Psychology Today Profile Fixes That Get Clicks

We break down what makes a Psychology Today profile get clicked and why the first two sentences of your bio matter more than most therapists realize. We also share practical fixes for jargon, AI-written copy, and photos so your profile feels human and draws the right clients.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, I've been scouring psychology today, and I am back with another do's and don'ts episode based on what I've seen. My name is Craig, and I'm the owner of Daisy Financial Coaching. Our team is on a mission to make your therapy practice permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money, and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. Psychology Today can be a great lead generator. It's a way that a lot of therapists get business. It's a way uh people find their therapists is by going to psychology today. Myself, when I started looking for a therapist, that was one of the first places I went was searching on that platform. And I can remember

Why Psychology Today Still Works

SPEAKER_00 0:49

scrolling through pages. Uh, one, the overwhelm of just how many there were and trying to figure out what I was looking for, who would be the best fit for me. And so there are some things that pop up to say, here are some things people are doing great. And then here's how you can make yourself stand out, how you can be possibly hurting yourself in your psychology today profile. Maybe you're turning people away without even realizing it. So I want to step into this and speak from the consumers. Anytime I do these episodes, I go to psychology today and I pretend I am looking for a therapist. So uh I went on uh just this morning and I'm scrolling through pages. I usually pick a random city because I never want anyone listening to this to figure out who I might be talking about. I want anonymity. Anonymity, whoo, uh anonymity. I I want nobody to know what's who this is. And so because I'm not beating anybody up, I'm not trying to speak ill of these people, it's just genuinely opportunity to tweak, make some fixes so that you can get some more business and help more people. All right, so as we're scrolling, number one thing to remember on psychology today is when you're scrolling through those pages, there's going to be, you know, a picture, there's going to be just a snapshot of the bio that you enter. So maybe one to two sentences, and then there might be a couple other pieces of information, but really it's small. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to get people to click on it. So the first thing is that the first two sentences of your bio is prime real estate. You what you lead with in your in your bio, your about me, who you help, is incredibly important because nobody's gonna see it. If you lead with the wrong things, then they're not gonna click on your profile and they're not actually gonna get to see the good stuff.

The Two Sentences That Matter

SPEAKER_00 2:41

So as you're scrolling, make sure that the first thing they see is stuff that's about them, not about you. So I I've said this in past episodes before, but the the worst thing we can do is talk about us. I have a master's degree in in mental health counseling. I use this approach or that approach, and I use these acronyms or that acronyms. Those are the worst thing we want to start with because it's all about you, it's not about them. And so as they're going through, they're looking for connection. Who who do I connect with? Who who do I feel like there is um would see me, who understands me, understands what I'm going through. Reading that you have a master's degree in mental health counseling doesn't create connection. Yes, there might be one or two people who that's important to them. They're like, I want the most educated person in this realm. And so you might still get a few people. I'm not saying nobody's gonna hire you, but the average person, if you go to your profile today and you see that that's what you're leading with, uh, I am this, or I've been in business for this long, I've been a practicing therapist for this many years. I believe in this approach. Uh, it's again, it's I statements. Um, I want to have an office or a session that is feels comfortable and confident. It's a little bit better than talking about your credentials, but it's not what we want to lead with. We want to lead with them. What is what are they dealing with? What is their problem? We want to address those. Who who is your target client, your target patient? What are they struggling with? And that's what we we want them to feel seen. You get a lot of times it's it's leading with a question. Some of the the ones that I saw that were great is have you ever felt this? And so it's just, I understand that, and or making that just that connection of I know what that's like, and this is what we do. So those first couple of sentences about them, what are they struggling with? If they're dealing with depression, anxiety, if they're a parent who uh maybe going through postpartum or uh whatever it is that you want to target, speak to it. We want to draw them in and help them say, hey, that's that's exactly what I'm feeling. That's what I'm struggling with. All right. So first two sentences are key. Now, when they click on your profile, then and you know, in the bottom part, that's when you can get into your approaches, uh, how you work with people. Because I do think that that stuff's important. That's that's like the second layer of research. First layer of research is let me find somebody. Second layer is let me learn more about that person. So it's hmm, this person's interesting. Now I'm gonna learn more about them. If we don't show them that we're interesting in those first two sentences, they're never gonna learn more about you. So that gives you a chance to dig deeper. There is a credentials section. So you I feel like you don't need to list your degrees. Honestly,

Lead With Client Problems Not Credentials

SPEAKER_00 5:27

most people do not care. Most people don't care. So you're licensed, you have all these credentials. I think that's great for the credentials section because the people who do care will scroll down to that section to see are they do they specialize? Do they have certain licenses or trainings and different things I'm looking for? But again, most people don't care. They they really don't. And so focus on those first two sentences. They're not for your qualifications, it's it's just about making that connection. The other thing I see people doing is they use industry jargon or big words, and especially in those first two sentences, once again, using big words is sometimes deep down, it's about us. We're trying to show that we are smart, we're knowledgeable, we're qualified, we know what we're doing. What it's saying to them is again lack of connection. They may not understand what you're talking about. Uh, one of the profiles I saw, the very first sentence was talking about what they use, and it's a comprehensive psychological and neuropsychological testing, was one of the phrases I pulled out of there. That's connecting with nobody. That that's there's there's easier ways to say these things in the terms that your your patient, your client will use. We want to speak their language. When I'm writing, when I'm um asking for tips, or you know, if I'm doing a summary and using AI to write me up a summary uh of something, I I train it to use a sixth grade reading level. I want it to be in, I don't want it to read like a textbook. I don't want it to seem like I'm a college professor speaking in terms that no one understands. It creates a disconnect. Not it's not human. And in this world of AI, people want to feel connection. They want to feel like a real human is talking. So, really important, dumb it down. If you're reading it, if you're not sure, take it to somebody who has no idea about the mental health space who will be honest with you and say, is this too wordy? Am I using too many big words? In fact, send it to me, uh, Craig at Craigdayc.com. Shoot me an email with a link to your psychology today profile. I am happy, happy to look at it and tell you uh if there's some things that could be tweaked to improve it. If you're worried about big words, just shoot it to me and I'm I'll tell you. Hey, actually, I think you did a great job with with bringing the words down. Or, you

Cut Jargon And Explain Acronyms

SPEAKER_00 7:50

know, here's some words here that I feel like most people are gonna aren't aren't gonna understand. The big words can turn people away. Uh, the other thing in here when I talk about industry jargon is the acronyms. So, again, if you know the acronyms, listing them out, most people don't. They don't maybe they've heard of the acronym, they don't know what it means. And so speak to it. What is it that the acronym does? Again, under the credentials, next to your name, wherever it is, you can put those letters or even further down in the bio, you can say, here's you know what I specialize in or I'm licensed in, and here's what it means. But if you're using a certain methodology or certain belief system, if you have a certain licensing uh in working with certain types of people, just speak to those people like you normally would. You don't need to put, I am B, K, Y, G, you know, I'm making it up, obviously, but you don't need to put all those letters because they mean nothing to most people. Again, unless they're trained in psychology, they don't they don't know what those mean most of the time. All right, another mistake I'm seeing, and while AI is getting better at writing, it's still many times very obvious when it is AI. So here's kind of my take on AI, and I'm a believer in using it. And so my thought process when you're using AI to do writing on your behalf, uh, one, it needs to be authentic. So it needs to be authentic to you, it needs to be your voice, uh, it needs to be a lot of different things. You know, a few episodes, or I just recorded an episode, I'm not sure if it's released yet as of when you're listening to this. Uh, but if not, find it. It's with uh Jody. Uh, she is a marketer for Clinics. And we dug into AI a little bit. And what we talked about was, you know, not that it's a bad thing, it's just when it is bad is

Using AI Without Sounding Robotic

SPEAKER_00 9:43

when we don't take time to really learn it, train it to sound and and embody us. So, meaning if you just have the free program of Chat GPT and you go in, you know, there and you just say, Hey, can you please write me a bio for my psychology today profile? It's gonna sound like AI. It's gonna come out sounding like a computer wrote it for you. Now, if you've taken time, and I've been working on this, and I've been using Claude as my my AI software, and I've been trying to just teach it about me. I've I've uploaded links to my videos, podcast episodes, blog posts I've written. Um, you know, I'm writing a book, Profit First, for physical therapists, right now. And so uh I uploaded the manuscript that I have up to this point to just say, here's my writing style, here's my voice, here's my belief systems, um, training it so that when I do use it to write, I'm not using it for my book, I promise. If I use it to write, you know, a section of a newsletter or um some copy for my website, or just a little chunks here and there, it knows me. It knows how I speak, it's gonna sound like me, it's gonna sound more human. Um, so that is the key is taking the time. And to me, you taking time to work with your AI software doesn't sound like a shortcut. And I think that's the problem with AI is a lot of people feel like you're you're lazy. You're you're just taking a shortcut, you're saying, write this for me, and you post it. But by training your platform to sound and and speak and know what you believe in, that's not the shortcut. That that's not lazy. So, really, if you're gonna use it, go about it that way. And then read it, please, before you post it. Don't just copy paste, post it. Make sure it doesn't sound like AI. If it has m-dashes, those long lines, just delete them, swap them out. Uh, I know people who who used them before AI are really upset that it ruined it, but that's usually a a red flag saying, hey, this is AI, um, even if it's not. So I've I've stopped using them in all of my writing uh purely out of concern that people might see it and just assume now that it's it's AI writing it. So use it as a tool to help you too. So again, if you if you don't have paid softwares, if you don't have the time to train it, maybe go in there and have it write it, and then you come in and add voice and you tweak it, or have it create an outline for you for what makes a good profile bio. And or you can come in and say, here are the talking points I want to speak to. Can you put this in a together? And then you can go comb back through it just to give it your your voice. And once again, send it to a few people and ask them does this sound like I wrote it? Does it sound like AI wrote it? Um, if it does, what tweaks can I make? Get some of that outside perspective. All right, pictures is the last point I'm gonna make because um, first of all, if you don't have a picture on your psychology today profile, what

Photos That Match Your Personality

SPEAKER_00 12:35

are you doing? Get one on there, put a picture of you. Don't put a picture of your office space as your main profile, a picture of you. We want to see what you look like. Um, I want your picture to match your personality. You know, when I started my business, uh, the first headshots I took from my website, uh, I put on a tie, I was all buttoned up, I was trying to look super professional. Uh, the color schemes, everything I had was very focused on financial guy. Like I'm a financial expert. And that's just not me. I mean, I'm I I know my stuff. I'm not saying I don't, but that's not my personality. I'm not a tie guy, I don't like wearing ties. I'm a t-shirt, hoodie, jeans, gym shorts kind of guy. Um, if I do dress up, I don't tuck in my shirt. I don't like tucking in my shirt. So I needed that to be caught in my photos. And so when I redid them a handful of years back and I need to do them again, it was I'm gonna capture that style. So when I brought clothes, I showed up in the clothes I would normally be wearing. Um, if you ever, if you're listening to my this podcast, if you go to YouTube and watch all the episodes, you'll see that I'm never really fancied up. I'm always just what I happen to be wearing that day, what's comfortable, what's casual. I'm a casual person. I want money and business finance to feel casual. I feel like too many people overcomplicate it. And I want to bring it down to uh the normal person's level because that's what we are. That's what you are. You're just normal people. I'm not gonna speak in industry jargon, I'm not gonna pretend like uh I'm way up above on the financial ladder. I'm I'm just a normal person who's trying to teach other normal people about this, and that's kind of where I'm coming from with you. If you're a free-spirited, laid-back personality, let your photos show it. You don't need to be super buttoned up in your photos. If you're a super buttoned up person, then go for it. You don't don't feel pressured to be, you know, free-spirited in your photos, but showcase you. Wear clothes that you would wear. If you, if you're bright colored, wear bright colors. If you you don't have to be standing still and smiling and sitting straight up, you could be posing, you could be doing whatever you want to do to attract the people you're trying to attract. You want to find people who are gonna see that and instantly connect. There are people who would connect with you, but your photo doesn't show that, so they never click it. So if they are looking for that laid-back personality, somebody who just kind of go with it, who they feel like they could sit down and just chat with and talk to, the photo should show that. And if it's showing a button-up person, they're scrolling by. And vice versa. If they're looking for somebody that they're like, I just want somebody who I feel like is incredibly knowledgeable, who's professional, who's clean cut, that's what they're looking for. And so they will find those, and that's who they're gonna reach out to. We judge the book by its cover. I mean, when you're scrolling as a person looking for a therapist, and there's thousands of options sitting there, the first thing we're looking at is photo. And usually it's does this person look like me? That's just how it is. Uh, you know, I'm looking when I was looking for my therapist, it's like I want somebody who's, you know, they don't not my age necessarily, but not too far past where I am in life. I want them to be a dad. I want them to, you know, kind of understand the world I'm in. And so as I'm scrolling through, that's what I'm looking for. And I don't have time to click on every single profile and and assess each one individually. So I'm looking at the pictures first. I find somebody who I'm like, okay, they look like they're, you know, maybe 10 years older than me. I start to read, okay, and see what they specialize in, who they help. Um, then I dig a little deeper. I'm looking, okay, let's see. Now I want to learn about them. I know what they do. I want to see more about them. Are they a parent? Do they uh X, Y, and Z? So that's the process we go through. So photos are incredibly important. Now, your main photo is you showing your personality inside your profile. I highly recommend if you have a physical office space, add a few pictures of the office space. Add a few pictures of your team, uh, show them what's going on so that that breaks that barrier down. I've mentioned it before in episodes, but one of the best things about YouTube is when I get on a call with a potential client, somebody who reaches out, uh curious about how we can help them. I can tell when they've come to us from YouTube, they feel at ease because they see this background. It's like they've been in this room with me before and they've engaged with me before. And so they know what they're getting into. When they click schedule, they know this, they can picture themselves on this call. And that relieves some of that stress, that anxiety, it reduces no-shows. When we are walking into the unknown, it's nerve-wracking. It really is. If somebody schedules their first session with you, and this goes beyond psychology today, I highly recommend shooting them emails of like what to expect when they get to the office, what to expect about parking. I have parking anxiety like crazy, which is so weird, but that's the worst thing. I'm as I'm approaching a destination, especially if I've never been there before, I'm like, oh, what's parking gonna be like? Is it gonna be crazy? Am I gonna have to try and find a spot? Is there gonna be uh meters? Am I gonna have to walk a few blocks? So just showing the parking lot and some of the upcoming emails of like, here's our office, here's what the outside looks like, here's where the parking is, um, it's it's free parking, or if it's not free parking, where's the best place to go that's close by that they can park? Giving all those things to just ease that anxiety

Office Pics Video And Easing First Visit

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of this thing that they're probably already nervous about going into. How can we make that transition different? And so starting that on the Psychology Today profile, showing pictures of uh, again, the office space, the waiting room, uh, possibly your whole team, your admin team, people that they are going to connect with so that when they get there, they recognize them and there's just some familiarity there. And then lastly, on top of pictures is video. If you feel comfortable on video, put a video up. I think that is so tremendous when showcasing personality and connection and hearing you talk and how you speak, and just I think they're valuable. And it just has to be a 60-second video. It can be on how you help people, it can be about you. Um, those are okay to make the video speaking about hey, here's who I am, here's what I love to do, here's my life experience, here's why I do what I do. Um, that's okay because usually if they're watching the video uh on your profile, they're trying to learn more about you. And so those are less about grabbing their attention and more about here's who I am and here's why I think I can help you. So if any of these resonate, go make some tweaks and see if it makes a difference in the number of leads you get from psychology today. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspod.com to learn how we can help.