1. Practitioner name and
degree and professional credential acronyms.
2. Office telephone number and office address.
3.
Location (Your address is often not enough to help the person
trying to find your office.)
4. Niche Specialty©
(an optional listing at additional cost--not included in the basic listing)
5.
General Practice Areas: This is the place to indicate
A. your client base (who do
you work with?--i.e.: a. children, b. adolescents, c. individual adult
men/women, and/or couples), etc.
B. the scope of your work (with which client problems do
you most frequently work?)--i.e.: depression, anxiety, grief and
loss, etc. (include your unique areas of expertise)
C. the three most frequent counseling modalities
or counseling techniques you most often use--i.e.: cognitive
behavioral therapy (CBT), psychoanalysis, art therapy, etc. and
D. (optional) list insurance panels that you are on or
state your policy toward payment and insurance issues.
6. Email Address
(optional):
All email links open to an email form so the client can mail you without
revealing your actual email address. When you receive the
email the subject will be "Referral from CounselingSeattle.com" and
it will provide you with the perspective client's first and last
name, address, email address, phone number and a client message.
Then you can choose whether to respond by email or telephone.
7.
Linking to your website (optional): If you wish, you may
choose to include a
link from your Counseling Washington listing to your
own website.
(Often counselors are surprised to discover that all of their web visitors are
coming from their Counseling Washington link.) When your
see the question, "Do you want a link to your site?" chose the "Yes"
answer by clicking on the button. A box will open up so that you
can
insert your full website URL address. Note: When
requesting a link
from your Counseling Washington listing to your own web site we
could appreciate consideration of a reciprocal link from your site to some page on
www.counselingseattle.com of value or interest
to your site visitors. See
linking to Counseling Washington from my site,
below.
1.
Name: To achieve maximum benefit from word of mouth
referrals, we recommend using the name that your clients are to
call you.
EXAMPLE: "Sillicia B. Jenson," uses "Sally Jenson"--because
that is what her clients call her. We are in the process
of adding your license number to your published listing so that
clients can more easily verify your counseling license.
NOTE: All
Washington State counselors who are licensed or certified by the
State of Washington are eligible to be listed on
Counseling Washington. This is a website for Washington
State counselors located in any of the 39 counties in
Washington State. If your city or county is not represented,
we apologize. Go ahead and enter your order for a counselor
listing and the situation will be taken care of immediately.
Professional initials:
list professional credential acronyms in the following order:
first your degree acronym, then state licenses or certification (i.e.:
LMHC)
acronym, and then any official acronyms and initials representing
certification or licensing by national certifying organizations.
Please do not include acronyms issued by training facilities for
completing their courses. If you feel a particular training
certification is important to your practice, mention it in the
general areas of practice section.
Your Title: You will be asked
to enter a title. This title is your license. Please use the
pull-down menu list for options.
2.
Office telephone number: Your business telephone listing--in (555)
555-5555 format. Address:
Your complete office address with suite number and nine
digit ZIP code--in 99999-2979 format.
3.
Location: Is your office in a well-known professional building name, near
a well-known community landmark, or near a major intersection that
would help a potential client visualize your location? Example:
"On Main Street across from the Queen Anne Safeway and above the Sleep-Right
store."
4.
Niche Specialty©: An optional listing--not required. Here is
an opportunity to list the one client problem that you most like to
work with and that you are especially qualified to work with.
This is an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other
counselors. Your
niche specialty statement has a 300 character limit--including
spaces.
[ Read more about the Niche Specialty© ]
5.
General Areas of Practice:
Primary principle is "Help the client find you among the many." When a potential client is searching
for you online, the client's primary concerns are: A. "Does this counselor work with
people like me?" and, B. "Does this counselor
work with problems like mine?" Your ad content should
answer both questions immediately.
A.
Tell the client who you work with: I work with.....("children,"
"adolescents," "children, adolescents & families,"
" individual adults and couples," and/or "the individual adult man or
woman.")
B.
Tell the client what kinds of problems you commonly work with.
If your potential clients reads your ad and cannot tell whether
you work with their problem, they will not contact you--they will
look elsewhere. Ignore this principle and the clients
will ignore you and move on.
Search Engine Optimization is a process helping clients find your
listing by using client search words in your text.
Use a statement such as, "I do depression counseling, anxiety
counseling, and couples and marriage counseling," to help the search
engines find your listing and help the client identify you
quickly as the counselor they are looking for.
Use words that the clients use and understand. (Avoid the
psychobabble that counselors love but clients don't
understand.)
C.
Try to list no more than your top three treatment modalities. Always use
both the name of the modality and the popular acronym (if applicable). For
example: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Remember that
normally the client is intently focused on the problem and NOT the
specific technique that you will use to help them resolve the
problem.
D. Finally, name any insurance panels that you are a
preferred provider for, if any.
6.
Email: your email address is NOT included in the listing unless you specifically request it.
In the log-in process, your email information is requested twice.
(1.) The first request for your email address is listed in
the "My Contact Information" section and is intended for
Counseling Washington staff use only. Please include it at
that point. (2.) In the counselor listing section you
are asked to indicate whether you wish for clients to be able to
contact you by email. If you say "no" there will be no email
link in your listing. If you do not want
them to contact you by email, leave the space blank. Please
note that, if you choose to use it, our email form does not disclose
your email address to the public.
7. A
Link to your website is optional. If you have a website or web page that is not
part of another counselor locator service, Counseling Washington will link to your
website. Anyone reading
your listing on Counseling Washington can click the link to be
directed to your website for more information about you and your
practice. We have a number
of pages on Counseling Washington that will be of interest
and assistance to your site visitors. We encourage you to
consider a link from your website to the recommended pages below.
Instructions for Linking to Counseling Washington
from Your Site
Choose one or more of several Counseling Washington URL pages (below) that can serve
as excellent resources for your website visitors. You should be able to
cut-and-paste any of these links into one of the pages in your site.
A.
Online Directory of Support Groups: A guide to national and international support groups (most with contacts for local chapters)
providing help and support for a great variety of problems and conditions. To be listed in this directory, support group activities must be
free. By contrast,
therapist-facilitated support groups--offered for a fee--are listed on the Group Therapy page.
B.
Dictionary of Initials, Acronyms and Abbreviations Used by Counselor
and Social Workers.
C.
Consumer Questions about Mental Health and Addiction Counseling
D.
Health, Mental Health & Chemical Dependency Links
or
E. Affiliated with
Counseling Washington
If you have questions or need help with building a link on your site, including the HTML code to use, please
let me know.
8.
Rates / Cost: Private Practice Advertisement
9. How to
log-in and place your private practice
advertisement.
A. The "Counselors / Advertisers Log-In Here" link is located in the
upper right-hand corner of
the Counseling Washington (www.counselingseattle.com) home page. This opens a page that provides additional information. Then click on the "Click here to Continue to
Log-in." You are taken to a secure site to enter your practice information into our database and payment information on the final page.
See step-by-step instructions in box above.
Floyd Else,
Webmaster
The counselors listed on these pages are:
(1.) Licensed Psychologists
(2.) Licensed Mental Health Counselors (LMHC),
(3.) Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT),
(4.) Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associates (LMHCA),
(5.) Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associates (LMFTA),
(6.) Licensed Independent Clinical Social Workers (LICSW),
(7.) Licensed Social Work Associate-Advanced (LSWA-A)
(8.) Licensed Social Work Associate—Independent Clinical (LSWA-IC), and
(9.) Certified Counselors (CC).
In renewing their listing each year, these counselors, therapists,
psychotherapists and social workers tell Counseling Washington that:
1. the professional name and contact information that they are using in
the ad is their own.
2. they are licensed or certified in the State of Washington, and
3. they are not subject to any license restrictions preventing practice.
Counselors are required to report any change in their professional or licensing
status to us without delay.
Ralph Jones, MA, LMHC, NCC,
(555) 643-7434