I’m a BIG Christmas nerd and I just love this time of year.
One thing I always do this time of year is try (sometimes it’s so hard with kids though!) to slow down and reflect on the year gone by and what I hope to achieve in the future.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, there’s something rewarding about reviewing your accomplishments and intentionally setting new goals for the next year.
So in that spirit, this here is the last episode of the Private Practice Elevation Podcast of 2019.
In it, I reflect on the last year and what I’ve learned about creating and marketing websites for therapists and private practices in 2019.
I’ll share behind-the-scenes on how Create My Therapist Website has changed over this past year and how Private Practice Elevation was born.
And we’ll also talk about the future and where we’re heading and how we’ll be helping you get more clients with expanding services in the new year.
So grab some egg nog, hot cider, or your favorite glass of wine, cozy up by the fire and let’s jump in.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- How Create My Therapist Website has changed in the past year and why I even started this new website, podcast and sister company
- What I saw missing from most online marketing, including my own services and what we did to change it
- An in-depth look into my internal process to help you understand what pivoting in your own business may look like
- Thoughts on what you as the business owner should be focusing on so that you can scale your business
- Where we’re heading in 2020 and how it’s going to help you get more clients in the new year
How Create My Therapist Website has Changed + The Birth of Private Practice Elevation
If you’ve been with me for a couple of years, then you probably found me through content on Create My Therapist Website.
When I first began this business in 2016, it started as a blog for the DIY therapist who wanted to learn tips for building a successful private practice website.
My goal was to create online trainings and courses to help therapists on their journey through online marketing challenges, SEO and website building.
While CMTW has grown much in the first two years, I’ll admit, I was feeling a bit lost at the beginning of 2019.
In 2018 I had learned that yes, some therapists did want to build their own websites, however, there were some that just really shouldn’t be.
Not because they don’t have the talent to do so, but because, as I was learning in my own business, their time was better spent focused on the tasks they loved and ones that would impact their business growth the most.
Building websites for our clients and helping my DIY peeps launch their websites began to feel like I was missing half the picture.
You see, having a website is just one small step in a much bigger hike to seeing real growth in private practice.
I decided I no longer wanted to just build or teach people to build pretty websites.
We needed to go deeper into what therapists were saying on their website, the process of attracting ideal clients and the dreaded S-word… SEO.
While I toiled in my mind about what to do in 2019 and where to take the business, I kept coming back to my dream of having a podcast.
It was something I’d wanted to do for a long time but just never took the plunge to do it.
The year was starting off slow, giving me some more time to focus on my vision for the future, so I decided it was go-time on the podcast.
I struggled for a while about what to name this thing, what types of topics we would focus on and what it would all look like.
I became inspired by my love for the outdoors and hiking and the symbolism of mountains. My wife and I actually hiked to Mt. Everest Basecamp in 2013 and the training, focus and subsequent achievement of completing that trek spoke volumes to me as a business owner.
I wanted the podcast to have that same spirit.
Owning a business can be scary at times and it takes training and work to reach your biggest goals.
So the podcast would focus on that same love for website design and online marketing but in the context of elevating your practice and reaching those new levels.
It would be less about starting a website when you’re just starting your practice and more toward helping the private practice owner scale their businesses.
In April we launched the Private Practice Elevation podcast. You can listen to my unsure and shaky voice in episode 1 right here.
Our Pivot to Online Marketing Services for Therapists
So the podcast was born, at least in my mind.
But this opened up a whole new challenge for me and the future of the Create My Therapist Website world.
If I was going to be speaking to private practice owners ready to scale their practices then I had to be ready to help them do that.
As I mentioned, I was already feeling like I was missing a part of the equation by just focusing on building a therapist website.
I was learning so much about SEO and driving traffic to websites that I knew I wanted – or needed – to begin including services that truly helped our clients reach more of their clients.
I got a little excited at first and thought we could add every marketing service and the kitchen sink: logo design, social media marketing, and Facebook and Google ads.
But I soon realized that doing all that at once meant a process nightmare and also spread me thin.
I wanted to make sure that we could deliver the services and products that I knew would work for our clients.
Everything I’d been studying about SEO for therapists was helping me get to the bottom of what was really going to help people attract more clients through Google.
Step one was great, specific and optimized content on each website: so we included blog writing in our monthly SEO services.
Research was showing that the next step for SEO success was to amplify your content through optimization, link-building and for my brick-and-mortar folks with office space, local SEO tactics.
And so our SEO services were born.
I mean, there was a lot more that went into it, like finding the right professionals to help me carry out these services with success, but you get the idea.
And as we began working with clients and helping them with this new side of the online marketing puzzle, it was so exciting to see them get results.
I finally felt like we were heading in the right direction, being able to support any therapist no matter what stage they were at.
The Future of Private Practice Elevation: What’s Coming in 2020
I have a history of getting excited and making changes too quickly.
But I’m done with that.
I’m super excited with all the change that has happened over the last year.
I’ve grown internally but realized I have a gift to help my clients reach their target audience.
It’s taken me time and I’m still working on it, but as I began to believe that I had the knowledge to help my clients, I began stepping into bigger things.
I never set out to create a website design agency but apparently, that’s what I’m doing!
Not so much because that’s necessarily what I wanted but because it’s the best way for me to serve my clients with the gifts I possess.
So our focus for 2020 will be to continue to dial in on our custom website design and our SEO services.
We’ll continue to create webinars, content and other training for you but now it will include the whole picture (including SEO) and not just website design.
Create My Therapist Website will remain as a resource blog for my more DIY therapists, but the focus will be mostly on Private Practice Elevation and the podcast in the coming year.
Thank You For An Amazing Year
I want to say a sincere “thank you” to anyone reading this or who has supported the podcast since it launched in April.
It’s always a scary thing to put yourself out there and create something for others to consume.
But I’ve been so blessed by the kind responses from listeners and the amount of thank-you’s I’ve received.
It has been super exciting to be able to connect, via the podcast, in a whole new way.
So thank you for listening to the episodes, reading the emails, signing up for these new services and making Private Practice Elevation what it is and what it will someday be.
I don’t take the support lightly and I’m truly humbled!
A very Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Get Started With Your Website Project Now (We’re starting to fill up)
We’re beginning to fill up our project calendar for 2020, so if you’ve been holding off on redesigning your private practice website, now is the time to get started.
We can help you position you and your practice as experts and reach more of your ideal clients.
Just fill out our project inquiry form to get started and see if you qualify.
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
If you’re not yet subscribed to the podcast I want to encourage you to do that today. This is the best way to make sure you don’t miss an episode! Click here to subscribe on iTunes.
And if you’re feeling extra generous, I’d love to hear what you think about the podcast. Reviews help others find the podcast plus I’d really love to hear what you think! Click here to leave a review. Just click on “Ratings & Reviews” then “Write a review.” Let me know what you like best about the podcast.
Thank you!
