even with just the free version of Ubersuggest. I’d highly recommended if you want to see what kind of traffic you’re getting.
Rosie Gilderthorp 30:48
Hmm, that is really interesting. Thank you. And another one that I’ve used before is Google Analytics. And we’ve got a class in the membership actually about how you can use that. I think that can be quite good for seeing if there’s a particular page, which is doing well for you, if there’s a blog that’s really resonating with people and being found a lot.
Allie Linn 31:08
Yeah, that was gonna be my next one was Google Analytics. So we beat me to it. But yeah, absolutely.
Rosie Gilderthorp 31:14
So are there any other ways that we should be using that to check up on whether our writing is working?
Allie Linn 31:21
Oh, no, I mean, I think I think it’s hard because you want to know that people are coming to your site. And so something like Google Analytics, or something, like Ubersuggest is going to show you maybe your bounce rate, are people sticking around? Are they leaving after three seconds? How long are they staying on your website? So I think using tools like that is probably one of the best ways, aside from you know, finding out whether people are coming to you or not.
Rosie Gilderthorp 31:48
Yeah, and I suppose it allows you to diagnose the problem, doesn’t it? So I imagine this doesn’t happen too often, but if theoretically, you have loads of people finding you because you were ranking quite well, but then they’re all leaving really quickly, then maybe you can see that there’s something inconsistent or something doesn’t quite fit when they actually get on your page.
Allie Linn 32:09
Absolutely.
Rosie Gilderthorp 32:11
You could just spend all day couldn’t you really analysing this stuff? And in a way, I imagine there’s probably quite a lot of people listening to this thinking, great, this sounds brilliant, but I don’t really feel like I’ve got time to develop this skill. Like maybe they’ve already got a successful practice, they’re really busy, but they want to maybe reach a more ideal type of client, they want to change their specialism slightly. Or maybe like me, they’ve built one successful website, and now they’re thinking of switching domain and the thought of kind of doing it all again, is making them quake in their boots. So when is a good time? How do you, how do you know it’s the right time to hire somebody like yourself to do copywriting for you?
Allie Linn 32:59
There’s a couple of stages. So the first is when you’re starting out. So I have a client right now who just started a private practice. And we built her a new Psychology Today profile, which is something that I write a lot. Because those are really important, those make a first impression in a big way. You know, one of, when I’m looking for a therapist, I go on Psychology Today and just start looking for people that specialise in what I need. So I think that’s a big one is having a strong Psychology Today profile. With her, she’s just like I said, starting her private practice. So we’re starting her from scratch. So I’ve done a couple of those. But then I think, I think it comes down to, you know, feeling like you’re not getting enough clients in the door, feeling like you’re not maybe, maybe you’ve just learned what SEO is you’ve realised you aren’t doing it, and you just don’t have the time. I mean, I think that’s what it comes down to is, you know, there’s a lot of therapists out there who are writers like yourself, and who are good writers, but don’t have the time for it, or don’t have the SEO knowledge for it. Um, and so that’s when like a website would come in handy. Even if you already have one, and you want to redo it. If you want to start a blog, you’ve again, you’ve learned maybe the blogs are going to be helpful, or you’ve started one and you just can’t keep up with it. Come to me for that. If you want to start building an audience, through email sequences and newsletters, that’s another great opportunity for a copywriter. And social media is another one if you’re feeling like you just don’t have the time. You know, you’d like doing it, I mean, that’s the thing, I work with a lot of people who really liked writing and who really liked doing it, and like I said, just don’t have the time for it. So I think, you know, knowing like, and also knowing when you’re financially ready. I mean, I think that’s a big one too, because copywriting is not a cheap craft. And so being in a place where you can afford to do that is a is a big part of knowing when you’re ready.
Rosie Gilderthorp 35:10
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think over the past week or so, a couple of Psychology Business School students have reached out to me asking questions about, like, how do I know from ready to outsource, X or Y? And it’s really difficult. And I can’t say that it’s something that ever gets easier. Whatever stage you’re at in your business, there’ll always be a question in your mind, like, can I afford to outsource this. But I think with something like copywriting, for me, it would be about you know, if it makes you feel sick, if you really struggle, if it’s the thing that is going to stop you from putting yourself out there and getting any clients, then maybe you have to outsource it really early. If you can get enough clients to feel comfortable and be paying yourself a decent wage. Because often, that’s the thing that doesn’t happen, right? If you’re paying, if you are comfortable enough, and you’re paying yourself a decent wage, and you know that you could earn more if you weren’t spending loads of time trying to get all the writing done, then that’s also a really good time to outsource it. So I guess it depends really what it means to you. Because in the early days when I had no clients I had time to write. So I could kind of do it. And that also did give me a bit of opportunity to learn my voice a bit. And is that a helpful thing? If somebody knows their voice a bit? Is it then easier for them to kind of work with you and get you up and running quickly?
Allie Linn 36:43
Yeah, that’s a really good question, Rosie. I absolutely think so. Because the more they know their voice, the better they can translate to you, like you said, what they want to see. One thing I like to do, I give my clients homework. I give them what I call a branding worksheet, and if you know who, how, what, and when. And it really breaks down for them, you know, who are my ideal clients? What am I offering them? How am I doing it? When are we doing this together kind of thing. So if that helps, if they don’t already have their voice, if they haven’t already written a little bit, that kind of thing forces them to, even if it’s not going to be seen by anyone but me it makes them think about you know, okay, well, what do I? What are the words I would use to describe myself? What are the words I don’t want to be associated with? Who am I speaking to? That kind of thing.
Rosie Gilderthorp 37:42
Yeah, yeah, that seems really valuable. I remember thinking about, I didn’t go ahead with it, but I did think about outsourcing some of my emails, because that’s what I get really overwhelmed by that I would really like to outsource some of the functional emails, because when you sell an online course, there’s so many emails that need to be there in the background, the reminders, the ones that are like, oh, I’ve noticed you’ve not logged in for a little while. Are you getting on okay, is there anything we can do to help? Loads of emails like that, and I’ve written every single word of every single one of them. And I really wanted to outsource it. And yeah, I think I will outsource that in the future. But, but one of the things I was thinking about when I was sort of in conversation with somebody about maybe doing that was like, I actually randomly, well it’s not random, but I capitalise a lot when I’m trying to emphasise something, I really started to notice the little like foibles I have in my writing, I use the three dots all the time. Now, those things annoy me about myself, but…
Allie Linn 38:48
It’s funny because I find that, I found that about myself too. You mentioned you know, finding your own voice. And I think one of the things I do is like as well as, or I use the word can a lot, like instead of just this does. Passive voice is a thing that you learn really quickly whether you do it or not. So yeah, it is, it is interesting learning about yourself the things that you do, you know, am I using all caps or am I bolding and italicising, which is a little bit more user, like it attracts the eye more when you when you’re capitalising it’s kind of screaming at you.
Rosie Gilderthorp 39:28
Yeah, which I think might be what I’m trying to do sometimes. Yeah, it really made me laugh actually, when I noticed that, I was like, wow, that’s that’s something. But I think that’s why there’s so much value in what you get your clients to do writing out that brand style sheet or brand voice sheet or whatever you would call it. I think that, I can imagine that really making people pay attention, because you do have a voice already. You might not have tuned in and recognised that voice, but if you’ve ever written anything, you do have a voice and getting out on paper like that I guess you can decide with the client what you want to keep and what you want to run with and exaggerate versus what actually might be a bit unintentional, and you probably don’t want that to be there. Like I use Grammarly, which I’ve only got the free version, so it’s not supposed to tell you that much about your voice, but it does it shows, it flashes up these little emoticons at me, that say things like you sound angry.
Allie Linn 40:26
That’s so funny. I use Grammarly, too, but I’ve never seen that.
Rosie Gilderthorp 40:30
It’s really weird. And so with mine, it’s got a little angry face. And it’s got a hugs face. And my writing seems to oscillate between hug face and angry face. So it’s really made me pay attention actually, I do recommend that if anybody hasn’t got Grammarly, especially if you use Chrome, you can get it as an extension, and then anything that you’re typing anywhere, it will give you some spelling suggestions and some grammar suggestions, which I find are 50/50 useful and not useful. Generally, my spelling is poor. So generally those are useful, but some of the grammar suggestions are bizarre at best.
Allie Linn 41:08
Agreed. Yeah. So hit dismiss.
Rosie Gilderthorp 41:11
Yeah. And but it also does do this, like rough and ready analysis of your voice. And it can be really helpful for telling you if you’re coming across too form… too formal. It’s got another one, it’s like a buttoned up shirt, which I think means this is really formal sounding. And if that’s not what you’re going for, it’s really useful to notice that,
Allie Linn 41:32
Yeah, I’m also going to give your listeners another tool, which is really helpful in finding your voice and writing. It’s called the Hemingway app. And it’s, it’s on, it’s not an app on your phone, it’s actually on the computer. And the Hemingway app, you can copy and paste in everything you’ve written and it’ll grade you on like, this is a grade eight reading level. You when you’re writing copy, you want to keep it like Middle School. And so you’re aiming for like grade six.
Rosie Gilderthorp 42:05
So what’s that in the UK? What age is that?
Allie Linn 42:09
Um, so grade six would be like 12-13.
Rosie Gilderthorp 42:12
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Allie Linn 42:14
Yeah. So you’re so sometimes I go to grade eight, depending on what the topic is. But, um, you really want to stick around that middle school writing level. And one of the things that this app does is it’ll tell you like, how many times you use passive voice. And how many adverbs are you using and how many complex sentences were you using. And you can see, like, oh, I just did a three, you know, line run on sentence. And it made sense to me, but maybe I need to break it up. So it’s a really good tool to see, you know what you’re doing and it catches you like, oh, I just use 20 adverbs, maybe I only need to use 12. That kind of thing.
Rosie Gilderthorp 42:55
That’s really interesting, because I think you know, there will be people listening to this, who they’re not at the point yet where they can hire out their copywriting. So having some tools like that, which can help you to just develop that first bit, that first page is going to get your first few clients so that maybe you can think about outsourcing further down the track. I think that could be really helpful for a lot of people. So thank you so much for sharing that. I guess one thing that I ask almost everybody who comes on the podcast, which feels like a bit of a selfish ask, really, and but I really want to know, is what kind of two action steps would you want psychologists and therapists listening to this to go away and do now?
Allie Linn 43:38
Oh, that’s a really good question. Um, I think the first thing to do is to take, is actually to like, take stock of what you want out of your marketing, what you want to get out of your writing, how you think that’s going to help you? And are you equipped to do that yourself? If the answer is no, and you are able to afford to hire a copywriter, that really is the next step. Because then you can get rid of all of that off of your plate. And I think, yeah, I think it’s just figuring out, you know, am I ready for this, like we talked about before, but I think that that’s the ultimate step when it comes to being at a point where you can afford to outsource is just doing it and having the conversation with your with your copywriter, getting set up, figuring out how they work, learning about each other and then entering into that relationship.
Rosie Gilderthorp 44:48
Okay, yeah, I mean, I think there’ll be a lot of people who did literally didn’t know that copywriting existed or that there were, you know, people with a mental health background doing it, I think that’s so reassuring for a lot of people. I personally, I wouldn’t want to work with somebody who didn’t have a mental health background. You know, I was really, I found you on Instagram, and I’m going to link up or your profiles so that other people can do that too. And I was like, oh, this woman, she’s got mental health background, and she’s good at copywriting. That is a marriage made in heaven, because this podcast and the Do More Than Therapy movement is all about getting the right messages about mental health out to more people. And ultimately, we need to have good writing behind us to do that. And if, and if you’re not in a position to give hours and hours and years to developing that skill, set yourself, then brilliant, let’s buddy up, let’s team up with the people like yourself who have got those skills, and get our messages out that way. So I think what you do is really exciting, and what a brilliant way to use your knowledge and passion for mental health. So thank you so much for sharing so much value with us. If people want to connect with you, what’s the best place for them to find you.
Allie Linn 46:04
So you can find me on Instagram @allielinnwrites, and Rosie said she’s gonna link that so you can see how that’s spelled. So go to my website www.allielinnwrites.com. Those are the two best ways, you can hit the contact me page, my email’s on there as well. Or you can you know, DM me on Instagram. I’m also on LinkedIn as Allie Linn. So you can find me in any of those places.
Rosie Gilderthorp 46:30
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Allie.
Allie Linn 46:32
Thank you, Rosie.
Rosie Gilderthorp 46:35
Before you go, I just wanted to hop on and remind you to book your place on our Find Your Specialism webinar, we have had so much positive feedback about this free training since we ran it in January, that we’ve decided to put it on again for you. So many people have come back to me and told me that it’s helped them to beat the overwhelm, and start a practice which hits their values and helps them to live the kind of life that they want to live. And that is something that I want for each and every one of you. So if you’re just getting started in private practice, or you’ve been in practice for a while, but you’re not sure that you’re running the business that you really want to be running, then please do come along to the free training on the 1st of April at 7:30. In the session we’re going to cover why you need to specialise, and I really believe that you do, the secret of a successful specialism, and then we’re going to dig into identifying your specialism and there’ll be plenty of time for frequently asked questions at the end, you can ask me anything, and I’ll give you my honest best answer to it. So please do come along if overwhelm is something that you struggle with in your practice. I think it is for most of us. All the links that you need are in the show notes and I hope that I’m going to see you there.
Rosie Gilderthorp 47:51
Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. If you share my passion for doing more than therapy, then make sure you come over and join my free Do More Than Therapy Facebook community where you can work on getting your big ideas off the ground with like minded psychologists and therapists. I’d also love it if you could leave the show a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It will help more of the people who need it to find it. See you next week for more tips and inspirational stories to help you do more than therapy.