Writing articles for high-traffic websites can help you grow online presence and your practice.
Content creation is crucial for building an online presence, particularly on your own professional blog on your private practice website. In addition to creating content for your own small website, you may want to start strategically writing for other websites, too. Seek out higher-traffic sites to write for
If the thought overwhelms you, don't stop reading quite yet. Some of the benefits of writing or blogging on other sites as part of your private practice marketing strategy are:
- Getting more back links to your own site which increases traffic and boosts SEO
- Increase name/brand recognition
- More credibility as a trusted expert
- Opportunity to educate and build awareness of important issues
- And best of all, you can re-purpose the content and post it on your own website
All of these benefits will help bring more visitors to your website, which will, over time, mean more clients for your practice. It's important to write on topics directed to your ideal client. Write on your areas of passion and expertise in order to bring in clients that are a good fit for your practice. Writing articles for other websites does take some commitment, but in my experience, it has been well worth the effort.
Consider pitching articles or blogs to these sites:
About.com
About.com has different levels of paid contributors: guides, topic writers, and video producers.
Psych Central
If you're ready to make a regular commitment to create and write regularly for your own blog, pitch your passion here. you can also submit individual articles to PsychCentral's World Of Psychology blog.
Sharecare.com
Sharecare is a health social media site owned by Dr. Oz. You can sign up as an expert and answer questions on a variety of health and mental health questions. Here's my Sharecare page.
Your local news website
Every newspaper and TV news station have websites and I've yet to come across one that doesn't have additional bloggers contributing. Here's an example from my articles on a local Utah news website
Examiner.com
The Examiner accepts bloggers based on specific topics and locations. See if they are looking for bloggers in your area of expertise.
Professional organization websites
Check with your professional organization to see if they have a blog and accept articles from licensed professionals. The American Counseling Association has a blog with contributors.
GoodTherapy.org
This professional therapist listing site also allows therapists to become "topic experts" on their site and publish blog articles.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the writing opportunities for therapists on the web. My hope was to get you thinking about how to build your online presence and create content that you own and can reuse on your own site.
Do you contribute articles or other content to larger websites? I'd love to hear about your experience. Have you noticed an increase in traffic to your site? What benefits have you experienced writing for big websites?
I've just launched the 2013 Therapist Blog Challenge. Join us!
This year marks my 10th year in private practice and I've spent a lot of time reflecting on and blogging about what's contributed to the growth and longevity of my practice. As I started creating a timeline chronicling the evolution of my practice, it became clear that the growth of my private practice coincides with my online presence building efforts. I don't think it's an accident that when I began actively seeking media interviews, blogging, and building my social networks that my practice experienced tremendous growth.
Do you know who's talking about you and your practice on the web? If not, you should. My favorite way to to track who's talking is through 
So take a few minutes today to set up Google Alert. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find. Please post links to what you find below! I'd love to see where other private practitioners are popping up on the web.
As healers, we genuinely like to do our work. Guiding clients through the therapy process and seeing them make progress is why we do what we do. But if you're in private practice, you know there's a lot going on in the back end and that it's crucial to run an efficient and organized business.