Establishing an Internet Presence for Therapists

Do I REALLY Need a Web Presence? Only if you want to attract potential clients, grow your practice, and to evolve in an increasingly changing world. There were 98 million searches for therapists last year. A recent Gallop poll reports that almost half of Americans spend over one hour a day on the internet. If you look at college graduates or those earning more than $75,000, this rises to over 67%. These numbers will only keep growing. More people are now finding therapists through internet searches than printed yellow pages and other means.

Some advantages of a web presence are:

1. It allows potential clients to find you, determine if you might help them, if you are an expert
with their problem, and if they think you may be a good fit for them;
2. It helps establish your legitimacy as a professional and expert;
3. Provide contact information;
4. Provide articles, links, other resources, etc. that might be helpful to potential (and current)
clients;
5. The information is available 24 hours a day;
6. It is an inexpensive, effective advertising tool;
7. It makes it easier for former clients to find us, refer to us, etc;
8. It is more likely to attract self-pay clients;
9. For those of us who aren't inclined to market ourselves, once we are online, there is not much
“upkeep,” unless we maintain a blog, do a newsletter, etc. Those tasks can be done at our
convenience, not just during business hours;

As you hone and grow your internet presence, you can anticipate growing numbers of potential clients contacting you.

Some will not come to you without your having a website. A website is probably the single most important thing that you can do to expand your marketing efforts. It will greatly increase your presence and legitimacy beyond having your profile listed in different places. One can quickly and inexpensively create a simple site. Don't wait until you have every detail worked out. Better to get a functional site up asap. Websites are dynamic entities.

There is no reason to not sign up for many different free listings. One that I suggest as a start is
http://www.therapist-psychologist.com/how_to_join-therapist-psychologist..., as they give you a free profile page. Next would be to list your practice on Google http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup?hl=en-US&gl=US.

There are also paid listing sites. Psychology Today is the most widely used site to find potential therapists. I recommend trying the site and work on honing your profile towards you “Ideal client.” They have several professional forums. The other therapists who are active are friendly and very helpful. You can request feedback on your profile, as well as ask such things as which credit card service people use, request clinical feedback on cases, etc.

Becky DeGrossa has a new paid site where the intent is for the therapist to write articles for the site, which helps establish them more as experts. I predict that other listing sites will soon emulate her efforts.

Mike Miller, PhD
Copyright@2009