WP130 | Using Strategic Blogging to Attract your Ideal Client with Jessica Tappana MSW, LCSW
Ever feel like blogging is just another task on your never-ending to-do list? Or that shouting into the void of the internet isn’t getting you any closer to connecting with your dream clients? In this episode, Jessica Tappana flips the script on random content creation and introduces us to a game-changing strategy: pillar-based marketing.
She compares it to building a house—with a strong foundation, sturdy support beams, and a roof that brings it all together. It’s a content structure that not only boosts your SEO but actually brings in the right clients—the ones you want to work with.
Whether you're a therapist burned out on blogging or a practice owner trying to make your marketing matter, this conversation is packed with practical tips, time-saving tricks, and a fresh perspective that could seriously shift how you show up online.
💡 If you’ve ever asked yourself “What should I blog about?” or “How do I stand out in a sea of therapists?”—you’re going to want to hit play.
What is Pillar-Based Marketing?
Jessica describes pillar-based marketing as a strategic way to organize your content. Instead of writing about whatever comes to mind, you build your marketing like a house. At the top is your main topic—something very specific, like Christian couples counseling or EMDR therapy for trauma. This acts like the ceiling of the house.
Supporting that ceiling are the cornerstone blog posts—in-depth, information-rich articles that educate your audience and show off your expertise. Under each of those are supporting blog posts, which dive deeper into the subtopics. Together, this content structure demonstrates that you truly know your stuff and can help your ideal clients.
Why It Works
Let’s be real: the digital world is saturated with therapists who blog. So how do you stand out? According to Jessica, the key is specificity and strategy.
Too many clinicians take a scattershot approach—writing whatever they feel like that day. But as more therapists up their marketing game, you need more than just good intentions to show potential clients (and referral sources) what sets you apart.
Pillar-based marketing does exactly that. It not only improves your SEO, but also attracts the right kind of client. When Jessica opened a second practice location in a competitive area, this method helped her team fill their caseloads with exactly the kind of clients they were passionate about serving—teens and adults dealing with anxiety and trauma.
Blogging Doesn’t Have to Be a Drag
Even if blogging sounds like a chore, Jessica encourages therapists to give it a second look—because the return on investment can be massive. Here’s why:
It shows your expertise to clients and referral partners.
It fuels your social media (just hand your blog content to your social media manager).
It builds SEO authority and helps you show up in local search results.
It provides helpful client resources you can use in therapy or send as homework.
Jessica emphasizes that, especially for busy practice owners, it’s better to go deep with one marketing method (like blogging) than try to do everything halfway. Strategic blogging gives you content you can repurpose and reuse across platforms.
A Time-Saving Blog Writing System
Jessica’s secret sauce? A super streamlined writing process that helps her create content quickly—even with a packed schedule that includes seeing clients, running a group practice, homeschooling her kids, and yes, occasionally vacationing.
Here’s how she does it:
Start with a Cornerstone Topic
For example: “All Your EMDR Questions Answered.”
Find Real Questions
She doesn’t rely on her own guesses—she uses tools like Google’s People Also Ask feature or intake paperwork to find the questions her ideal clients are actually asking.
Use Questions as Subheadings
Each question becomes a subheading. Then she writes 1–2 paragraphs under each. This keeps posts readable and relevant.
Use AI as a Thought Organizer
Jessica doesn’t let AI write the post for her—but she uses it to organize her ideas, speed up the process, and make things sound polished. She feeds AI her notes, tone preferences, and key points, then tweaks the result to match her voice.
Consider Outsourcing
At times, she’s had team members or admins help with blog writing. The key to success? Giving them clear outlines and topic direction.
Final Thoughts: Why This Matters More Than Ever
As Jessica explains, therapists today have to do more to stand out online than they did even a few years ago. Clients are looking for more than just a warm smile—they want someone who truly understands their struggles. Pillar-based blogging allows you to demonstrate that expertise before the first session.
And the best part? When you focus on a strategy like this, you’re not just increasing calls—you’re attracting the right clients. The ones you’re meant to work with. The ones you can genuinely help.
So if you’ve been stuck on what to write or how to make blogging work for your practice, maybe it’s time to build your content house—pillar by pillar.
Jessica Tappana’s Resources
Email: jessica@aspirecounselingmo.com (10% off services)
Links and Resources
Looking for support and connection: Join the Wise Practice Community
Learn More about Wise Practice Consulting
Connect with Wise Practice on Instagram
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: Hi, I am Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith-based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. Wanna grow your practice, wanna grow your faith, wanna enjoy your life outside of work, you've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith-based practice while also having a good time.
Now, let's get started.
[00:00:29] Jingle: Where she grows your practice and she don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owen and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:00:48] Whitney Owens: Hello, watch Practice podcast. Friends, I hope this recording finds you well and you're enjoying hopefully some nicer weather as we're getting into the spring.
I know. I really enjoy being able to get outside a little more, and so I hope that you are too. This episode is jam packed because I've got Jessica Ana on the show who not only is a dear friend, but she is full of knowledge, so much knowledge, and she brings it so. She's gonna chat with you about pillar based marketing, explain to you what that is and how you can implement this within your practice.
Blogging is such a key to practice growth, and I am amazed how many people don't know that or don't do blogging in their practice. So want to first encourage you to consider that as you're listening to this episode. I have been blogging in my practice for, gosh. At least six years. I'd have to go back and really look.
But for a long time. And we put out weekly blogs in most cases, and blogs really allow you to be the expert in your field and it really helps traction to your website. It has been game changer. People always ask me, how do you have a cash pay practice of 18 therapists? And I'm like, well, God has helped me do that.
Um, but also I've put the work in it is really hard to do what we do. But if you put the steps in place, it can totally be done. And one of those steps is blogging. I truly believe that the regular blogging that we've done on our website has been game changer, and Jessica's gonna walk you through how to really maximize those blogs so you can get the most out of them.
So you're gonna learn. A lot today. I encourage you if you get to the end of the episode and boy you love talking to Jessica, please reach out to her. She has much to offer in regards to content planning for your blogs and can help you so much. Thank you so much also for just taking the time to listen to the show.
And on a side note, I am looking at taking on another consulting client. I am very specific about working one-on-one with people as I know it's a. It's a thing that takes much time and energy, but I love it. I love investing in people and their practice, and I see so much growth when people do individual consulting.
So if you've ever thought about doing some consulting with me, maybe it's crossed your mind. I would love for you to reach out to me. You can either email me whitney wise practice consulting.com, or you can head to the website and click the application and fill it out, and someone from the team will reach out to you.
I only take on just a couple of individual consulting clients at a time, so when a slot opens up, I like to let you know because if you've been thinking about it, I'd love to work with you. Alright, we're gonna jump into the episode though. We're gonna talk about how to use strategic blogging to grow your practice.
I. Find your ideal client.
I have my dear friend Jessica Ano on the show with me today, and Jessica, I think this is maybe podcast number three for wise practice with you.
[00:03:54] Jessica Tappana: Sounds about right. It, I'm always happy back here. Yeah, I love it. We have too much fun when we chat, so I'll come back as often as you invite me.
[00:04:02] Whitney Owens: Not only do we have fun, but you have so much knowledge and anytime I ask you a question, it could be about business or or about marketing or about blogging.
Like you have so much to give and so I'm excited to. Chat with you today about pillar based marketing and your private practice. But before we get into that, just for people who maybe haven't met you yet, and believe it or not, let me read your bio and then we'll kind of jump in here. So Jessica is the proud owner of a private pay group practice in Missouri with two locations, aspire Counseling.
She has been blogging since her practice started in 2017 and spoken about blogging, written countless blog posts for other therapists, and maintained an active blog on our own. Website is a key part of her marketing strategy is constantly learning more about how strategic using blogs and private practice can be.
And now she's helping other group practice owners and solo practice owners build their blogging strategy. Girl, thanks for coming on.
[00:05:03] Jessica Tappana: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to talk about one of my favorite topics.
[00:05:07] Whitney Owens: Yes. Okay. Well, I want to make the most of our time. You have so much great information to give, so we're just gonna go right into, into the info.
What is pillar based marketing?
[00:05:20] Jessica Tappana: So pillar based marketing is a really strategic way of organizing your marketing. You could do this with social media, you can do this with any of your marketing. I talk about most in relation to blogging, and it's this idea that you have a main topic. And I typically recommend that this be more specific than just I do individual counts.
Individual couples and teen counseling. But to get really specific, like I offer Christian counseling or I offer Christian couples counseling, or I offer, I offer EMDR, like something very specific. And then from that main topic, it's gonna be supported. That's like the, the ceiling of a building that we're building.
And then that's supported by some bigger pillars. And so usually those we call cornerstone blog posts if you're doing blocking. And those are really like. Super information, rich content for the people that wanna like dive in and really know what you're about. And then underneath each of those, you're gonna have some supporting ones that kind of delve deeper into specific elements of each of those topics.
And so it's this idea of like building up your knowledge so that if somebody wants to see. Like that you are a true expert. They really, really can. It's a lot more in depth, it's a lot more strategic. I feel like a lot of times in our marketing, whether again, social media or blogging, I see people kind of throwing spaghetti against the wall.
What do I wanna write about today? Like, Hmm, okay. And just write about random things. And that's great and that can work. And honestly, it used to work really well, but. The more therapists that are learning about marketing, the more people are looking for what sets you apart and really looking at every element of your marketing.
And so I feel like in, as we move forward, we're having to do more marketing than we did back when I started my practice, certainly. And we're having to be more strategic and we're having to do more to show referral sources, clients, the internet, what we're about and what we have to offer. Mm-hmm.
[00:07:26] Whitney Owens: Okay.
That's, that was such a great explanation. So it's kind of like you set the foundation and you grow the house. You know, with the way that you do your blogging, it sounds like.
[00:07:36] Jessica Tappana: Yes, exactly. You're, you're building the house either from the ground up or the bottom down. Whichever way, I always tell people it doesn't matter what order you're writing in, because people get really stressed about that.
And I've seen it work both ways for people, but you need all the elements there. You need all of the pieces there and that, and that's what we talk about is the strategy to really show that you have a comprehensive approach and that you really know your stuff and you have a lot to offer.
[00:08:02] Whitney Owens: Hmm. Okay. This is great.
Alright, so somebody is learning about pillar based marketing. Let's, let's maybe start with the therapist that's listening. That's thinking, okay, Jessica. Yeah, you're, you're right. Blogging's important. I just can't make it happen. I just don't like it. I just don't do it. I have a lot of problems, you know, like, you making this happen.
How can you kind of encourage them or give them some direction on the importance of it and how to get it going?
[00:08:29] Jessica Tappana: So it does so many. So let's talk about the importance first. Yes. I think understanding, we all have limited time. I don't know about you, but I am running a group practice where I'm trying to support multiple clinicians.
I personally still, Ooh, love. Seeing clients. So I am, I just did the silly thing of increasing the number of clients I'm seeing. I'm actually homeschooling my children too. You know, all the things. I like to go on vacation once in a while and so we only have time to do so much. And so if we're going to do certain thing, you know, so we have to choose what we're gonna do in our marketing.
Doing a little bit of everything doesn't work to me. Why choose blogging and why choose really strategic blogging is because I think it gives you a lot of. Return on your time investment or money investment if you're outsourcing. Either way, it shows your, it shows your referral relationships that you're an expert.
It shows your community that you're an expert. It gives you things that you know, it gives you things that you can share on social media. It gives you things that you can share with clients as homework potentially. If you're like sharing blog posts that are skills or useful things, which is our goal. It helps create, you know, those long-term community resources.
It builds authority and yes, it helps with your search engine optimization too, especially if you're also optimizing those blogs. And so I think for all of that, that's the importance to me is that this is a marketing opportunity that can be used for lots of different things. And so to me. There are so many great ways to market your practice.
This is one that I think the importance is it gets you massive return in a lot of different ways. Mm-hmm.
[00:10:07] Whitney Owens: Yeah. Huh. So another quick question here is if I blog and I don't know how to optimize my blog, is it really worth me blogging? Like is it doing anything for me?
[00:10:18] Jessica Tappana: I love the question. It is still doing something for you, especially if you're getting enough content out there and you're truly asking the questions that your clients are asking.
If you're answering, I mean, you're answering questions your clients are answering, are asking if you are writing on the right topics. I have seen people that know nothing about optimizing have like. I'm looking at and from an SEO standpoint, like your website needs a lot of work, but they have like these couple of blog posts that have basically gone viral because they hit on the right topics.
Mm-hmm. That their clients are actually asking. Now that said, you're going to get even better return if you are also optimizing and there are options for that. You can, you can learn to optimize your own website. There are. You know, lots of courses out there. There are lots of, there are lots of free resources.
Blog post, I mean, podcast interviews and blog posts and all of that. Or you can outsource it. But yes, once you have these written, you know, if you want to get maximum return or you're in a really competitive area, like. Like a major metropolitan area or like California's pretty competitive. Florida's pretty competitive.
Then I would recommend that you go ahead and you look at app optimizing them. But just, just having the right content and the right topic will take you really far. Yeah, so,
[00:11:36] Whitney Owens: so do you write your own blocks for your group practice?
[00:11:40] Jessica Tappana: It's a mix. If I can, I get my employees to, if I, and then I do, I have at various points had students or, or my admin do it.
But when I want, when we're needing more referrals of a specific type, I do one of these content, these pillar base. Marketing content networks, and I do that usually because I'm pretty opinionated. I I can do this quickly. The other question you had asked me was how to do it quickly. I have a system that I use and I write blogs I think much quicker than the average person, and so I actually do.
It's still a huge time investment. I'm not gonna lie to write 15 blog posts still takes me a while, but it is worth me, for me, it is worth me putting in that time. So I did have one admin once who did a list of 15. I gave her the titles and, and the format. I want her to use like an outline of a few of them.
And then she wrote it and she did a fantastic job and that was very successful. And then now she's moved on. And so my, my new admin. Totally could do it too. I just need to take the time to really do, probably how I would do it with her would be give her the topics and the outlines and I think she could do it from the outlines because she's pretty amazing.
[00:12:54] Whitney Owens: Well, and I know you enjoy writing them too, so
[00:12:57] Jessica Tappana: I do. I know a lot of therapists dread the writing part, but I absolutely love it. Like for me it's, it's fun.
[00:13:06] Whitney Owens: So when you do these 15 articles and put 'em out there, do you notice a difference?
[00:13:13] Jessica Tappana: Yes, absolutely. I notice a difference. There are two ways I notice a difference.
First, yes, it improves our search engine optimization that gets us seen, but I would say even more importantly, it's the type of clients that we're getting. So we used this as our market and as our. Basically primary form of marketing. When I open my second location, my second location's in a much more competitive location than my first, and it's in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
It's in a suburb and, but I don't like my clinicians just to have to take whoever calls. We're not a generalist practice. We specialize. Evidence-based treatment for anxiety and trauma. And so that's what we focused on and we wanted teens and adults specifically. What I love is that by marketing this way, we have gotten the right clients.
And so my full-time person, my part-time person and I, there are three of us that see clients in that area. We're all seeing the clients that we love. That's what I see is I see not only an increase in volume of calls, but importantly I see the right type of clients calling and I see that they, you know, and, and that's what we want, is we want the clients that we want to see and, and that's what it's allowed for us.
Also, I see that the social, this is random. I do not do our social media very much. Our social media quality of graphics improves. That's not me. That is my, my person that actually does my social media is able to see like. All these blog posts I gave her great content to work with. So like even if her templates don't change, I just gave her a whole bunch new information to use and that's hands off for me.
It's just, Hey, ipu published 15 new blog posts. Here you go.
[00:14:50] Whitney Owens: Yeah. Okay. So how, what are your little tricks if you're willing to share of how you get blogs done so quickly?
[00:14:59] Jessica Tappana: So the first thing is I like to use the, there are several different things, but I like to use questions as my subheading. So I start with one main.
I like to start with one main cornerstone. So there's, for, let's say I'm gonna do EMDR, I'm going to have three big cornerstone blog posts. Overall, each one is going to be a very generalist thing, like it might be all your questions about. About EMDR answered or most frequently asked questions about EMDR answered, and so that's my cornerstone.
I write one at a time, and so I'm gonna start with that and I'm gonna ask eight of the most common EMDR questions. Where do I get them from? Not from my head. We are so biased. The questions we ask are not what our clients are getting, so I'm gonna get it from a couple different places. The easiest though, is typing in Google what questions or common questions about EMDR, and then Google has this amazing feature called.
Questions people ask or other questions people ask, and it will tell you other questions that people ask. Or you can even literally just type in EMDR and the same thing's going to happen. The eight questions I come up with are going to be my subheadings, and I'm going to put a couple of paragraphs to respond to each of those.
So I'm gonna start with an, I'm gonna write at. Outline, totally cheat and how I thought by using that. The other way to do this, by the way, is if anybody's asking questions on your intake paperwork. If you ask your in, if you have your intake paperwork set up with some nice, with some nice open-ended questions, you may have some of these topics that you can pull from intake paperwork of your ideal clients like, um, as well.
And so then I'm going to take the outline. I always start with an outline. It helps make it so much faster. I do use ai. I know that that is like, that is controversial. I don't use it to come up with my topics very often, like hardly ever, really only in a total pinch and just for brainstorming. And I don't use it for my outlines because I want to get those from the questions people actually are asking, which is why I go to a source like Google.
But I do use it sometimes. So what I would do is I would take my outline and if my outline has a question like what is EMDR and how does it work? I would tell, I have a thread on, on AI chain, trained on my voice and on my opinions on things like I don't. Like cheesy metaphors, like don't mention boats, don't mention sewing, don't mention waves on an ocean, like the things that everybody uses.
I'm like, don't, don't mention those. Don't write at this writing level, like all of my opinions in my writing style and also my voice. And then I will say to that, write two paragraphs answering this question. Make sure that you mention that EMDR was originally developed by Francine Shapiro, that it is used for, that it is used for.
Treating trauma and it can also be helpful for many other things. Mention that I use it with near in, you know, with bit. I use it to some extent with nearly every client I work with and I will like basically do like a brain dump and then just use the AI to organize my thoughts and so I can write much faster when I'm doing a brain dump and not trying to sound nice.
That's why I use the ai. It doesn't. Do the work for me, it just organizes my thoughts. So it's still my thoughts because if the AI is rating up for me, it's gonna give me crummy, crummy results. But if it's organizing my thoughts, then it helps me write faster and then I can go back later and I edit and make it nice.
But that's, but yeah, so that's a lot of times how I do it is I just kind of, I start with outline and then I. That I create from using a tool like Google to help figure out what people are using. Then I use my brain dump into ai, use AI to help write it, and then I massage it to sound even more like me.
And it works. Right? I
[00:19:02] Whitney Owens: lo I love this. Oh right. And you know a lot of people trying to figure out how to use chat GPT and ai and I'm like sitting here thinking that's another podcast we could do. 'cause even the way you just described that, I've gotta figure out how to use those features that you just described.
So.
[00:19:17] Jessica Tappana: So that's great. Yeah, that's like touching the surface because I feel like a lot of people are. It's great. It writes my blogs in two minutes or they're, I'm so afraid to touch it. It's so unethical. There is an in-between. There really is. And when I, and that's how I see it, is it's a tool. It doesn't replace my brain.
Chad, GPT did not go to college for me. Now it might be taking sources from a lot of people that went to college, but it hasn't gone to university and it certainly hasn't sat in front of all the clients. Like I have sat in front of real life clients. I have real. True opinions about these things. I have that personal touch that I bring to my blog post chat.
GPT can't replicate that or replace it. However, it can be a fantastic tool and so I think I take a much more moderate approach of in between approach to AI than a lot of people. And for me, it's just a tool to help me organize my thoughts and get a draft out there. Quicker, but then it let, but the reason for quicker is so I can focus on my zone of expertise, which is bringing the human touch, bringing the, you know, Chad, GBT can get the basics of EMDR.
What it can't get is that feeling I have when I watch a client feel better. And that's what I need to bring to my blogs, because that's what will draw people to me when they read a blog, read one of my blogs.
[00:20:45] Whitney Owens: That's so important, what you're sharing. It's really just the work we do with clients, and that's what this all comes back to.
Yeah,
[00:20:53] Jessica Tappana: that, that's the thing is when I first started my practice, I mean, you and I had some of these conversations way back when, like marketing and networking were like my two least favorite words because they felt slimy, but. Now, I love those concepts because I've reframed it because it's relationship based.
Like I believe in the work that we do. I feel called to the work we do. I feel like I was given a gift that I get to share with my clients, like I have gotten to influence and be there and see so many transformations and. When I am quote unquote, networking, all I'm really doing is getting to know people on a real human basis.
Other people that share some of my passions and forget about I, that's all I focus on. And then someday when I'm like, oh yeah, like I need a referral for this. I happen to know some really cool people I can refer to. I wasn't being slimy and how I did it, I just was. Getting to know other therapists and now I have a great referral.
Similarly with marketing, it's just like, it is about just reaching those people and sharing my passion for mental health and sharing my passion for the work we do, and when that comes through, that's when my marketing is the most effective.
[00:22:06] Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Definitely, I mean, people need to find you, and especially as we talk about with this community on this podcast, faith-based Christian therapists, there are people out there wanting specifically a Christian counselor, and you've got to market yourself in such a way to, to bring them to you, or you're gonna, you are doing a disservice to you and them.
[00:22:26] Jessica Tappana: Yeah. And I think that, and, and I think that sometimes that means being a little vulnerable and being a little real. It doesn't mean inappropriate self-disclosure, but it does mean putting a little bit of you in there. And that's why I don't think AI's ever gonna replace us like our human element, which, which is the other, you know, controversy.
We could have a whole podcast on that too. But that's the other thing. When I start talking about AI that people worry about, it's not gonna replace us. It doesn't bring the heart that we bring. But when you can open that part of you up, these can be great tools when used with intention. Yeah.
[00:23:03] Whitney Owens: Yeah,
[00:23:04] Jessica Tappana: I
[00:23:04] Whitney Owens: love that.
All right, so I know we kind of went off a a little bit of a tangent when I was asking some questions. If we were to go back to pillar based marketing, is there anything we didn't touch on that you wanna make sure to talk about?
[00:23:15] Jessica Tappana: Yeah, I did the overview a little bit, but let me be a little bit clear.
'cause I said people sometimes stress about the order to write in and I started to talk about how I write it. I'll tell you the order I write in, but also. The other options. So usually how I write is I write my service page first. So like if I'm doing, I'm using the example of EMDR 'cause I'm really excited about em.
Another really cool EMDR training next week. But you can do this on anything. So if I'm doing EMDR, I would do a really great EMDR page, the page I really want people to go to that like is awesome and has my voice and my brand and is really well done. Then I would write that blog post. The way that I like to do it is I would write that blog post with the eight question frequently asked questions, and then I would choose like the four that are the most important of that and write smaller blog posts on those.
And so those four I. Are going to be, are gonna be a whole blog in and of emel themselves. And they're shorter blogs. The cornerstone is like 2000 ish words. The shorter ones are like 700 to a thousand words. So they're a lot shorter, but it's gonna go soup. It's gonna have usually about four subheadings, about a specific, about that specific one.
And so it's gonna get real in depth in, in one of them. And that's the, and I like to write it like. Subheading, I mean, not subheading, sorry. Cornerstone blog posts three, three to four supporting blog posts. Then go to the next Cornerstone. Then do the set of supporting blog posts for that, because my mind works in like topics.
That said, some people write all three Cornerstone and then all 12 supporting blog posts. Some people will write the supporting blog posts, and then the longer cornerstones, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're having three cornerstones and that. Each of those cornerstones have three to four supporting blog posts.
That point back to them and that help and that are on that topic, that's what matters. Mm-hmm. That's the magic, and that all of them fall under the bigger umbrella of the service that you're describing, so that all of them show that you're an expert in EMDR or you're an expert in Christian couples counseling, or that you're an expert in Gottman, or that you're an expert in substance abuse or whatever it is.
That's what you want, is it all communicates at the end of the day. Hey, I have a lot to say on this topic. I really know my stuff. I have kind of a unique perspective. Here's like the tone of voice. Here's what you can expect if you work with me or if you work with our group and here's some really helpful resources.
Mm mm-hmm.
[00:25:51] Whitney Owens: And these blogs, all of them are coming from those questions that you're getting off of Google. Correct.
[00:25:57] Jessica Tappana: Yes, and there are other places that you can get them. There's a great resource called Demand Jump that can offer you a limited number of frequently asked questions for free. And I like demand Jump.
It has had a little bit of instability lately as far as like it's been being sold. And so, you know, if somebody's listening to this podcast a year from now, I can't guarantee what it looks like or what it still offers for free. But as of the time of the recording of this podcast, I still use it 'cause you do get some questions for free.
And then there's like, people also ask, or also asked.com is that lets you ask a couple of questions at a time and then there's other, there's other versions of that you all answer the public. And I really like Answer. The Public is now owned by Neil Patel. It has less for free than it used to. I really like looking at your Google search console history too, and seeing if there's any random questions that people have typed in that you've shown up.
Like I. 54th four. I'm writing a blog post on that. So there's a lot of places, or like I said, your intake paperwork, so just the my go-to is Google, but especially if you're writing about a topic that you're not getting the best results there. There are lots of other places too that you can go and figure out what questions people are asking.
And you can type by the way into chat, GBT what que what are common questions about Christian couples counseling. But it's not my favorite way because I don't totally trust that those are the most useful results. The other thing I'll say is sometimes you'll notice that the questions feel kind of repetitive.
They feel like the same question asked two different ways. That's okay. Maybe the first way it's asked is in one of those cornerstone really long blog posts that's a subheading and the exact same question asked a slightly different way, is the title of a supporting blog post. It's okay? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's fine.
[00:27:54] Whitney Owens: That's good. That's good. To distinguish another question I do get a lot, or I guess a hangup is therapists worry that they're gonna say something wrong or it's not written well, and they can come kind of perfectionistic about the blog. I've tried to, well, I, I won't say what I do. I wanna hear how you handle that.
[00:28:13] Jessica Tappana: I think this is super, super common, and I struggled with this at first too. But first of all, I love the fact that we can go back and change a blog. I have gone back and all of my earliest blogs have at various times been edited by me because how I describe things now is very different than how I did eight years ago.
It's. Just the way it is, so you absolutely can go back and fix it, but at the end of the day, your 80% good enough is better than the average person's a hundred percent because we went to school. And became experts on mental health. We have master's degree and master's degrees or PhDs in these. In mental health.
We have sat with how many clients been to how many CE trainings, read, how many books. You have so much knowledge, and if it's sitting there in draft form, nobody's benefiting from it. And so what I tell people is like, if it's 80% good enough. Get it out into the world. Just put it out there. Have go to bed, leave it in draft form, look at it a couple days from now.
Make one or two edits, but be a bit vulnerable. Put it out there. See what happens. Because our, the world needs our information there. People need the things that are so simple to us. Are amazing to someone who's not, who's not in the world of mental health. Increasing my caseload in the last six months after having seen fewer clients as a group practice owner for the last couple years.
I. I have had the privilege of working with some clients who have been to multiple therapists before, and also some clients who have never been to therapy before. And the difference between the people who have never been to therapy before, I'm reminded again, like all I'll say things like, so have you done, have you done square breathing before?
And they have never heard of it, or have you seen the cognitive triangle? These very simple concepts are like revolutionary. And they come back and they're like, I practiced that square breathing thing all week and it was amazing. And it just is such a good reminder that we need to get this information out there.
Yeah. And keeping it inside is like. No, we have gifts to share. We have information to share. We each have a unique way of sharing it. We could all write a blog post on the cognitive triangle and how to apply it, and we're all going to write a different blog post because we, as long as we're not just asking now, if we all ask, chat, chat, GBT to write it, it's gonna sound very boring and very similar.
But if we all write it in our own way, it's gonna sound different. And these concepts like people need 'em. So just get it out there imperfectly. Mm-hmm. Just put it out there. I
[00:30:55] Whitney Owens: love it. Oh, that's so good. Okay, so we covered a lot of good ground today. I love it. And if there's somebody listening and they're like, oh, I would love some help on this, how do I get in touch with you?
Talk a little bit about the services you provide for therapists. I.
[00:31:10] Jessica Tappana: Absolutely. So I want to keep things as affordable as I can for therapists and empower therapists to do this their way. So the basic thing that I'm offering is putting together for you, like meet with you, talk about who you're looking for, what kind of clients you wanna work with, give you your next 15 blog posts.
A whole, a list of them and a guide to how to do this yourself. I have a 28 page guide that I've written and send those to you. And so that's the basic, but then if you want more support, we can add on the outlines for these so you don't have to go look up the questions. I look that for you. If you really want me to, I will even write some or all of them for you.
And so if you are interested in any of that, you can email me at jessica@aspirecounselingmo.com. If you mention Wise Practice, I'll give you 10% off as well because we love working with the Wise Practice community and have had, I have had just some of my most amazing connections have been people I've met at your conferences or in your community, and so we want to, I wanna support, support your people, your listeners, however I can.
[00:32:20] Whitney Owens: Well, Jessica, that is greatly appreciated and we love having you around. We are gonna have Jessica speaking actually at the Wise Practice Summit and doing kind of a workshop, right, based on the pillar based marketing and helping you come up with this. So if you have not purchased your tickets yet, you can go to wise practice consulting.com/summit-twenty 25 and you can purchase your tickets and read more about Jessica there as well.
[00:32:48] Jessica Tappana: I can't wait. We are gonna have so much fun. We're gonna be like in the weeds. I'm gonna have people get out their computers, pull some of these tools up and we're gonna be working on creating the a a a plan of their next blog post right there in person.
[00:33:03] Whitney Owens: Nice. Well, Jessica, this has been awesome. Thank you for your time in coming on the show and your expertise.
It's always my pleasure.
[00:33:11] Jessica Tappana: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:33:16] Jingle: So click on follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owens and Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owens and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:33:35] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. The Wise Practice Podcast is part of the Site Craft Podcast Network. A collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives.
To learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network, head on over to site craft network.com. The Wise Practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
