Web Marketing for Therapists – Predictions for 2012

 So it’s that time of year – predictions time! What does Your Google Guy see in his crystal ball? Besides a lot of political ads on TV? OK, here we go…

Many Trends Continue – Video, WordPress and Twitter will continue to all grow and become a normal part of web marketing this year. The bleeding-edge and leading-edge marketers have blazed a trail, and the middle of the pack will follow. #JustDoIt

Google+ Straggles Along – Remember all that noise in the middle of 2011, when everyone was SO excited about Google+? Yeah, now it’s crickets. I believe Google+ will be one of those things you do solely for SEO purposes (a +1 page for your business, a +1 button on your website) but don’t spend a lot of time on. But I would spend the time to do those two things, folks.

Facebook – Ch-ch-ch-changes! Facebook continues to change, and the question is whether they will manage it well (and continue to be the “stickiest” site on the Internet) or whether some combination of privacy issues, “spooky” or invasive advertisements, Timeline-backlash, or the depressing impacts of its use will cause the kingdom to start to crumble. I’m not saying it’s going anywhere, folks, just that the win-streak will end at some point.

Facebook Ads – will come of age, as marketers really learn how to take advantage of the treasure trove of demographic data they are sitting on. First adopters will learn lessons, and others will build on them. (Oh yes, keep an eye on YourGoogleGuy.com – you might see something on this soon).

Google – three solid, non-glamorous predictions. First, Google’s classic search engine (the core that most people think of as Google) will only change incrementally. They are too smart to mess with success too much, especially with no one currently nipping at their heels. Second, I predict the same for Google Adwords. Adwords is the “Golden Egg” for Google – it’s where the money is made. They won’t mess with it. What you created in 2008 should still work (with some increased bids). But prediction #3 is – ORGANIC results will continue to change rapidly. They’ll become more personalized. SEO will continue to become more difficult to predict & control. It will be harder to hold onto ranking, and you’ll need more attention on it, if organic rankings are what drive your web traffic.

Smart Phones – since they have become a center of human activity, it will be interesting how it will impact their use. I personally use mine to find things like restaurants, movie theaters, stores, etc. I still use the trusty computer when I am doing more in-depth research. In 2012, I would start making sure your website shows up to some degree on smart-phone browsers.

Siri – Danger, Google, Danger! What some wise people have noticed is that Siri now jumps in where a search engine might have been before. And chooses the results, editing them down for you. This might be the year we start seeing S.R.O. – Siri Results Optimization.

All the best, Peter

P.S. – Superbowl XLVI – Saints over Texans (since my Seahawks are out)

P.P.S. – 2012 Election – Obama over Romney (not politicking, just predicting, folks)

Revisiting My Predictions for Therapist Web Marketing - 2011

I rarely read or see pundits (political, financial or otherwise) go back and review their predictions. I'm going to try (and maybe see why those others don't!) :-)

So here's what I predicted on January 2, 2011, with my view of what really happened.

1) Google Stays #1, But Something Lurks in the Shadows
What Really Happened: I predicted others would try to eat away at Google's supremacy. But no one has truly come close: not Bing/Yahoo, not Yelp, not Groupon, not even Facebook (yet). I pondered Bing/Yahoo combining with Facebook to have FB be a place you search, too. Didn't happen. We still see three giants with three rather distinct kingdoms: Twitter for microblogging, Facebook for social, and Google for search.

2) The Therapist Directory Wars Continue
What Really Happened: Well, it was more an evolution than a revolution. Psychology Today brought in a new feature that tracked people calling you from their directory - helping prove their value (that the referral came from PT). Despite this, the murmurs I've heard from many therapists is that PT doesn't provide enough value for the higher cost. What I've really noticed is an upstart quality of smaller directories aimed at using video technology (doing the filming, editing and posting themselves). Examples include Therapick and NW Therapy Finder. This, by the way, plays into Prediction #3.

3) Video Takes Off
What Really Happened: It's finally happening, folks. When I go Google a therapist in my city and find new people ahead of ME each month in the video results you see on many search results pages. With the advent of Flip cameras, iPads, iPods, HD webcams and the like, the thing I've been waiting for is finally here (in my estimation). What do you think?

4) Dynamic Website Technology Takes Over
What Really Happened: I'd say I was right on this one. If you built a website in 2011, or started looking into it, I would bet you came across WordPress. Most of the new sites I see are WordPress now (if they are being done as a custom gig, not through GoDaddy, etc.).

5) Reputation Management/Social Media Optimization Becomes a New Focus
What Really Happened: I don't think the reputation management idea really took hold (though if you have gotten a bad review on Yelp or InsiderPages, you have painfully been initiated into it). Social Media? Well, hell yeah it bloomed in 2011. Look at all the Twitter handles you see on every TV show now. Look at the prevalence of "hashtags" now. I'll give myself a point on this one. #selfcongratulation

6) Mobile & How to Deal With It Enters the Conversation

What Really Happened: While the smartphone became ubiquitous, it's impact on therapy was less on marketing than on what happens in the room (from it disrupting families and marriages, to every gosh-darn client pulling out their phone when it's time to schedule the next appointment). But read my upcoming posts to see a NEW twist on this point in 2012.

7) Local! Local! Local!

What Really Happened: I'll give myself points here. The Google Places map took even more prominence in the search engine results. Google Places optimization is much hotter right now than engineering the organic results below. This has driven some people MORE towards Adwords, as the ability to show up for multiple city searches (especially a city you are not located in) did get harder in 2011.

8) Bing + Yahoo = Yawn

What Really Happened: Points, again. Have *you* been all hot and bothered over Bing or Yahoo? I didn't think so. Have you "Binged" anything lately? Have you "Yahoo'ed"? Yeah, me neither. But I Google things every day. Every. Day. Many times a day,

9) Twitter. OK, I Relent.

What Really Happened: From an SEO perspective, a marketing perspective, and a real-life use perspective (for news, fantasy football, breaking stories and the like), I really adopted Twitter in 2011. OK, so I was not a first adopter here. Give me a break, I have a toddler. And perhaps the kick-ass Android phone I got in mid-2011 helped me get into true Twitter-user mode. It's a fun way to kill 2 minutes waiting for a client. After I post this to my blog, I'll Tweet out the news of the post. #isurrender

9) More Use of Paid SEO Consultants

What Really Happened: I would give myself more points if I had said "more %&#@*% cold calls from SEO companies". Really, I get at least one a week, usually with some pseudo-truth about being "Google-authorized" or a "Google Partner". Ha! I've also, in selling SEO services myself, found myself competing against more people this year than ever before. I would bet a dollar you got a cold call from an SEO company this year, too.

OVERALL, I will give myself a solid "B+" grade on my predictions for 2011. But just you wait, I am cooking up a new set of predictions for 2012, that should come out sometime in early January.

Until then, happy marketing!

Sincerely, Peter Hannah

Your Oh-So-Googley Guy

Web Marketing Consulting for Therapists, Counselors and Psychologists

The First "Death Watch" Article I've Seen for Google+

Hi everyone,

I've been pretty busy in both the counseling and SEO/Adwords sphere lately. Not a lot of time for fun and games. So, I've got to say I am one of the many who apparently spent a week on Google+, and then never went back. I've certainly been on Facebook, but have heard nary a peep from old +, or people inviting me/dogging me to get active on it.

I hadn't thought about it much (I've been basically waiting to see when they offered some kind of Business Page - I'll be the first to hop on and list mine when they do!) until today. One of the industry newsletters I follow had the following article: Google+ Goes Critical - But Not in a Good Way.

It's the first "death watch" article I've seen. I've always been pretty pessimistic that Google+ could break the hold Facebook had on us, or that there was enough attention to support both. Appears I was right.

Money quote:

Millions signed onto Google's service as soon as it went public. Critical mass seemed well on its way. If the trends held up, this could change everything. 
And then it died.

How about you? Have you stayed active on Google+? Or tried it and forgot it? I'd love to know. Comment, tweet me or email.

Take care, Peter
Your Good Ole Google Guy

My Predictions for Therapist Web Marketing in 2011

I’ve been a webmaster since the term was coined (1996 @ Citizens Utilities in Stamford CT). I lived through the dot-com/dot-bomb era (ah, the mess that was ShopLocal.com), and doing PPC and SEO for therapists since 2005. The rate of change in 2010 in terms of search engines and overall web marketing, was astounding, and I expect that to continue in 2011.

Marketing for our particular business continues to be tricky, due to the ethical constraints of being a psychotherapist. We can’t (ethically) solicit for online reviews or testimonials from clients. We are even hamstrung in responding *to* poor reviews on Yelp, etc. (been there, and it hurts!). Heck, even having our office as a Facebook Place to be checked into is probably not something we should do. That said, here are some trends I see for 2011:


Google Stays #1, But Something Lurks in the Shadows: Google is still where to be at, folks. Some in the search engine community say the actual percentage of searches that goes on at Google is over 80%, not the 70% that is usually reported. The Bing/Yahoo combination hasn’t made much of a dent yet. Adwords continues to pour in money. (By the way, Adwords will continue to work for therapists, but get more and more expensive, complex and difficult – to me the ROI is really beginning to turn for SEO over Adwords in many cases). Google is taking on Yelp with its new HotPot offering. They pull off huge changes every month or so (Google Instant, the Local results integration that took place around Halloween, etc).

What Lurks in the Shadows is Facebook: Just imagine this – if instead of leaving Facebook to do your searches, you did them *from* your Facebook page. You’ve just entered Google’s worst nightmare. Of course, it wouldn’t be Google search. Likely Microsoft/Bing/Yahoo. This could be a game-changer. I’ve been wondering when Facebook would really change things for therapists (right now, Fan Pages, and FB ads are nice, but really not a big driver of therapy clients). This might be it. Watch Facebook in 2011, folks.

The Therapist Directory Wars Continue: For so long, PsychologyToday and AAMFT’s TherapistLocator.net had the directory business mainly to themselves. Not so anymore. Hungry upstarts have started eating their lunches. The most aggressive, and most impressive to me is GoodTherapy.org. They’ve rocketed to #2, and are much more innovative than PT, offering CEU’s, marketing webinars, media relations, audio and video, and lots more. I also see innovation in niche-related directories (for various communities or therapy approaches) which can provide good ROI. Directories continue to provide an easy, passive way of marketing your practice. They are not usually barn-burners as far as call volume, but usually more than pay for themselves.

Video – Get off the sidelines in 2011, folks! There are more and more inexpensive ways of creating videos (including some where it’s just your voice over images, like Jing, which I use extensively for Your Google Guy). Flip HD cameras can make some beautiful images. Just like headshots became more and more expected, video will be too. People will choose someone they get to see and get a feel of over a therapist who they only can measure by their written words.

Dynamic Website Technology Takes Over: More and more therapists will be moving their websites to platforms like WordPress and Joomla, or increasingly sophisticated templates on their ISPs. This both with be for practical reasons (the ability to update content without paying/waiting for a web designer) as well the very beautiful visual design aspects, and the ability to integrate social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc). If it’s time to update your site in 2011, I suggest looking at WordPress.

Reputation Mgmt/SMO: You’ll hear the acronym SMO a lot in 2011, it stands for “Social Media Optimization”. Pretty much SEO for Social Media. With review sites like Yelp and InsiderPages having a bigger influence, and with Twitter and Facebook the two dominant players in social media, it makes sense to pay attention to how other therapists in your markets are using these mediums. It also makes sense to check out what is being said about *you* - this is the idea of Reputation Management. Setting a Google Alerts to watch for your name is a good place to start.

Mobile: Smartphones are here to stay, folks (and iPads and other tablets). More and more people are doing more and more of their web-surfing from them. But at the same time, the browsers and screens are improving so much, that customizing a site for these devices is *not* something you need to be concerned with. So just do what you need to do for Local, and the carryover should be enough.

Local: I did a workshop here in Seattle a couple of months ago. One slide just said “LOCAL! LOCAL! LOCAL!” and for 2011 I’d just add a couple more exclamation points. The changes Google made in fall of 2010 (basically combining the map and non-map listings for searches they deem to be for local businesses) made it MUCH harder to rank in a city in which you do *not* have an office. This trend will continue in 2011.

Bing/Yahoo: See my Facebook comments. Otherwise, not much on my radar. I was initially excited by the combination, but have found running ads on their networks to be difficult and underwhelming. How do you beat Google? I just don't see it.

Twitter? OK, I Relent: So I have pooh-poohed Twitter for a long time. I still do from the standpoint of it being a place where your clients live – I still don’t believe that! But what is now obvious is that Twitter is weighing more and more heavily on SEO. If you write blog entries, or articles, or otherwise have news, you should be posting it on Twitter, for the search engines to find.

More Use of Paid SEO Consultants: 2010 was the year where I could see other SEO firms work showing up in the local search results for therapists (though many using tactics I think are unethical, like posting multiple fake reviews). I can only see this continuing and increasing in 2011. It’s a complex, ever-changing world out there on the Internet. I’ve always thought most therapists didn’t want to have to be marketing experts OR high-tech experts – they just want to do good therapy work with as many clients as they’d like. The smart and hungry will be hiring out – expect the rankings in your area to be very, very dynamic in 2011.

All the best, Peter

About Facebook Ads - Part 1

Hi folks,

New Year, new energies! I downloaded a great new screen capture video software called Jing Pro that is allowing me to do some new videos , for this blog and my therapist friends.

So without further ado, here's some info on Facebook ads - part 1 (part 2 is already "in the can" and will be posted soon). Best, Peter

View the video at Screencast.com
(working to get it rightly sized inline right now)

Twitter Gets To Me: An Offline Manifesto

With this post, I am outing myself as a Twitter heretic. I officially am sick of Twitter. From curious, to experimenting, to diving in, to just sick of it in the course of three short weeks.

Why?

Well, it might feel hypocritical coming from Your Google Guy, but I'll get to it, if you have the patience to read more than 140 characters.

Basically, after 20+ years of being online, having emailed and IM'ed (at IBM, all done on mainframes, before the Internet - it was called PROFS) for most of it, I can see the course of Twitter. I think it represents a nuclear arms race of online ubiquity. It is a quantum leap in the race to be constantly online, and become a persona, rather than a person.

Perhaps I should say that this is not a new concept, really. For years, videogamers have fallen to this weakness. Especially those in such social and all-encompassing games like EverQuest (aka EverCrack) and World of Warcraft (WOW) and the text-based games that preceded them, fully jumping into a virtual world was not unusual. I had an ex-girlfriend who (after we broke up) spent months arranging her "online marriage" to some German guy in EverQuest (this was 1998 or so).

But to this point, those sucked into that life were the computer people to start with. People who maybe didn't have the best social skills or social standing. The strange thing now is watching the business-people do it.

My experience with Twitter thus far has been like being at a Multi-Level-Marketing expo! Everyone has a booth! Or is selling! Or is buying! Or is promoting their business of coaching you on how to sell or buy! Follow me! Then I'll follow you! Then we can race to see how many followers we can get! Oy vey. (I say this, admitting my attempts at Twitter have been based around extending the Your Google Guy brand, and my Nice Guy counseling biz). It's like a gold-rush where everyone is selling picks and pans, and I have yet to see the gold.

The second agenda of Twitter seems to be the cleverness contest. Look how smart I am! Ugh, I get really sick of this too. I guess I see that true friendship, true relationship-building, is *not* what I see going on on Twitter. (I contrast this to Facebook, but I keep Facebook as an extension of people I know/have known in the physical plane).

Twitter makes me ponder ideas like how much information we can take in? as well as how many relationships we can simultaneously handle?  This amazing story from The Economist says we have an internal mental limit at 148 "friends". It's called the Dunbar number. But even with 148 Facebook "friends" they found people only really connect with (keep up with) 7-10 of them.

On Twitter, people are reaching for "followers" in the thousands. I repeat, THOUSANDS. There are of course new tools springing up to help you manage all the followers, and all the "tweets". Ugh. I truly believe Twitter will collapse under its own weight, a victim of its own success. When are all "friends" of everyone, it will be cacophony. The other option is an intermediary layer. A filter. Someone to separate wheat from chaff and help you decide what to attend to. This is no different than a newscaster/reporter/blogger, folks. And thus we re-invent the wheel.

I know I was just blogging about Twitter optimistically a few days ago. But as I get around the Twitter culture, I've gotten disturbed. Oh yeah, and the culture says you are a jerk (my nicer word for a word that begins with an "A") if someone follows you and you don't follow back. There are now online social-media consultants. I guess this should be expected. Hell, I do SEO, and that's what, five years old at most? I shouldn't throw stones. But to me, all this has always been to try to create more non-virtual relationships. To see more people in my counseling office, and for you to too. To keep in touch with people I have known in all 5 senses.

I'm not sure what all is driving this in me. It may be the arrival of our baby, now some 3 1/2 months old. It's an extremely visceral and sensory experience with a baby. Drool and warmth and spit-up and poop and skin and rocking and cooing. I've always been an Attachment guy, and I am experiencing it as it is created in a little person right in front of me. It also could be the feeling of pressure in me to keep up with the unending flow of new Tweets and tools and direct messages. I've survived the pressure email, MySpace, texting and Facebook so far, but nothing like the snowball that is Twitter. I come in, sit down at my PC, and am 10 feet away from my lovely wife as she is emailing too. We are close but not connected. It is disturbing to me as a marriage counselor, and as a human being.

Some years ago, when I was at IBM, I saw Clifford Stoll speak - he was a guy who famously tracked down a hacker in Germany, and his talk was rousing for us techies (he wrote a book about it called The Cuckoo's Egg). Later he changed his position on technology and the Internet, and wrote a book called Silicon Snake Oil - in which he extolled the virtues of the physical, slow, face-to-face world over the virtual. I believe he too was strongly influenced in this new position by becoming a father.

So, as someone who has seen tech fads come and go (I worked for a dot-bomb, sorry, dot-com here in Seattle, and that's just one of many things that have lit up the tech sky like a shooting star) I think all the heat here may burn out.

If you want to help your search engine rankings by starting an account, go right ahead. Want to try to drive traffic to your blog, Twitter when you post. If you have something national to sell, yup, dive in. But for the local therapist, I think Twitter is not going to be much of a business tool for you. 

I shall now don my bullet-proof vest, as the Twitter-holics find me an take aim.

Best, Your Google Guy

Twitter Part 2: Choosing a Use, and Choosing a Username

OK, folks, these are going to be free lessons that I have learned the hard way (so don't ding me for hypocrisy) on two fundamental issues of Twitter. How you choose to use it, and the username you choose. The two are linked.

First and foremost, its use. I have chosen, and would advise others, to use Twitter as a business tool. To be your business-self while on it. To think of it that way - as a business mini-blog. This means, since I assume you are a therapist like me and like some boundaries and privacy, that you don't twitter your personal matters on it (that great date you had, the annoying client you had, etc. etc.).

I would contrast this to Facebook. I made a decision at one point to make Facebook a business-free zone. Since I work with a lot of therapists, I actually had to de-friend some people (there was some sadness on both sides about this, but it felt like a good move). Facebook is built to allow privacy, and really is not a great business resource (for therapists, at this point), and I think we therapists need a place where we can be silly and stupid and just people and not have to watch what we say/think/post.

OK, back off my soapbox. Since Twitter is going to be business tool, I suggest you pick a username that is either 1) your name (Peter Hannah), or 2) your service + your city (SeattleTherapist). I established my username before I had figured out how I was going to use Twitter. Don't make my mistake. But do realize that Google is now adding Twitter into it's search engine results. For instance, go search Google for gratefulguy. Guess what's the first entry? Moi.

Oh yeah, and to show the power of this thing - guess where I first found out about this new (it's quite new) Google/Twitter thing? From http://twitter.com/jeanlucr @jeanlucr on Twitter. Here's the actual news item - http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10203095-2.html

Best, Peter

A Therapist's Basic Guide to Twitter - Part One, What is Twitter?

TGIF fellow therapists,

If you have not been hearing about Twitter lately, then you must be living under a rock. Twitter is definitely a hot topic right now, and is growing at an insane rate. So, what is this thing, and why would a therapist in private practice care? Well, let's start simple.

Twitter can most accurately be described as a micro-blog. As a Twitter user, you post updates of up to 140 characters. Reading different Twitter users, you'll see that the posts range from small personal news (what restaurant they are at, what band they are seeing) to online news articles or websites that they found interesting and wanted to share. 

It really brings together aspects of Facebook's status update, and the editorial filtering/spinning of blogs. The difference between it and Facebook is that any user can see your postings (unless you lock down privacy options), and people can search on keywords and see previous posts of yours. So this is more public, like a blog. Also, just as in both Facebook and a blog, people "follow" people they find interesting (so that they see their posts automatically).

Like a blog, the posting of links is definitely part of the culture. People are culling the web for you, and saying "take a look at this". All in short little posts called "tweets".

To see an example of a Twitter account and tweets, take a look at my Twitter page - serving both my counseling and web consulting businesses.

In my next posts, I'll get into how I think you can use a Twitter account for your business, and some of the finer details of this medium.

On to the weekend! Best, Peter