Episode 8: How SEO Can Be A Business Asset with Jessica Tappana

Mastering Work-Life Balance for Empowered Therapists: Lessons from Jessica Tapana

Finding Harmony in Chaos

Balancing professional ambitions with family life is no small feat, but Jessica Tapana demonstrates it is possible with the right strategies. On Episode 8 of "Raised to Empower," Jessica shared her journey, revealing insights that every mom, therapist, and business owner could benefit from. Here’s a closer look at how she masterfully juggles her thriving SEO business and private practice while prioritizing family.

Juggling Work and Family

Jessica embarked on her counseling practice journey when her daughter was a newborn, emphasizing the significant role proper scheduling and outsourcing play in maintaining balance. She reshapes her work schedule each semester to better suit family activities, a tactic that helps her stay present at home while managing her professional responsibilities.

A pivotal strategy for Jessica is outsourcing, particularly focusing her SEO tasks to Simplified SEO Consulting, which she founded. This move frees up precious time for her family while allowing her to concentrate on her passion for therapy. Her ability to work on SEO projects at night from home means more daytime is available for her family, blending her professional and personal lives seamlessly.

SEO Strategies for Therapists

SEO might seem daunting, but Jessica makes a compelling case for its power in transforming a therapy practice. By investing in SEO, you attract clients who are a perfect fit for your niche, reducing the need for relentless networking. Her impressive achievement of gaining the first client for her second practice location purely through SEO efforts is testimony to its effectiveness.

For those looking to gain control over their SEO, Jessica offers both outsourcing services and online courses. You can even get 20% off these courses with the code "empower20." Whether you opt to outsource or DIY, mastering SEO can significantly boost your practice’s visibility and client alignment.

Setting Realistic Business Hours

One of the most empowering takeaways from our discussion was Jessica’s philosophy on setting business hours. She emphasizes creating schedules that promote personal well-being, rather than bending over backward to meet client demands. This approach helps avoid professional dissatisfaction and burnout.

Jessica’s unusual work hours, with late nights and early mornings, might differ from typical schedules, but they fit her needs and family priorities. This model stresses the importance of authenticity in your work-life balance approach. The right schedule is the one that aligns with your personal and familial needs, not one dictated by societal expectations.

Creating a Robust Marketing Strategy

A well-developed, SEO-optimized website is a game-changer for private practices. Unlike directories, websites provide freedom and flexibility to convey a therapist’s unique identity and connect emotionally with potential clients. SEO strategies not only increase visibility but also ensure that those finding your website are a great fit for your practice.

This selectivity through proper SEO practices can help sustain job satisfaction by attracting clients who align with your expertise. Thus, a personalized website becomes a vital marketing tool, highlighting your value in ways that justify higher costs compared to insurance-covered services.

Final Thoughts and Future Collaborations

The insights Jessica brought to our conversation are invaluable, especially her reassurance that achieving a work-life balance is possible with the right tools and mindset. Authenticity, flexibility, and commitment to one’s values are the cornerstones of her strategy.

In a delightful hint at what’s to come, Jessica mentioned potential future collaborations. Imagine the empowering opportunities and events we could create together, such as an SEO training cruise that combines business wisdom with family fun!

Don’t forget to share, subscribe, and join our Facebook community for more empowering content. Let's continue to raise each other up, fostering a community where women and mom therapists can truly thrive.

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Transcript for Episode 8

[00:00:00] Ashley Comegys: You are listening to the Raised to Empower podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Comegys, a licensed clinical social worker with a multi-state online therapy practice. I have a passion for empowering women and mom therapists to break free of the fear, overwhelm, and oppressive systems that hold them back from taking action and building the private practice of their dreams.

[00:00:23] My goal is for you to boldly believe in yourself as a clinician and business owner. If you are looking for a place to learn, practice, building, strategy and skill, while also claiming your own power as a woman and a therapist, then you are in the right place. Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the Raise to Empower podcast.

[00:00:43] I am so, so, so excited. For our guests today, I feel like I'm fangirling a little bit because , even though we've never actually like talked directly or even online necessarily, uh, through a video, I feel like I know her so well because she's helped my [00:01:00] business so, so much. So let me just share a little bit about who we have on today.

[00:01:04] Our guest is Jessica Te. She is a successful group therapy practice owner, so she understands the importance of marketing your practice and getting your name out to the right potential clients. Her practice. She learned about the power of seo, search engine optimization, which has been her number one marketing tool for her group practice.

[00:01:24] This is how her business simplified SEO Consulting came to be and why she now enjoys helping other practice owners improve their SEO O to reach more of their ideal clients. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. I am so excited about your new podcast, and I'm so honored to be joining you.

[00:01:44] It's so funny. Like you said, we haven't had that much direct interaction, but yet I have such admiration for everything that you're doing. It's been a couple years now that we've kind of known each other ish or known of each other. Yes, and it it's one of those weird things where it's like, Yeah, like I've [00:02:00] seen your website so many times and I've , I've been in conversations about your moves and about your babies and all the things.

[00:02:07] Yeah. And so I'm just yeah, thrilled to be, to be here and to be connecting with you. Yeah, so for those who don't know, I'm gonna fan girl out for a minute and I'm not getting paid or anything from SEO consulting. Let me just preface that. But I was telling Jessica when I decided to do this podcast, you and your team were at the top of my list, who I wanted to get on here because I just don't feel like people know enough about SEO O and the benefits of it, and.

[00:02:37] I feel like I would not be where I am with my practice had it not been for your team. I had had a website prior to moving directly into my own individual practice, and it was one of those, I'll call it like, Big box sites for a therapist. I don't know what else to call it, , without putting names out there.[00:03:00] 

[00:03:00] And I also didn't know anything about SEO at the time and I was like, we're just supposed to have this. And when I pivoted and moved into my own practice, I knew like I need to have a website. And I was being told, you need to do seo. And I was kind of being taught how to do it. And very quickly I was. of all the things that I am, uh, going to do myself, this is not one of them , and that's where I pulled in your team.

[00:03:25] And I cannot overstate the value that you guys have brought to my practice, and I for sure would not be where I am today without you guys. So I just wanna give a big, big shout out and thank you to your entire team. I'm such a dork. I was like a, like tear up. But that, but that's because like, I'm starting to, as I say it, but that's because that's why we do what we do.

[00:03:49] You know, I know the freedom that SEO has given me and my clinicians and my team at my private practice. It's, it, it's all I've really done for marketing and I just, [00:04:00] Think that I do better work, and I certainly think my clinicians do better work because we have those consistent referrals and that's, that's our why that that's our why at Simplified, even though I have a team now of about 10 people, what we constantly are coming back to is that the goal is to empower.

[00:04:17] Clinicians through our services to empower clinicians to have to serve the clients that they most wanna serve, to not worry about where the next call is gonna come from. Because I think early in my practice, I did what so many people do, which is just accept calls that you're like, yeah, like I could do that.

[00:04:34] Hmm. And that's not the same as accepting the clients that you're like, yes, this is my person, this is my thing. Yes. I feel like so early in practice we feel like we have to just do whatever we're told because that's what we're used to. Especially if we're coming out of agency work or um, an organization.

[00:04:52] Let me kind of pivot from there cuz I'm actually curious, like, how did you get into private practice? Were you doing community work or were you in an [00:05:00] agency or in a group practice? Like how did you get. So I had a life plan I developed when I was 12. I was a planner and basically nothing went according to my life plan.

[00:05:10] Literally zero things except the age I was when I started my private practice, because when I was 12, I was one of those people that was very quiet and all my friends would come tell me all their problems since I decided I was gonna be a therapist. But I had a therapist around that time and she had a private practice and I wanted to do what she.

[00:05:25] of course that's not how it works. You don't go straight into that. You can right . But like I went, got my bachelor's degree, went and worked at a state hospital, went and worked at a community agency, went back to the state hospital. Cause I actually love our state hospital, although, you know, there are all the challenges there.

[00:05:41] Um, and then I went and worked at another setting and what I discovered is I'm very, I'm a type one on the Enneagram, if you're familiar with it. I'm very opinionated about like doing things the right way. And I would get frustrated in agency settings with being. But this is what's best for the client.

[00:05:56] And people would be like, yes, but we have all these policies. And I'd be like, so [00:06:00] change them. And they'd be like, we're looking on it, but it takes time. And I was like, but why does it take time? You're telling me this is good for the client. The client's saying this. Why are we still doing this X, Y? If at any point in my career I ever decide to like go back for any reason to that sort of work, that would be something I would really have to grapple with because I was not very good at accepting that.

[00:06:20] It takes time to. Influence change. So when I was pregnant with my daughter, I decided time is precious. Yeah. And I decided I wanted to start a private practice and the plan was I was gonna work 10 hours a week. I was gonna see 10 clients a week and a little private practice office and one little office, and I was gonna stay home the rest of the time.

[00:06:39] And that. Worked out great for like a month and um, before I knew it I was pretty full. So I added more slots and the babysitter stayed longer and longer. And at some point my husband goes, this is not the way you said it was. And then a friend around the same time said, can I come contract for you? And I said, okay.

[00:06:57] So I started with some contractors and that's when I [00:07:00] started doing SEO was back then, I was often told like, the way to grow a practice is you have to network, take people to coffee. But I had this teeny tiny baby that I was supposed to, like my whole point of having a private practice was to be home with this little teeny tiny baby who also got sick all the time and had super high fevers, and I didn't wanna leave her.

[00:07:18] And so when I took someone to coffee, I would enjoy it. I'm a pretty social person. I would enjoy it greatly. Yeah. But it meant I was pain a sitter for the time it took me to drive there. The time I was there having coffee, and the time I was driving back, I had no money in coming in from any clients. . Most importantly, that time was taken from my daughter, from my baby.

[00:07:38] Mm-hmm. , both my kids. It was always during the day because people want to have coffee with you during the day. And so I said, okay, what can I do at night? And that's when I started learning seo. I listened to every podcast, read every book, did a ton of trial and error, everything you can think of for months and months and months.

[00:07:55] I'd put my kids to bed, then I would get to work, and I could do it at night, and I could do [00:08:00] it whenever I needed to. The most difficult part. Taking what people said in other fields. First of all, they all made it sound super complicated, and so I had to figure out how to make it semi and English, and then I had to figure out how it applied to our field because our field's unique, right?

[00:08:16] I really, really love the field of mental health. So that's how we grew our practice and we just opened our second location. I always said I would never have a second location, and now I do, but we also, which is exciting. I saw that on Instagram recently and I was like, oh, this is so exciting for you. Ah, it is.

[00:08:33] Well, and my simplified team has been amazing getting excited too, because I've said the 15th of February, we got our. Official location. And so that's when I applied for Google My business, I did all the SEO things we tell people to do at the second business. And this is not typical results folks, but we did get our first contact in SEOs.

[00:08:52] All we've done on March 1st, my admin text me, she's like, this is so cool. We got our first call for the second location, but my whole SEO team were like, [00:09:00] okay, we've helped other people do help me out too. , what's our plan? I'm gonna do everything we tell all of our clients to do and it's worked. But yeah, that's.

[00:09:09] That, that, that's our story. I love our field. I love to this day, I love doing therapy more than any other part of my job, and I love that having that study stream of clients lets me have the freedom to do it well. Well, I love what you were saying with how you started to view s e as, I need to still network, but I can't be doing that all the time and I can't be doing it at the expense of my child.

[00:09:36] So how do I get. Ways to bring clients in and here is this thing that I can. Learn and put into practice. That is an asset that I have because I'm boosting my website for people to find me and I know you. Like when I was reading your bio, you mentioned that your website is kind of your number one marketing tool, and it's the [00:10:00] same thing for me in my practice.

[00:10:01] Like I don't have directories necessarily anymore, with the exception of a couple free ones for back links. It is mine. So I'm curious how you view that as a practice owner, but also from the SEO standpoint of your website being this thing , this thing that you can point to and it it is yours, versus I'm gonna roll the dice and hope maybe this meeting with somebody builds this connection that's this automatic referral.

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[00:10:57] In this guide, you will get tips and tricks for building [00:11:00] relationships that will lead to referrals in your practice. Real life examples of messages used to connect with referral sources and customizable plug and send scripts for your specific practice. So download your free scripts guide today by going to bitly slash comp Connecting.

[00:11:18] Hey. I think that my website is probably my business's greatest asset, honestly. Um, I don't think that, I know that I've talked to people. I know that because that's where we get our referrals, but what I love is it is mine. And what's great is you can change, like I have since I've had the same u R l we bought a domain years ago when I started.

[00:11:42] It's mine and I've redesigned on it and I've changed platforms. And let me tell you, you take an SEO hit when you do those things, but then you can come back out better on top. But even, let's say the time I did the biggest redesign, I redesigned my website and went, I went from WordPress to Squarespace for my private [00:12:00] practice website, which is not the direction anybody would normally go, but it's a long story.

[00:12:04] But when I did that, I changed platforms. I redesigned, I lost some seo within a couple of months. I was. Better than I would've started, because I still got to take with me so much of what I had done to build up my authority with Google. I took with me every single blog post, all of the content from my website.

[00:12:20] Yeah, all those internal links I made sure were still working by taking those pages. So it's this thing that I've invested in, that I've done. In my case, not because somebody told me to, but because it matched my lifestyle. And when I talk about do you wanna learn to do SEO yourself, do you wanna outsource, do you wanna do a combination of both?

[00:12:40] That's the thing I talk about is what's your lifestyle? What are your goals? What's your time versus money balance look like? But regardless of how you do it, whether you pay someone to help you or you d iy it with doing a cheap course or our blog posts or. It's yours. It, yeah. Your SEO is yours. You get to take that with you if you stop working [00:13:00] on it completely.

[00:13:00] If your kid gets horribly sick and you have no time to do any blogging or anything SEO wise for months, you'll still rank for a while. And yeah, and so I go through times where one website get, since I have two businesses, one gets more attention than the other for a little while, and that's okay. I can decide.

[00:13:19] How important is this in this particular. One of the things when I've worked with women who are building their practice, or maybe they've even had it for a while and they're like, I'm just not getting the calls. But when I ask, well, would you have a website? Well, no, but I'm on a directory, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but how do you view like directory?

[00:13:42] Or website? Is it an either or thing? Is it an and like, how do you typically, as you're working with clients, or if someone says, why should I have a website over just being listed on this directory? Like, what would your answer to that be? . Yeah. It does come back down to you have more [00:14:00] control. Your website's more long term, a directory have their own algorithms.

[00:14:03] There's actually SEO for directories how to get shown on directories more often. One thing I've found is a lot of times when you're brand new on a directory, they'll show you a lot more often, and then the longer you're on it, the less often because they wanna get the new people to see the value of it.

[00:14:18] Different directories have different ways that they do that, but you're one of hundred. Whereas with your website, when you show up, you're it or your practice is it in my case. And you have a lot more space to express yourself on a website. You're doing things other than just the words you can express yourself.

[00:14:36] Like I think having a website you love is so important to me. Yeah. It's beyond just showing up on Google. It's having your website show people who you are, what it's like to be. Working with you. To me, having video on a website is critically important. Having colors that evoke the emotions that your clients need to feel that peace or that hope or excitement, whatever, depending on who [00:15:00] you're working with.

[00:15:01] And so to me, they're all of those reasons too. I feel like I could go on about those, so I don't know if I'm even like directly answering your question at this point. There's a lot of value. It makes sense to me that some people start with. The directory, but I would say over time, almost everyone's gonna need a website.

[00:15:19] No. And I com I completely agree with that and I think. To your point too, you're limited with what you can do with a directory versus a website. You can make it whatever you want it to be. And one of the things I think, especially if you're gonna be a private pay practice, you have to be very specific in who you're marketing to, who you're niche is.

[00:15:41] And it's hard to do that with a very limited amount of space in a directory versus a website. Like you can have those specific specialty pages that really just help make it clear who you are and who you're working with, but also then with the help of s e l ranking for those things. So [00:16:00] I'm a big believer in.

[00:16:02] Ownership of your things. And there are time periods where like it works to be working for an organization or working for an agency or working for a big box therapy group if that's what you need. But if you're venturing into private practice, that being able to have something that is an asset, which that website truly, truly is, it cannot be overvalued,

[00:16:28] It is. So, so, I. For so many different reasons. And for me, not just, oh yeah, this is this thing I have and it brings me clients, but to be able to point to it and look at it and be like, I did that. I've created that. You know, it identifies who I am. It invokes a certain emotion and connection that I want clients to feel.

[00:16:47] That brings me so much joy and like, Feeling of strength because it's not this thing that like somebody else, I'm at their mercy of what they're gonna do with it. I get to decide how it grows, how it [00:17:00] changes, how it evolves, and it's mine. I think it was yesterday or the day before. One of my clinicians comes to me and she's like, I am just so grateful for our website.

[00:17:10] And I'm like, oh, you just know I like words of affirmations, . And she goes, no. She just had a new client start and the client said, it is so hard to ask for help. It's so hard to pick up the phone. And when I saw your website, it spoke to me and it made it easy and it made it clear to me that's what our websites are for.

[00:17:29] And you mentioned being private pay and in a perfect world this is true. Um, but I do think when your private pay, it is more expensive for somebody to go the private pay route than going with insurance. And you know, that's the catch 22. We all wanna be accessible, but we have reason. Trust me, I have reasons for being private pay.

[00:17:45] As someone who's private pay, somebody needs to feel like that's gonna be worth it, that I'm going to be somehow an expert on the things that are bringing them in. Basically, they need to know what makes me uniquely qualified to be a fit for what they need. As a private pay [00:18:00] clinician, your website, you are doing that by in everything.

[00:18:05] You're doing that by making it very easy for them to see where to call. I know even with our SEO clients, even though we're focused on seo, Theoretically, like what that actually means is we also are giving people like, Hey, make sure you make this easier to navigate. Yeah. All of those, those things, you're doing it from the feel and if somebody doesn't like their website, we will not even at this point, not even usually do a consult with them because we're like, you need to go get a website you love that represents you.

[00:18:31] Gonna show that. And then we recommend people put lots of content on the website that's unique to them, that shows that why you're uniquely qualified. And yeah, it might turn away some of the wrong clients, but that's okay. Right? You be attracting the people that. That you are uniquely qualified, and I don't mean that like somebody else isn't qualified.

[00:18:49] Sure. But we have life experiences that makes us particularly good with specific types of clients and we want them to be brought in. And our website just gives us so many [00:19:00] opportunities. We talk about it with the pictures that we choose, the words that we use, with the phrases that are used in the title.

[00:19:06] Just every, everything that we're doing is helping draw in those clients that, that we do our best work with. And I think there can be such fear at times of like, well, again, like I don't wanna turn a client away. Like I just need the, the income. You know, when we just say yes to everybody, it's not a practice we like necessarily.

[00:19:25] And I've definitely been there where I'm like, Ugh. Yes, this is my own business, but I don't wanna go to work today because I was not working with clients that truly were aligned with me versus once I did start to focus on a niche, was more clear on the type of work I wanted to do and the types of clients I wanted to work with.

[00:19:45] It doesn't feel like that anymore. so often we'll like sit back at the end of the day and be like, oh my gosh, what? What a privilege it is to get to hold space for some of these things because you know, we're in a unique position that people are telling us, you know, [00:20:00] their deepest secrets or their challenges, and if it's not a right alignment for them or for us , we need to look at, okay, how can we.

[00:20:11] Market ourselves in a way, build our website in a way that is going to bring clients that are more in alignment with us and that they feel connected to us and we feel connected to them. Yeah, in, I do have a group practice, but it's a group practice where everybody is encouraged to turn away clients that aren't a good fit.

[00:20:29] Yeah. And because of our seo, we have such consistent calls. My admin has gotten to know people in the community as, and build a very curated. Referral list for people who have specialties other than our clinicians. But my favorite moments are those days where each of us have seen our ideal clients and we're almost giddy out in the like each other going, I had a client done this breakthrough, and oh my gosh, this client had a hard session, but it was, it was what to happen.

[00:20:56] And I'm on C P T session three, and that's my favorite, that that's my [00:21:00] least favorite, but I know this one's coming next. And, um, those moments where we're all doing what we love, it's. . It's hard sometimes to be like, but there's this other need. There's this other thing that people might need therapy for.

[00:21:14] I've done a couple different things at different points. I love Dialectical Behavior Therapy, D V T. It's how I started my career. It's actually how I started my practice was doing D V T and I reached a point where it didn't make sense anymore for me to actively do D B T based on when the consultation team was based on the point I was raising my kids.

[00:21:33] And so I'm not doing it right. and that was, that was one of the hardest crew decisions I've ever made Sure, was to set back the team. I literally cried after my last team meeting and I adore every person I sat on that team with. But there is such energy that comes when you are seeing the clients and you've set your practice up the way.

[00:21:51] That meets the needs of your family and when you also have the confidence because you have the calls coming in to design your practice the way you want. I'm in the process of [00:22:00] changing my schedule right now because we've decided to homeschool my kids starting in July, and so my husband changed his work schedule.

[00:22:07] Now I'm changing my work schedule. And I love that. I know I have the freedom to do that. To say, yeah, he used to work for me to start at seven or seven 30 in the morning cuz he would take the kids to school. That's no longer gonna work. Right? I can feel confident and I can be excited about work because I can transition my schedule and I think that that makes me a better therapist.

[00:22:29] The clients I want to see. And when I want to see them again, giving them lots of notice, you know, they're getting plenty of notice that I'm making a, a schedule change, but knowing that I'm, I don't have that scarcity mindset and I also don't have that mindset that I have to fix everybody anymore. Yeah. I don't have to always be the therapist.

[00:22:49] If it doesn't work for me, for my family, or in my client's best interests, I can refer them out and that's, Yes. Yeah. Empowerment is such a big thing [00:23:00] for me, and I think that is coming from a place of you're empowered, right? Like you, there's a strength that comes from making that kind of a decision that, again, I'm not making this because the organization or the agency or the clinics, like you have to shift your schedule here.

[00:23:15] Yes. There's other life things that are saying like, you know what? This might be. Uh, you need more time right now, but you're getting to make a choice when it comes to your career, how you want that time to be divided up now or where you're being present when not when other people that are higher up in an organization are telling you to.

[00:23:34] And I think. I think that's invaluable, especially as a, as a mom, right? Like it's so hard. It's a unique situation to be a woman business owner. And then when you add in that you are a parent, it's another added component to that that you're trying to figure out how do I be there for my kids while also run a business and not just like run the business, but keep it moving forward.[00:24:00] 

[00:24:00] keep it, keep it growing. Yeah, I started my counseling business when my daughter was a newborn, and she is turning six next week. I have from the start, almost from the very start because I'm a very scheduled person. Like I like to know what's coming and parenting. Doesn't always work that way. Right. . And so like my clients always know, like I go by semesters, I'm like, okay, you get a set time that we'll generally try to hold to.

[00:24:26] We can't a hundred percent of the time, we're generally gonna try to hold to x, y, Z time for the semester. And then you need to know at the end of every semester, I reevaluate the needs of my family and the needs of my family come first. And so if we've added a new extracurricular, I may have to do away with an evening slot or in this case, , um, this summer we're doing away with my early morning slots that I've all literally done since I think I started practice.

[00:24:50] And so I just am very open. But that, but that's what I love about it, is those changes never happen because somebody else tells them to. Yeah. I know I've done some [00:25:00] coaching with some therapists, um, in my practice and outside my practice who feel like, well, I have a client and they can only be seen at x, y, z time, so they.

[00:25:09] A Saturday afternoon appointment and then they just resent it. Yes. And they show up to that appointment, dreading it, and they're dreading it all day. And I'm like, do you think you're doing your best work? Are you really serving that client? Yeah. By showing up at a time that you don't actually wanna show up.

[00:25:23] Does that actually help them? Because of It doesn't. They're better off if you refer them to somebody that wants to work at that time. Sure. Or meet that need. And guess what? At least you know if you have the marketing funnel That's right. Another client will follow. That we can say, Hey, I don't work on Saturdays, but I have this.

[00:25:43] Thursday afternoon at 4:00 PM spot, whatever it is. And so, you know, that's a big thing that I'm, that I'm always a fan of is when you have the systems in place that you don't have to operate from a scarcity mindset. You do better work because you place the clients where, where you do your best work, right?

[00:25:59] [00:26:00] Yeah, yeah. Different. You do their best work at different times, and that's okay. And I think that's also one of the things that's beautiful is like what it works for. Your schedule doesn't work for mine . And it's not that you're doing it the right way and I'm doing it the wrong way or vice versa, but that you get to create whatever that schedule is.

[00:26:16] And it doesn't have to be like, am I doing this the right way? If it works for you, that's the right way. Yeah. I, uh, until I, the shift I'm making away from right now is, my schedule right now has been working. I see. Um, Clients until 9:00 PM My last one gets done at 9:00 PM on Mondays because I was willing to come in and do a seven and an 8:00 PM just missing bedtime on Mondays and then Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays.

[00:26:43] I start early in the morning because my husband was taking kids to school until the schedule change. And people are like, I can't believe you do that. That that makes no sense. And I'm like, it doesn't have to make sense for you. Right. But for me, it maximizes my time with my kids. By me starting early.

[00:26:57] I've been able to pick my kids up from school every day, [00:27:00] which to me is valuable. And doing two evening appointments on Monday nights. Actually, what I then do, honestly, again, this sounds like it's not self self-care, but it is for me, is at nine o'clock. Then I do notes and I do. Anything that needs to be done to prep for the week from nine to 11:00 PM and I get that that's late, and I get that.

[00:27:22] Especially it makes no sense to some people because I started early on Tuesdays, but until this point, that has worked for my family, right? My weekends, I know I have those two hours after clients on Monday evenings. When I'm not taking away from the kids, and so I'm not doing stuff on the weekends, I'm focusing on my babies that aren't babies anymore.

[00:27:41] But , they're always babies. Stills, . Yeah. Right. They're, they're my babies. They're my babies forever. But then you look at somebody else in, in my practice who is gonna have a totally different schedule. I don't work from three 30 to seventh. That's a very firm boundary that I have that is pick up kids, feed them, love [00:28:00] on them time.

[00:28:01] And I look around, that's when most of the other clinicians in my practice are seeing clients because yeah, they don't wanna come in early and sure, that is awesome. Go for it. Do your thing. We each get to do our thing. But I think knowing your own limits and knowing what's authentic. To meeting your needs and your family's needs.

[00:28:19] Especially as moms, if we don't feel like our family's needs are being met, quite frankly, I don't know how, like I know that we are taught how to turn it off and focus on our clients. Yes, we can all do that, but if we're doing that every single day, it's not just, my kid had a meltdown and I have a session in 10 minutes.

[00:28:33] Okay, take some deep breaths. Let's get into it. Yeah. It's every single day. It's. I'm missing my kids' extracurricular or whatever it is. Yeah. Then how can you truly do your best work? Why are you doing this? So while we're talking about kids, bringing it back to SEO for a minute, so I know one of the things you were sharing about was, you know when your daughter was.

[00:28:56] A baby. That's kind of when you started to get into [00:29:00] s e o. And I know for me, my son was, I think he was about 18 months old, maybe a little bit younger than that when I moved back into like my solo practice. And like I said, quickly, it was like, I'm not gonna learn s e o because this is too much. Um, it, that's how it felt like for me, but.

[00:29:20] I built my entire website myself though. So like that was where I learned that I learned Squarespace, I learned how to do that. And so like I would do that late at night and that was kind of how I figured out how to fit that in until it, it didn't work anymore. Once the kids got to a certain age with learning seo, which is a skill.

[00:29:39] We aren't taught in school . Not at all. How you have found a way to incorporate that into part of your schedule and how you encourage other moms who are like, okay, this is something I see the value in. I see all this can help me with my practice, but where, where do I fit this in? Like do you have any thoughts on that for them and what's worked for [00:30:00] you?

[00:30:01] We were talking about this earlier, as the field has gotten more competitive, the truth is SEO costs time or. It just does, it's gonna cost a lot of one or the other, or both. Um, so for me, early on I had more time. I had a, I had babies that went to bed early and now I don't. And so I could not do the same thing.

[00:30:17] Oh my goodness. Last night I definitely went to bed when my kids went to bed at. Eight o'clock because they're exhausting. But, but when I had that time, then I was investing time into learning, doing it myself. And now honestly, parts of our seo, my private practice outsources to simplified SEO consulting, we pay full price, all that.

[00:30:35] Cause I'm like, these are two very separate businesses for tax practices. But that balance shifted. And so one of the things that I'm trained to find is I'm constantly, constantly searching for that balance between life and work. And so one of the things we're doing in the next year is some in-person. In July, we're going, we have an SEO training cruise where it's like, bring your kids.

[00:30:56] Danica and I are bringing our kids. They're going to kids club, and [00:31:00] that's when we're gonna work so that I'm not going away. But we have the dedicated time at sea where we're having to make all those arrangements to step out of the daily grind to focus on seo. You know, as I was learning seo, one of the things that my husband and I were able to do is I would stay at a local hotel for two nights and I would check in after.

[00:31:20] Start working until late, then get, then go to bed, then wake up and work all day the next day. And I would do like Thursday night through Saturday morning. So I only had to take Friday off work and all day on Friday I'd work. And then Saturday morning, I wouldn't check out until the last possible minute.

[00:31:34] Yeah, and I'd go join my kids at whatever thing we were doing that Saturday. But carving out that time was. Was what was important. And so now I'm looking at how can I carve out that time and take my kids with me? Yeah. And have them with me. But again, I think it goes back to that our needs change when we have babies.

[00:31:53] You can make your website late at night. I can teach myself SEO late at night. Right. And then when that shifts, then we can start [00:32:00] paying somebody and outsourcing it. Or going on or going on trips and sitting around with a little group of other people and talking about, you know, and doing. In the moment and getting that, yeah, getting that support.

[00:32:14] But yeah, that's really my thing right now is I'm like, my needs have changed. Okay, cool. Let's adapt my SEO business to it. So I, but I think that that's the, that's the beauty to me of. Of owning a practice but also of your marketing is like you can, you can make it meet your needs, whatever you need. If you want the complete control and you have the time to learn it, get the resources, you a, if I can learn seo, anyone can.

[00:32:40] Let me be very clear for anyone who's listening who doesn't know me, I know nothing about the technology like I would like when my husband's not home, my kids will. Let's watch my daughter the other day. Let, let's watch a movie, mommy. I'm like, okay, if you can figure out how to work the new tv . I hadn't figured out how to work the old tv and then we switched TVs, so I'm like, if you can figure it out.

[00:32:59] Sure [00:33:00] enough, my five-year-old found herself, uh, like when we negotiated and I was like, not that one. And she was able to scroll to the different one. So if I can't figure out how to work my tv, but I can figure out how to do seo. Yeah, so can you. It's what fits best for your life. Yes. You doing that to save money or you outsourcing it, which often is faster, but a lot more expensive or a combination of both.

[00:33:22] We've had a number of clients that initially will do some training to get it to the point where they can't afford to outsource to us or they outsource us, and then they say, teach me how to keep it going. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's what I was gonna ask next. Like if people wanted to start by whether they're ready to go like all in and like outsource it completely to you, or to begin learning the strategy of on their own and learning the skills to do their own seo, where can they connect with you?

[00:33:50] Yes. Our website is simplified seo consulting.com. If you think you're ready to like get started with any of our services, there's [00:34:00] tons of information and you can apply to do a consultation with one of our team members that's free of charge. Where our focus is like is, are you ready? Is this a good thing or are there other steps we would recommend you do?

[00:34:11] First, we get plenty of people reaching out every. Month that our goal is to really just make sure that we're matching people with what's gonna get them the best return on investment. And then if you wanna start with, if you think that, you know, you have a baby that sleeps and you wanna do it on their nap time or overnight or whatever, we do have, uh, some online courses where basically they're like, man, this is what would've saved me a ton of time if I had.

[00:34:35] Had this information in one place. Yeah. Where we're filtering all the SEO stuff to how it applies to private practice. And so your listeners, I know we have a code for 20% off of any of our D I Y courses, and that code that they would need is Empower 20. And we'll have all that in the show notes too. And I know, um, I'm really excited.

[00:34:56] Danica, who's, she just got a new title, what is her official [00:35:00] title now? With, with the Seo o Chief operating Officer, or, um, my husband jokingly called her and Jessica's boss . Because? Because yes, technically, technically I founded things, but Danica runs things on a daily basis. She does. And it allows me to hop in and talk SEO and problem solve.

[00:35:19] And when a site's not ranking very well, I get to come in and play around and figure stuff out. But a lot of my time, of course, has taken up with, uh, doing what I love, which, uh, which I love this, but, but like I said, my favorite seeing counseling clients, and somebody told me once they're like, if you're gonna keep seeing counseling clients and have two businesses, you need to.

[00:35:38] Get more off your plate. And so Danica's the one that's taken enough off my plate that I can still see counseling clients. They have, all my clients have heard to think . Well, and, and I, I a hundred percent have Danica to think from my website. She helps start my SEO journey, but she's gonna be doing a guest expert training in our village community.

[00:35:57] Kind of like a SEO one-on-one. So like a little bit [00:36:00] of kind of getting some of that foundational stuff. So if you're in the village community, you'll have access to that if you wanna. Check out more, um, and join us. It'll be April 18th. She's presenting. The link is also in the show notes. Jessica, I, I'm just, again, I'm just so happy to be able to talk with you today and just for you to share your knowledge and experience and just connect with you as a woman, business owner and as a mom, and just your wisdom that you've shared with us today.

[00:36:24] So appreciative. Thanks for having me, and I'm so excited about your new podcast. Thank you. I can tell you this will not be the last time. Um, we chat . I, I have a feeling, um, we will hear you on this show again in the future, but thank you so much for taking your time today. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Raise to Empower podcast.

[00:36:48] Check the show notes for all links and resources mentioned in the. If you found today's episode helpful or inspiring, be sure to share it with your therapist friends, and don't forget to subscribe to the [00:37:00] show and leave your five star rating and review. It truly means so much to me and will help us get our message of empowerment out to other women and mom clinicians, and I'd love to connect with you in our Facebook community.

[00:37:11] So check out the show notes for the link or head to Bitly slash raise to empower to join us. I'll see you back here next week.