Should You Hire a Ghostwriter?

Many therapists are in a position where they have a wealth of wisdom to share but limited time and space to share it. They can only see a certain number of clients a day but have a desire to help as many people as possible. What’s the solution? Cram as many people into their schedule as possible? That’s one strategy, but another to use the power of marketing and disseminate their message.

The best way to help people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to see a therapist is to write blogposts and books, to join podcasts and social media. By creating content, therapists can share the valuable information they have gleaned after years of sessions but in a way that’s digestible to the public. How is that possible on top of all the other work on their plates? Some people find time to do everything themselves but others aren’t able to do that. For people who want to work smarter, not harder, they hire a ghostwriter.

ghost writer for therapists — You can be productive without doing everything yourself. Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash.

A quick recap: A ghostwriter is someone who embodies the voice of their client. How it works is the client (aka, therapist) is the one who will come up with an idea (usually, but not always) and the ghostwriter will expound upon the idea, but make sure it is written in the style of the client. Afterward, the client will look over the text and add personal stories or other information. The client also looks over the content for accuracy.

After they are happy with it, the client publishes the piece with their name on it and no one is the wiser. (For more about ghostwriting, read my post about it.) What this does is free up time for the therapist while also boosting their visibility. For instance, one of my clients, Renee (name changed to protect their privacy), has seen a 500% boost in traffic to her website after we started working together! Not only that, articles I ghostwrote for her have been placed on prominent websites that reach an estimated 7 million people per month through a variety of partner and advertising networks. Not just one article either — several. On top of that, I’ve ghostwritten not one but TWO chapters for her that were published in anthologies. In fact, based on an article I ghostwrote, one publication reached out to Renee specifically and asked her to contribute a piece to their upcoming anthology. We didn’t even pitch to them! They came to us!

writer for therapists — Yay! Celebration! Photo by Ambreen Hasan on Unsplash

The answer to the question, “Should I hire a ghostwriter?” is: It depends. Do you want to reach a broader audience? Do you want to grow your business? Do you want to attract visitors to your website using proven, workable methods? Are you interested in helping more people? Do you want to boost your visibility? If the answer to any of those questions is, “yes,” then hire a ghostwriter for therapists (like me).

If you want to maintain the status quo, if you’re happy with your business the way it is, if you’d rather not attract new clients, if you don’t want to be seen or heard more than you are no, then no, you shouldn’t hire a ghostwriter.

Whether you choose to work with a ghostwriter for therapists or not, I hope this post gave you some clarity. If you have any other questions or want to chat about working together, just reach out.

So you started your own business. Great! Now what? How will people find you? Will it be a magic, mind-melding thing where they’ll just know and stumble upon you? Maybe! Or will it be a Google, internet, SEO thing? And what does that mean anyway? So many questions . . . Let’s break it down.

You might already know this, and if you do, skip this section. SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a fancy way of talking about your visibility on search engines like Google or Yahoo or Bing. (Is Bing still a search engine? I literally just googled that.)

However, having a blog in and of itself doesn’t do much if it’s poor quality and/or updated sporadically. They say that content is king, but so is consistency. How does blogging help with all this? Keep reading.

1.) Blogging keeps your site dynamic

Blogging, especially if the blog is recent, signals to the powers that be (in this case search engines) that your business is alive and kicking. If you haven’t updated your website in several years, the internet starts to wonder if you’re still in business.

“Google doesn’t want to deliver its searchers outdated information,” according to HostGator.com. “Websites that are regularly updated signal to them that the website is alive and offering fresh content. It also gives the search engine algorithms more reason to index your website more often, keeping it more on their radar over time.”

Updating the homepage every week? A pain in the rear. But a blog? Totally manageable. Or maybe it’s not, in which case, I can help you. I’m a professional writer with more than 13 years of experience. Writing is my jam and I’m more than happy to take the blogging portion off your hands.

2.) Blogging keeps people reading

We have to talk a little bit more about how search engines work in order to understand why blogging is important.

Search engines want to provide people the information they’re looking for. For instance, if you google “freelance writer in Oakland, CA” you expect the first result to be what you’re looking for. However, if after briefly perusing the site you discover it’s a website that sells lances, and you hop back over to Google, that signifies the first search result maybe wasn’t so great. But if you click on the first result and stay on the website for a bit, then Google breathes a sigh of relief and says, “OK, yes, that is the most helpful search result.”

Google hasn’t said point blank “dwell time matters in terms of ranking,” but they’ve made other statements that make it clear dwell time is something they pay attention to.

So blogging means people will dwell longer on your website.

3.) Blogging helps with long-tail keywords

I’ll be real here — I would love it if someone googled “freelance writer” and my name came up as the top entry, but let’s be honest, that’s probably not going to happen. What’s a gal to do? The answer: long-tail keywords.

My best bet is using longer, more specific keywords that are relevant to my business, such as “empathic freelance writer in Oakland, CA, who has a journalism background.” Just kidding, that’s too long but I think you get the gist.

Half of all searches are for terms that are four words or longer but they can be hard to fit in the homepage. This is exactly where blogging comes in. I’ve typed “freelance writer in Oakland, CA” a few times now already because that’s doable in a blog.

Sure, I won’t get as much traffic as “freelance writer” but the traffic I will get will likely come from local people in my target audience.

So there you have it — three reasons why you should have a blog.

Stay tuned for more reasons. (Yes! There are more!) And again, if you don’t want to maintain a blog I’ll gladly take on that task for you. Let’s chat!

Tag: ghostwriting