YouTube video marketing has been key to the growth of Private Practice Skills. In this article, I share all the knowledge I’ve accumulated about video marketing for therapists using YouTube and beyond.
Why Video Marketing for Therapists is Important
Welcome to the 21st century, y’all! Not only is video a powerful tool to market any business, but it also has a special role when it comes to marketing a therapy practice.
Why? Our entire business is built on trust! Potential clients need to feel like they can build trust with a therapist before they ever consider reaching out. And video is one of the most powerful trust-building tools available.
…But recording video and posting to YouTube feels scary
Video marketing is most definitely scary! Video is one of the most vulnerable platforms available because we can’t edit or photoshop it to the degree we can with text and photos. When we put ourselves out there in a video, it feels like the world can see the “real” us. And that’s scary!
But that’s also why video is such an effective tool at building trust. Potential clients can get a little snapshot of who we really are through video.
Why YouTube as a Video Marketing Tool for Therapists?
There are lots of ways to post videos to the internet, and any of the options available are better than no video marketing at all. However, YouTube is one of the best video marketing options for a few reasons:
- YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google
- YouTube utilizes SEO strategies to your advantage
- Boost your website SEO through the power of YouTube backlinks
If you’re not familiar with some of these terms, just know that YouTube is an incredibly powerful tool and is worth considering as the platform you use for video marketing.
Plus, uploading video directly through your website can make it slow to load. Embedding a YouTube video on your website helps sidestep this issue.
Video Marketing for Therapists: YouTube Strategy
If this seems overwhelming, you can totally use YouTube to market your private practice. Here are a few key tips you want to make sure you nail in order to succeed:
1. Decide on your niche
Though having a specific niche isn’t always necessary for success as a therapist, it is imperative to be successful on YouTube. There is so much noise on YouTube that paring your video content down to a very limited niche will help your video content stand out from the crowd on YouTube.
For example, all of my content for Private Practice skills is highly niched – it’s all clustered around how to start and grow your private practice. Having this niche helps YouTube know to recommend my content to people who tend to search about private practice.
2. Solve a problem
Make a list of some problems related to your niche that you can offer some quick tips to help people resolve those problems. Each of these problems can become its own video topic.
I’m often using YouTube to look up how-to videos because I need help figuring something out. If your YouTube video starts with something like “How to….” Then people are likely to be searching for how to solve that problem in the YouTube search bar.
3. Do some research
Check out what videos are already out there related to your niche and the list of problems you named.
It’s important to speak to something that does at least one of these three things:
- Cover a topic that no one else has covered before
- Cover a topic in a different way than others have before
- Cover a topic in a more updated or upgraded way from what others have done
4. Leverage keywords using TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy was a total game-changer for me! I use TubeBuddy before every video I create.
Once I’ve narrowed down a topic idea, I type some possible keywords into the YouTube search bar and use the TubeBuddy keyword score to help me decide if the wording is right. Here’s an example from some research I did earlier this week in order to create a video on retirement planning:
After I enter my YouTube search, some data shows up in the TubeBuddy Search Explorer tab on the right. This tells you if it’s worth targeting a keyword based on how many people are searching for it and how many videos already exist on the topic.
If the score is poor, you can try typing in a few variations of keywords surrounding your topic. You can also get more info from TubeBuddy by selecting the “click here for weighted” section in the same Explorer tab. Here’s what popped up for that same keyword search:
It gives more data and often offers suggestions in the righthand tabs for similar keywords that might be worth targeting. Once you find a keyword with a relatively good score (around 50 or higher), use that exact wording as the title of your YouTube video, as well as in the description and tags section of your video.
This is the beginning of YouTube SEO and it’s played a massive role in my growth on YouTube. You can sign up for TubeBuddy here. Their free plan has been sufficient for me.
5. Use a call to action (CTA)
What do you want people to do once they finish your video? Leave a comment? Go to your website? Get a freebie by joining your email list? Watch another video of yours?
A call to action offers an opportunity for people to continue engaging with you and to continue building trust with you as you help them out.
6. Embed videos to your website
This is a key way to get people who found you through a regular Google search to continue building trust with you. Bonus points if you create video content that you later embed into a blog post!
Not only does this help potential clients build trust with you through video, but simply by embedding videos into your website that leverage the same keywords as your webpage will do wonders to boost your website’s SEO in Google searches.
(P.S. Did you see the video embedded at the top of this post covering the same topic? I most definitely use this strategy to boost my website’s SEO!)
7. Work at a pace that fits you
Making a video is hard work! You don’t have to post weekly videos to make YouTube work in your favor. You can start by posting one video, embedding it to your website, and checking back in a few months to see if you’re ready to post another.
Of course, the most important tip of all is that you need to be posting great content. YouTube keeps track of how long people are sticking around to watch your video. If people are watching your videos for just a few seconds and clicking out, YouTube dings you and you’ll rank lower in the search results. Quality is definitely far better than quantity!
If you’re not sure about how to make a video, I have an entire video dedicated to that process, so feel free to check it out below:
(See what I did there? I embedded another video on my website. It’s also a call-to-action at the same time!)
I hope you enjoy the process of using this strategy of video marketing for therapists. Until next time, from one therapist to another: I wish you well!
-Marie
Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash
I have been following your Youtube channel. Found your channel when I was looking up how to start a private practice. You are right about video being the right way to build trust – I just realized after reading this article that I actually really like you, and that likability and trust comes from being able to see and hear you.
Hope you’re well!!!
You’re too kind! But yes, video is incredibly powerful and I absolutely leverage it for Private Practice Skills too!