How to Make a Living as a Therapist

Wondering how to make a living as a therapist? It's hard to know what to expect when what you charge isn't always what you get paid. Keep reading and I'm going to tell you how a tribe of bloggers tripled my income.

TCCBB 0108 How a Tribe of Bloggers Tripled My Income

How much do therapists make in Texas?

In Texas, counselors can charge whatever they like. What counselors can make, though, is another story.

If they choose to be paneled on insurance, they will have to accept the rate dictated by the insurance company. This will likely be much less than their preferred rate.

Since private practice counselors are dollar per hour, they are only paid for the time spent actually counseling. If a client no-shows, the counselor gets sick, or there is a family emergency, then that time will likely not be paid.

In order to make a living as a counselor, avoid burnout and create a financially sound future, counselors must learn to market effectively, convert phone calls into first sessions or raving fans, and of course, continue seeing clients.

Meeting with other counselors and entrepreneurs in industries outside of counseling is key to learning how to do things more effectively. You can do this through networking and mastermind groups (small groups that meet regularly for goal setting and accountability).

My own personal mastermind group has been the key to my success in 2022. They are made up of travel bloggers, food bloggers, and fitness bloggers. I have learned so much from them!

When it comes to internet marketing three things I want you to learn from my tribe of bloggers are:

1. Create and clearly delineate your cornerstone content
2. Content is king, but it’s not random,
3. You must have a call to action. 

How do I grow my therapy private practice?

Growth depends on website traffic and clicks to schedule phone calls. How do potential clients find you? Your amazing expert content. Cornerstone content makes it easier for you to link to your own content.

For example, if you have a bread-baking blog, you might have an amazing recipe for a sourdough bread starter. You can use that sourdough starter recipe in lots of other recipes. You decide to make this your cornerstone content and link it to your pizza recipe, your rolls recipe, and of course, your sourdough bread recipe.

Providing those internal links makes Google love you even more! 

So when we talk about cornerstone content, I don’t want you to get this confused with niche-building. My food blogger friends aren’t trying to be champion sourdough bread makers! Rather they’re looking for one thing that they can use in several recipes. And that cornerstone content can be for their vegan recipes, it can be for their barbecue recipes, it can be in lots of different meal plans. 

‘Make a living as a counselor' action item: Spend some time today thinking about something you could talk about in several places on your website. Do you use experiential learning games? Sand tray? Do you work with addiction and have great books or workbooks?

How do you market to private pay therapy clients?

Create content potential private pay clients are Googling.

I used to write blogs about just about anything. Whatever I looked at out the window when I woke up in the morning could become a blog. And then I would try to jam these search terms into it, like let’s talk about fountains and yards that need mowing and then try to make it apply to grief during the holidays.

It did not work.

My tribe of bloggers taught me about Uber Suggest, that literally tells you if people are looking for what you want to write. Flip that, and you can find out what they are looking for, before you write!

Counselors can start off with search terms like grief during the holidays, staying sober through the holidays, processing infidelity through the holidays. Once you find out if people are actually looking for those things, you won't waste your time writing about them. Throw in some cornerstone content that links to other blogs and viola! You are effectively marketing to your ideal client. Next thing you know, you will mastering how to make a living as a therapist.

Marketing plan for private practice

Tripling your income as a private practice therapist is possible, as long as you remember to create content potential clients or customers are already searching for and that will link to your other content.

Your plan will fall flat though, if you forget this last thing:

You must have a call to action!

Your content may entertain, inform, and educate. But if it doesn't lead to a click, call, or send, then you may miss your financial goals.

If you still wondering how to make a living as a therapist grab your free step-by-step guide to private practice success today!