Private Practice Elevation with Daniel Fava

In this special episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast, I’m going to crack open the book on a subject I don’t talk a lot about… myself!   Over the years, I know I’ve shared bits and pieces of my story and how I started Create My Therapist Website and Private Practice Elevation.    Especially how I helped my wife get her private practice online and get her ideal clients to her website.   But I thought it would be fun to let you into all the little bits of it all and put all the pieces together from start to finish.   I know for myself I find so much inspiration in other business owners’ stories.   There’s so much we can learn from others’ mistakes, highs and lows, and the lessons that they’ve learned from being in the trenches of building a business.   When I started Create My Therapist Website as a blog back in 2016, I had no idea that nearly 6 years later I’d have a podcast and build a website design agency for therapists.   Initially, I thought there would be more focus on online courses and webinars to help private practice owners DIY their websites.   While I still do those things, I’ve learned that I enjoy working with fewer people to create a big impact in their business through the services we offer.   But I never would have learned that if I hadn’t started where I was.   And a big part of who I am and what my business looks like comes from my introverted personality.    I’m continuing to learn how to build a business that fuels my energy and plays to my strengths.   Because when I’m at my best, our clients benefit!   So in this episode, I’ll talk a lot about what it means to me to be an introvert and how I used that strength in starting my business.    Whether you’ve been a listener for a while or you’re new to this community, I hope that by listening we’ll get to know each other better and that you’ll learn some valuable lessons you can apply to build your own business. Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!

In this episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast, we’re going to talk about your website content and specifically, what content and pages need to be on your website in order for it to be successful.   Most therapists would agree that they need a website to market their private practice online and help them gain clients.   The problem is that most private practice websites lack the proper pages and content to make a big impact on the business.   And it’s this lack of content that is one of the biggest things I see holding back most therapists who want to get organic traffic and clients using their therapy website.   I see it often when I perform website audits or coaching calls… the website just doesn’t have enough content to resonate with the ideal client and allow Google to pick up the website and rank it high in search results.   So, let’s talk about your website content and make sure you have what you need in order to hit your goals for online marketing. In This Episode, You’ll Learn: How to define what makes your website “successful” and how knowing this can help you make important decisions with your online marketing The content and pages that I recommend as a bare minimum for a therapy website in order for it to be effective A basic sitemap for a therapy website for those who are just getting started How to expand your sitemap over time in order to improve your search engine optimization and get more organic traffic in the future Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!

Today’s episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast is a step-by-step lesson on how to optimize any web page or blog post for SEO (search engine optimization).   We’ll be using our favorite WordPress plugin for SEO: Yoast SEO.   For the many of you using WordPress for your private practice website, I know you’ve likely heard of this plugin or may even be using it yourself.   But when we asked listeners of the podcast to send in their specific questions, a handful of folks asked about Yoast SEO.   More accurately, “how do I get all the dots green in Yoast SEO?”   If you don’t know, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular plugins for WordPress to help you optimize your content so that Google (and your ideal clients) will know what your website is all about.   It allows you to set your keyword and then analyze your content to make sure it’s optimized correctly for that keyword so that it will hopefully show in Google search results.   But sometimes it can be challenging or confusing to know how to edit your content so that Yoast SEO gives you the passing grade.   So I’m going to take you through a real-life scenario where we’ll optimize a web page on my wife’s private practice website so that you can understand how we use Yoast SEO at Private Practice Elevation and the ways you can use it to improve your SEO. In This Episode, You’ll Learn: Step by step how to use the Yoast SEO plugin You’ll follow along as I optimize a real page on my wife’s private practice website The most important factors for ranking a webpage well in Google search results The handful of places you should put your SEO keywords so that Google will know what your content is about This Episode Is Brought To You By   Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!   Links mentioned in this episode:  80. What SEO Keywords Should I Use on My Private Practice Website? Yoast SEO Plugin Website

  In this episode, you’re going to learn how a break-in at one therapist’s home led to an idea to create an app for keeping track of your continuing education certificates and requirements.   Sounds like a good story, right?!   Have you ever had an idea for an app, a website, or even a business that will help solve a problem you know many people are facing?   Maybe you’ve got a big idea for something to create, but you’re not sure what the next step is or where to begin.   The thing is, many people have “big” ideas all the time. I know I do!   But it’s what you do with those ideas and the baby steps you take that make all the difference.   Today’s conversation will give you the inspiration to take those steps and start building that thing you have in your heart and mind.    Dr. Lani Chin is the creator of CE Hub, an app that conveniently stores all of your continuing education documents and allows you to track your progress along the way for when it’s time for your license renewal.   From seeing what my wife goes through to keep up with her continuing education documentation, I KNOW this app will help many!   In our conversation, she shares all about how she got the idea for this app and how she worked with a team to bring it to life.  In This Episode, You’ll Learn: The most important thing you can do to validate your big idea before taking the steps to build it How a break-in at one therapist's home led to the creation of an app that will help thousands Some of the steps involved with working with a team to create an app and bring a vision to life The challenges you may face and things you need to think through when creating an app that other people will use What the CE Hub app is and the different features that will help you keep track of your continuing education certificates Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!   Links mentioned in this episode: CE Hub Website CE Hub Facebook

In this episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast, I’m going to share my insights on how long you should expect a website design project to take.   Over the years, I’ve spoken to many private practice owners who are interested in getting started on their therapy website - they’re excited to reach their ideal clients and start getting some visibility.   But the conversation comes to a rather quick end when they tell me that they were hoping to launch their website in about a month.   Now, I believe your website is the most important part of your online marketing and can make all the difference in you actually reaching the goals you have for your business.    If your goal is only “get the website live”, well there are plenty of freelancers out there who I’m sure could help you do that quickly.   But if you’ve got many goals that you’re looking to reach in the next 1 - 3 years, then your project may not be as simple as just getting a website up on the internet.   And when you take your goals into account, set a strategy that fuels the decisions you make surrounding your website and content… well, that takes time.   So join me as I share more about our website design process here at Private Practice Elevation so you can understand how long it takes to create a private practice website that is strategically built for your business.   I’ll take you behind the scenes of the different stages to help you understand how long a website project typically takes. In This Episode, You’ll Learn: The different phases your therapy website project will go through on the way from onboarding to launch How long each of those project phases will take and what to expect from them Go behind the scenes of Private Practice Elevation as I share how we schedule our website projects and why Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!

In this episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast, you’re going to learn about tips and an exciting new website that will help you decorate your therapy office so that it’s professional, calm and functional.   One of the challenges of private practice is getting your office space furnished and decorated in a way that’s functional for you and helps your clients feel comfortable and at ease.   I remember when my wife got her first space with multiple offices a few years ago.   The time it took to find the right furniture, choose complementary colors and decor and put it all together.    It’s a lot of work!   In this episode, I speak with Alison Pidgeon, who has created a website and service called TheraSuite, to help with all these challenges.   From the TheraSuite website:    TheraSuite provides professionally developed style boards that were created with a therapy office in mind. Their interior designers seek out the best therapy office furnishings– like soundless clocks, art that functions as sound panels, and more– that enhances the space in which the therapeutic work happens.   You’ve got the option to work with an interior designer or purchase style boards with all the links to the decor and furniture to help you put your office together.   If you’ve struggled to create that dream therapy office space or need some inspiration for that future space you’re putting together, you’re going to love my conversation with Alison. In This Episode, You’ll Learn: How Alison successfully manages the running of her 4 businesses so that she can balance her responsibilities and life The challenges of decorating a therapy office so that it’s functional and looks great How Alison got the idea for Thera-suite and the steps she took to bring her idea to life How TheraSuite can help you DIY your interior decorating of your therapy office The best places you can shop at for furniture and decor for your therapy office What type of decor works best to help your clients feel calm when they’re in your therapy office Ideal colors for your therapy office Other tips and things to think about when decorating your private practice office Receive $20 off TheraSuite with the coupon code “launch20” (Expires June 2022) Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!   Links mentioned in this episode: https://thera-suite.com  Wayfair.com Havenly.com   About Alison Pidgeon Alison Pidgeon, MA, LPC, is the founder and CEO of Move Forward Counseling LLC, a group practice in Lancaster County, PA. She currently has 16 employees and 3 locations. In addition, she works as a business consultant for Practice of the Practice where she specializes in helping therapists transition from a solo business to a group practice. She also founded a virtual assistant company called Move Forward Virtual Assistants LLC, which specializes in providing well trained VA's for therapy practices.

In this episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast, we will discuss each area of SEO so you know exactly what you need to do when optimizing for SEO.   SEO is an important part of any online marketing strategy.    SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it's the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engines like Google. SEO encompasses four main areas: technical SEO, foundational content, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO.    The goal is to get your site ranking high in search results so that you can drive more traffic to your website and increase revenue!    But most therapists get easily overwhelmed by all that goes into proper search engine optimization of their private practice website.   And it’s true, there is a lot!   But with all the tasks and things to keep in mind, we actually find just 4 critical parts (or categories) to SEO.   Listen up as I break down the 4 pillars of great SEO.   Links mentioned in this episode:  90. How to Create A SEO Strategy For Your Private Practice 19. On-Page SEO: 5 Things You Can Do Now To Boost Your Google Rank The 4 Crucial Parts of Successful SEO Technical SEO Technical SEO is the first area of SEO that you need to focus on. This is the process of optimizing your website's code and structure so that it's as search-engine-friendly as possible.    There are a few things you can do to optimize your site technically, including installing an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO, setting up 301 redirects, and creating an XML sitemap. Foundational Content Foundational content is the next area of SEO that you need to focus on. This is the content on your website that provides a strong foundation for your SEO efforts. This content includes things like your site's About Us page, its blog, and its service pages. You need to make sure this content is high-quality and keyword-rich so that it can help you rank in search engines. You'll want to build a single web page for each service you provide in your private practice. If your business is more complex, this could be multiple pages. You should include information about what you offer, who it's best suited for, and why the customer would benefit On-page SEO On-page SEO is the third area of SEO that you need to focus on. On-page SEO includes all the SEO elements on the page where they're found (the "on-" part).  When optimizing for on-page SEO, you want to make sure everything aligns with what Google wants so when it crawls your website, it sees all of these things as positive signals. This means using keywords throughout the text while keeping an eye out for keyword density or making sure there are no spelling mistakes. On-page SEO is important because this is how you'll get your website ranking high in search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes optimizing your website's title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, images, and other elements for SEO. On-page SEO can be tricky because there are so many factors you need to consider. But if you do it correctly, you can see a big boost in your search engine rankings! Off-Page SEO Off-page SEO is the final area of SEO that you need to focus on.    This includes all the activities you do outside of your website to help improve your SEO. The main component of off-page SEO is link building, which is when you get other websites to link back to yours.    You can do this by creating valuable content that others will want to share, reaching out to other bloggers and website owners, and participating in online communities. Off-page SEO isn't as important as technical SEO or on-page SEO, but it's still an essential part of any successful SEO strategy.   It can be extremely valuable because it will help you build up authority outside of your website, which can help boost its rankings. Conclusion In order to be successful with SEO for your private practice website, there are 4 main things you need to keep in mind.  These include technical SEO, foundational content, on-page SEO and off-page SEO.  If you’re a therapist who wants help navigating the complex world of web marketing but don't know where to start, schedule a clarity call today.  Our team is ready and waiting to partner with therapists like you as we work through all aspects of digital marketing from strategy development to execution.  We can also provide an analysis of your current site's performance so that we have data points against which we can measure our progress towards improving its rankings by using these key principles. Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!  

In this episode of The Private Practice Elevation Podcast you’re going to learn the reasons why it’s so important to work on your visual brand before you build or redesign a website for your private practice.   This topic is something near and dear to my own heart, since it’s something that comes up regularly with the website design projects we work on.   Oftentimes, clients will hire us to create the website of their dreams… and that’s truly what we always aim to do.   Except, many clients do not have a clear vision of what design elements their website needs in order to quickly and accurately communicate to their potential clients what therapy with them is like.   So we work with our clients to uncover things like which fonts, colors, tones and photos would really speak to their clients and help them identify with their brand.   But honestly, the most successful projects and the happiest clients are the ones that have done that work up front, before website design even begins.   You may think that the term “branding” just means having a cool logo, but as you’ll hear in this episode, there’s so much more that goes into a brand for your private practice.   To help us unpack the topic of branding and what to do before you build your website, I’m chatting with Kimberly and Justin Slagle from Practicery.   If you’ve got any plans in the near future to build or redesign your therapy website, you’ll want to give this a listen! In This Episode, You’ll Learn: What a visual brand is and is not The key elements that can make up a visual brand for your private practice The questions you need to answer about yourself, your business and your clients to help you begin creating your visual brand Tips and tools to help you find inspiration and discover your visual brand Things you can do to make sure your website design has what they need to create a website that truly represents your therapy practice   Links mentioned in this episode: practicery.com  Therapists Who Brand Facebook group Designspiration   About Practicery (Kimberly & Justin Slagle)   Practicery is a graphic design company that specializes in custom visual branding and Squarespace websites for therapists. Their combined experience in design, marketing, and the mental health field are perfectly aligned to help you create a look and feel for your business that will showcase your authentic style, expertise, and make your ideal client not only say, “I’ve found the one!” but feel it from the second they interact with your brand.    Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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!

In this episode of The Private Practice Elevation podcast, you’re going to learn what it means to be deeply rested and wildly successful. I know we have many introverts out there listening to this podcast, and this one is especially for you. As an introverted person myself, I was super excited to have this conversation with Maegen Megginson. So much of the world's systems tell us that in order to be successful, we must hustle, grind it out, and sacrifice our rest and peace. But what if there was a way to be wildly successful in your private practice and business without giving up the things that bring you joy and leave you filled with energy, rather than depleted? Maegan Megginson is a Sex Therapist turned Business Coach on a mission to help successful entrepreneurs fall madly in love with their businesses.  After nearly burning out, Maegan finally figured out how to leverage her introverted and highly sensitive strengths to create two businesses she loves. Listen in as two introverts share their past and current struggles and successes with building businesses that fit their personality. In This Episode, You’ll Learn: What it means to be “deeply rested and wildly successful” and how your definition of these terms can help guide you toward the life you want to live How to overcome the “arbitrary thirst for ‘more’” so you can can discover where it is you actually want to go and what you want to achieve How setting personal goals for rest can impact your business How to set goals that are in line with your introverted personality so that you can grow your business and get the rest you need How to retrain your brain to focus on rest How to increase your self-compassion so you can stay focused on your work instead of comparing yourself to your colleagues The challenge with social media and how it can detract from the goals you have from your business - plus how to deal with it Free Download: Grow Your Business Without Burning Out Download Maegan’s free guide to learn from her mistakes so you can expand your services with ease, energy, and really big profits. Click Here Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcasts 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! Links mentioned in this episode: Maegan Megginson’s Website Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World (affiliate link) Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff (affiliate link)   About Maegan Megginson Maegan Megginson is a Sex Therapist turned Business Coach on a mission to help successful entrepreneurs fall madly in love with their businesses. After years of struggling with overwhelm and burnout, Maegan finally figured out how to leverage her introverted and highly sensitive strengths to create two businesses she loves. She believes the key to happiness is to design your business to serve you first and your clients second – only then will you discover how to become deeply rested and wildly successful.