Thinking about Therapy?
Take our quiz to see therapists who are a good match for you.
Take our quiz to see therapists who are a good match for you.
As a therapist, your online profile is the first way potential clients get a feel for who you are as a clinician. This short checklist will help you review your Mental Health Match therapist profile for the areas that have the biggest impact on helping you generate referrals.
Even though Mental Health Match matches potential clients to you and shows you as a top match for their needs, the content of your profile can determine if the client contacts you or if they scroll past and consider another provider.
You will benefit from this checklist if:
- You are new to Mental Health Match and just setting up your online profile.
- Your profiles is being shown as a match to many clients, but few clients are clicking through to your profile or contacting you. (You can check your data and edit your profile by logging into your dashboard here.)
- You are refocusing your practice on a new niche or particular demographic.
These quick tips and suggestions will help you create a profile that really resonates with potential clients and increases the number of referrals coming to your practice.
1. Make sure your specialties reflect the types of clients you really want to see.
(In the “About Your Practice” section when you edit your profile)
Mental Health Match is designed to connect you with the exact clients you want to see, and we’ve learned that the ideal number of specialties is between 6 – 10. Too many more, and therapy seekers become unsure about your expertise.
The best specialties for your profile are specific and distinct. The more general the specialty (such as “life changes”), the weaker the match we make with it. The more specific (such as “starting college”), the stronger the match we can make.
Suggestion: Look for terms or issues you mention in your profile that you don’t have listed in your specialties, and add them to your listed specialties.
2. Make sure you list your most important modality
(In the “About Your Practice” section when you edit your profile)
Many clients seek a specific modality, such as CBT or EMDR. Adding modalities to your profile allows Mental Health Match to match your profile to these therapy seekers.
Listing the modality, or modalities, that you most commonly use with clients and that distinguish your practice from your colleagues, will help your profile show up as a top match to the clients you most want to work with.
3. Add information about yourself and your identities
(In the “About You” section when you edit your profile)
Many people search for a therapist of a certain age, gender, race, or religion. If your profile does not have this information, we cannot show your profile to those therapy-seekers.
This information is hidden from your Mental Healthy Match profile and just used in our behind-the-scenes matching.
4. Add the age range of the clients you want to see
(In the “About Your Clients” section when you edit your profile)
Do you see minors? What about geriatric populations? We will show your profile to only clients who are a good fit for you. But, we cannot match your profile if we do not know who you see and don’t see.
This information will also be hidden from your profile.
5. Make sure your photo is clear and centered.
(In the “Photos and Links” section when you edit your profile)
We know that photos are the way potential clients first create a connection with you and decide to learn more about your practice.
Take a look at your profile photo and ask yourself: Is my profile picture welcoming, well lit, and making eye contact with the viewer?
Our cropping tool can help you ensure your authentic professionalism is what the prospective client sees first – not background distractions or bad lighting.
Suggestion: Use our free Guide to a Great Therapist Headshot to help you show yourself in your best light.
6. Answer all the prompts in your profile
(In the “Profile Prompts” section when you edit your profile)
Therapists who fully complete all the profile prompts have much greater success in being contacted by potential clients vs. therapists who just finish the first three prompts.
Therapy-seekers come to Mental Health Match to find a therapist they trust to be vulnerable and grow with. That is why it is important to create a bond between you and potential clients by using “words of hope”, such heal, grow, discover, practice, relieve, develop, and understand, and “words of connection”, such as together, we, our, or you and I.
Be sure to also proofread your responses and check for spelling or grammar errors that might come across as unprofessional.
To help you write a great profile, we created easy activities and templates you can find in our free guide: A step-by-step guide for writing your Mental Health Match Profile.
Suggestion: Review your specialties and make sure your profile prompt “together, we will” is speaking to the specific needs of the clients you most want to work with.
How do you know if these changes are working for you?
Great Question! We recommend using the Mental Health Match matching tool as if you were a client you would like to work with to see if you are shown as a top match in those results.
Finally, if you’ve gone through this checklist and the profile prompts guide, and still feel as though you’re struggling to connect with the clients you most want to work, then our “What’s in a Niche?” guide might be your next step to helping you get a better grasp of the big picture of your practice and improve your marketing.
If you have gotten this far and still have questions about how Mental Health Match works or the best way to improve your therapist profile, please email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to answer them.
Thank you for being a part of the Mental Health Match community!
