SEO vs. Paid Ads: Do You Really Need Both?

Google Ads can create a lot of tension for therapists and private practice owners. Is paying for visibility ethical? Do paid ads compete with SEO? And can ads really generate clients as quickly as some marketers claim?

In this episode of From Keywords to Connections, Mary and Winnie are joined by John from RevKey to discuss what therapists need to understand about paid visibility, organic trust, and the changing digital marketing landscape.

Together, they explore common misconceptions about Google Ads, how paid advertising and SEO can work together, why a strong website and clear messaging are essential for successful campaigns, and how AI and automation are changing advertising. They also discuss the role of brand familiarity, emotional safety, and repeated visibility in helping potential clients feel comfortable enough to reach out.

This conversation offers a more thoughtful approach to marketing for helping professionals, one that focuses not simply on generating traffic, but on creating ethical, sustainable visibility and building trust with the right people.

Transcript

Mary (00:49)
Welcome back to From Keywords to Connections, the podcast where we explore the intersection of thoughtful marketing, authentic connections, and sustainable growth for helping professionals. Today's conversation is really one I think brings up some mixed emotions for therapists, private practice owners sometimes.

Because a lot of times when people hear the word Google Ads, they have like an immediate reaction. Like some people are curious, some people feel skeptical, maybe overwhelmed by all the moving pieces that Google Ads have. And some kind of immediately think, isn't that just paying Google for clients?

Winnie (01:22)
And honestly, just like I understand how people could feel conflicted about SEO. I understand why people feel conflicted about Google ads, especially in the helping field where we're not taught that marketing side of things and it feels really forward. Helping professionals care deeply about ethics, trust, relationships, and authenticity. So when marketing starts feeling too aggressive or transactional, there's just a natural resistance there to the whole process.

Mary (01:49)
You know,

and that's true. mean, but at the same time, we all know that visibility is important. How many times you can be on the page, how much real estate you take up and people can't connect with services they're not finding. So the reality is that the digital landscape has really changed a lot over the last several years. Search behavior has changed. Competition has changed. And even the way people make decisions, like we talked about in our last podcast, the way the search behavior and people make decisions has changed.

Winnie (02:02)
That's it.

So today we're unpacking it all, SEO, Google Ads, comparing them, differences, similarities, all of that. We're going to go over common myths about paid advertising, whether SEO and paid ads compete against each other, which was a myth I once believed. How AI is changing digital marketing, what actually makes ads successful, and how therapists can think about visibility in a way that feels aligned with their ethics and approach.

Mary (02:52)
And we're really excited because today to help us navigate that conversation, we're joined by John from RevKey, an excellent company that we refer clients to all the time that has a lot of experience with Google Ads Management for therapists and helping professionals. So John, we're really glad you're here. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this field.

John Sanders (03:11)
Sure, so my journey with Google Ads, I started off at an industrial marketing company. And I had to fix some things in their Google Ads, but eventually land at a dental marketing agency trying to build a Google Ads department for them. Right around the same time, my

testing psychologist wife goes out and starts a private practice I'm doing during the day. I'm doing ads for dentists at night. I'm doing ads for testing psychologists. And then in 2018, I just decided I was done working for other people. This should sound familiar to a number of you. And and started and started RevKey. And now, you know, almost eight years later, you know, I've got a team of 10.

Mary (03:45)
Yep, yep.

John Sanders (03:56)
And most of our clients are somewhere in the mental health space of some variety, being therapists, testing psychologists, coaching, and everything in between.

Winnie (04:06)
That is awesome. do have one question for you that I've always wondered. Is there a story behind the name of Rev Keen?

John Sanders (04:13)
my god, naming a company is the hardest thing in the entire world.

Winnie (04:17)
Absolutely.

Absolutely.

John Sanders (04:19)
It's, knew

I wanted something that was very kind of like revenue forward. Unfortunately, there are like a couple of other like similarly named companies that I didn't know about. think one's called RevLocal, which is like a really, really big, really big agency. But it was really important for me to, and because my, my first job at that industrial marketing company was not to do anything inside Google ads. It was to figure out if the money we were spending on Google

ads was actually turning into clients. And so I've always brought that approach. so when we're talking to our clients, yeah, it's great that we produced 20 leads in those Google ads, but how many of those actually like did something. And so it's focusing on that, that the actual like business side. And this is where a lot of, think Google ads companies are like, if you've ever talked to you, if you've ever run Google ads and you've ever talked to a Google rep who's called you, like they understand

Mary (04:59)
Right.

Winnie (05:00)
Absolutely.

John Sanders (05:15)
like this very limited slice of Google Ads, but can't really connect it to actual real world results for your business. And so that's something that's very important to us.

Winnie (05:18)
Yeah.

Mary (05:18)
Mm-hmm.

bright.

And

I like that because I mean, I mean, we can kind of relate to that because with SEO, sometimes it takes a while and you have to you have to really pay attention to how many people are actually converting. You you have to get that information to really kind of show them what what revenue they're actually generating from what they're investing in with us. So, yeah.

Winnie (05:49)
Thank

John Sanders (05:50)
But yeah,

naming a business is like, equate it to naming a child. I probably actually struggled. Yeah, it's definitely, it's really hard. So that is a great question. I don't know that I've ever been asked that one on a podcast. So we're already ding the bell for firsts.

Mary (05:53)
Yes, because you're stuck with it the rest of your life.

Winnie (06:05)
I'm excited.

Mary (06:08)
Yeah.

Winnie (06:08)
Perfect.

Exactly what we want. I don't know if you've kind of experienced this since we both work with helping professionals. mean, that's our bread and butters.

But we've found that some helping professionals can often associate marketing with manipulation and almost trickery in a way. Do you see that with paid marketing?

John Sanders (06:32)
Oh, a hundred percent. think that both, both SEO and, uh, and paid marketing suffers from that because you've got somebody who.

They went to school and to learn to help people and they get out and now they work for somebody for a couple of years and then they're like, I don't want to do this anymore. And then they're like, well, I'll start a business at, which is just this totally alien thing to them because they, you know, they didn't get six business classes while they were working on their master's degree in therapy.

so it can feel a little cheap in some ways, but I think that the issue is, is that you can be both a successful business owner and help people at the same time. there, it's not a mutually exclusive thing. And I think a lot of people went to school, they really wanted to help people and they feel like that this capitalism stuff is not necessarily good, but ultimately.

I think what's cool for us is that when we do a good job is that we are helping people find good therapists through us helping our clients with Google ads or search engine optimization. So that's kind of my take on it, but yeah, there's definitely some resistance to that sometimes.

Mary (07:36)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, we've

talked to our clients because a lot of times they get that feel like they're selling themselves, like they're they use car salesmen, like they're pushing the issue, they're being disingenuous, but we always say, know,

just stick to what you do. Be honest, be authentic, stay within those guidelines, your ethical guidelines or whatever you adhere to. But you still have to put some effort in if you want to get clients. You're not just going to magically appear on somebody's Google search engine result page and be at the top spot or whatever. You're going to have to do something to get those leads.

John Sanders (08:10)
Bye.

Right.

Well, I think part of the problem is that, you know, everyone starts out and they go out and they get a website. In a lot of cases, they do it themselves and think that just immediately after that, everything just works.

Mary (08:41)
Right.

Right.

John Sanders (08:46)
not realizing that search engine optimization can take, depending on the market you're in, three months, six months, 12 months, to really be seen by Google. And it's the same with Google ads is, Google has to figure out this campaign and, you know, what it is you're actually doing. And just to jump back to the disingenuous bit is that that that's where people get in trouble is like, I'll have clients who, and this is definitely a don't do this, where

Mary (08:54)
Yeah.

John Sanders (09:14)
They'll say, well, we're online therapy only, but we have an address on our website and we don't really want to say that we're online therapy and it gets confusing for the customer. Don't do that. That's confusing. Also, customers can smell all of that stuff a mile away.

Mary (09:25)
Yeah.

Winnie (09:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mary (09:30)
Yeah.

John Sanders (09:37)
And ultimately, we'll see people will get conversions and be like, these aren't converting. They all think that we're local to them. Well, because you have an address on your website and you were inscurating like you have an office there and that doesn't work. That might be a rant that I have unleashed on a couple of people recently because we've had a couple of those. And just doesn't work.

Winnie (09:47)
Yeah.

Mary (10:01)
We have clients that do the same thing. They're virtual only, but they get a PO box or they get an address and try to get a Google business profile. we're like, just don't. It's not.

John Sanders (10:07)
Don't do it.

Mary (10:12)
If you get, first off, Google doesn't like that, and if you get caught, you're gonna have problems with Google, but just stick to what you do. If you're virtual, just say we're virtual only, and lean into that. Don't be afraid that you have to make stuff up to be successful.

John Sanders (10:31)
Yeah,

put that forward. was actually, I was talking to a potential client yesterday who had, who was online therapy only, but within their name, they had like the city that they were in because they used to have an office, but it's like, no, we need to change that. like, you know, put that on all of your service pages, online therapy for couples, online therapy for anxiety.

Mary (10:34)
Yeah.

Right.

John Sanders (10:53)
get that out there immediately. And that's one of the things that we try to do in our ads is we want to say, you know, if somebody says therapy near me and our ad shows, I still want to say online in there so they know what click on the, the, the, and go to the website and ultimately, you know, spend, you know, $6 on that click that they know what they're, they're getting into.

Winnie (11:05)
Thank

Mary (11:05)
Right.

Yeah.

Winnie (11:17)
And trying to kind of box that out.

separates you from a well of keywords that for people that want that online, like if you are online only, go after those kind of key phrases, that's where you're gonna get the kind of ideal client that you're looking for, trying to box it out and not advertise that, cut you off from a whole bunch of options for connecting with people.

John Sanders (11:44)
I think a

lot of the reason that people end up trying to masquerade as the local practice when they're not

is because they're scared of BetterHelp and Talkspace and all of those guys just, know, BetterHelp spends millions of dollars a month on Google Ads, but they can only take up one space. especially over the last couple of years, I think a lot of people now kind of realize that, you know, even people outside of our industry realize that like BetterHelp is not really a great thing. You guys know that.

Winnie (11:54)
Yeah, that's so true.

Mary (12:02)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (12:20)
that

anyone listening to this also knows that. But I think that that awareness is out there in the general public now. you can definitely, you can beat them, especially if you've got something, if you've got a service that is not something that they're going to offer. Like if you're doing IFS, there's not, I'm going to guess there's not a lot of IFS practitioners running around BetterHelp. So.

Winnie (12:23)
You

Mary (12:24)
Yeah.

John Sanders (12:46)
So it's, whenever we, I run online ads and like, you know, we're running to an entire state. I usually want it to be something that is very, that's at least somewhat unique. So you're not having to, like, if you're just trying to run ads at the state level for couples anxiety and depression, it's really hard because you really are competing with better help. You really need to have a little more niche to really do that.

Mary (12:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Winnie (13:12)
Absolutely.

Mary (13:12)
I mean, if you're not,

correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're also not using the right keyword terms and you're not putting all your energy into online, but your keywords are misleading, doesn't that increase your, I mean, if you're paying per click and a bunch of people that don't really fit your ideal client are clicking on that because your ad is a little misleading about having a local office, doesn't that drive up your ad costs or how does that work?

John Sanders (13:38)
Well, yeah, you end up maybe spending some money on some clicks that aren't necessarily going to convert for you. because, mean, that's the thing that...

Mary (13:47)
Yeah. So it kind of eats up

your ad budget before you. OK, yeah.

John Sanders (13:53)
Right,

yeah, always want the, you know, when somebody clicks on your ads, we want those people to be, you know, as close to your ideal client as we can. And so if they're looking for something that you don't have, you know, we want to avoid that click as, you know, at all cost.

Mary (14:01)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

And one of the biggest myths we hear constantly and not.

I used to hear this all the time when I first started SEO is that paid ads somehow hurt organic rankings or if you invest in ads, Google stops rewarding your SEO. That's a thing that a lot of therapists come to us and are like, I can't do both. have to, but that's a misconception. mean, especially now, because I think things have changed. How does that work? I know that they can work together strategically too to support each other.

John Sanders (14:44)
Right.

Mary (14:45)
a little information about what that looks like and how that works.

John Sanders (14:49)
So

let's go through a couple of myths. So I've heard the opposite myth sometimes that if you run Google ads, that Google will give you a better organic spot. That's completely fake. There is an indirect effect in that, you know, if you start running Google ads and people start going to your website, they're probably not going to always make a decision the first time they're to your website. And then they're going.

Winnie (15:14)
Thank

John Sanders (15:15)
organically search you later and it's gonna help you organically. It's an indirect effect. There is no magic box where if you start giving Google money that they're gonna help you organically. And then the other myth that you present, and this is from, know, disingenuous marketing companies because the SEO person says, well, you can't do paid ads while you run this. It's because they want all.

marketing dollars problem is that a lot of the things that you guys do are

things that are going to help us. For instance, we didn't even talk about this before we got on the podcast. I was actually talking to a potential client yesterday who was a long time client of yours. And I looked at their website and I was like, yes, they have all, they've got all of the good service pages. They've got so much of the good content. They don't have any website problems that I'm gonna have to tackle here before we really run ads. So, because when you guys write those service pages and that have

Mary (15:58)
Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (16:17)
500 to 1,000 words. mean, those are the pages that we usually are gonna wanna direct our ads to. And if that page is good for SEO, it's also gonna help you, lads.

Mary (16:28)
Right.

We've been talking about how the more real estate you can take on that search engine result page, the better off you are. So if you're up there for a paid ad, but you're also up there organically, you're also in the AI summary, you're in the People Also Ask, you're on that page so many more times that you're that much more visible to potential clients. And that's gonna help you, that's not gonna hurt you.

John Sanders (16:51)
This is grocery store theory, right? If you're looking at a grocery store shelf and you have a product, you want as many places on the grocery store shelf as you can get. And then also, you didn't mention maps, and there's also usually a sponsored section on maps as well. So mean, you can potentially get in three, four spots, that's spots that your competitors aren't on, and you're more likely to get those customers.

Winnie (17:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mary (17:01)
Yeah.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

and yep.

Winnie (17:17)
And like you mentioned earlier, people don't always a lot of it's research looking, searching multiple times. And a big thing we've been talking about lately is that brand amplification and the more real estate you take up. Like you said, in the grocery store theory, it's going to bring them back to you again and again, even if that next time they're searching your name or going directly to the website. So even if right then it doesn't lead to a click, like it is, it just strengthens the chance that they're going to.

to be a click later on down the road.

John Sanders (17:48)
Yeah. And, you know, especially for some of these topics to pull the trigger on, on doing therapy, people are going to have to come back to the site over and over again. This is one thing that we've seen with a customer that we have that deals like very specifically with infidelity issues. That's not like going to therapy because you have some like mild anxiety, like that like shattering stuff. And for them to pull the trigger on that one is, is going to be hard and is going to require, you know, probably multiple visits to the website.

Mary (18:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

and we talk about that being that visible all the time builds familiarity before they even click through to your website. They start building that recognition of your brand. They start feeling more comfortable because they're seeing you in multiple places. They think, OK, this person knows what they're talking about because they're all over the page. So I mean, it really reduces that.

scaredness or that timidness and it kind of builds that familiarity so when they do click to your website they're like okay this person gets me and they're more likely to convert I think.

John Sanders (18:52)
Yeah, I think that that's that that's 100 % true. And, you know, when it comes to paid ads, you know, what our biggest stumbling block in a lot of cases is kind of that website piece. And now, one of those clients I talked to yesterday, the one that this website was definitely not ready and I had to

through and get her I was like, here are some things you need to do. And I don't even want you to run ads until these things are done. Because I don't want you to run ads and not get anything and then get mad at me because you didn't get anything. So yeah, it's always you know, fix the website first is just so important for

Mary (19:21)
Right. Yeah.

Winnie (19:30)
certainly.

John Sanders (19:31)
you

know, not only those, not only the visual aspects, but also, you know, having, having all of that right content. So when I get simplified customers, it's usually like, Oh, you've been working with them for years. Oh yeah. We, you already have all of the things we need. don't have website problems. We're ready to go.

Mary (19:46)
I think some people also have this misconception that Google Ads are less complicated or easier than they are.

There's a lot that goes into it. mean, a lot of thought, a lot of research, finding negative key, doing all of that. A lot of people think that, you do a Google ad and magically I get 100 customers. Like I'm getting customers through the door constantly. And like you said, but if their website's confusing, the Google ads aren't going to serve a purpose because they're going to get to the website and they're going to be like, this makes no sense to me. what actually makes Can't

Winnie (20:09)
Okay.

John Sanders (20:17)
Bye.

Mary (20:19)
campaigns successful, you know, and how long does it take usually? What does that process look like for a client? Like with the research part, you know, finding the right keywords, how do you guys go about that?

John Sanders (20:31)
Sure. Well, you talked about the simplicity of Google Ads. Google Ads has changed probably more in the last 12 to 15 months than it, I think, had in a decade. Because for so long, was you've got your keywords and you know.

Yeah, they might change how the ads look or they might add a different keyword match type within it. But now that Google has built so much AI into this, it's no longer about just targeting therapy near me as a keyword that, you know, lot of those strategies don't work. So I've been joking recently. I don't know if I've told you guys this is that I feel like more like you guys in that I can no longer just tell Google this is what I want. Go do the thing.

Mary (21:16)
Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (21:16)
is

that we're trying to influence Google. so because Google Ads has gotten a lot more complicated, one of the things we've talked about offline is this idea of conversion tracking. Tracking somebody fills out the form, fills out your acuity or account only schedule or calls you, something like that is that three years ago, you could get away with not having very much of that in Google Ads. It was nice if you had it.

Mary (21:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (21:43)
and Google could definitely do some stuff, it's now gotten to the point. It's pretty much mandatory.

for those AI products that they have because they wanna be able to take those conversions and say, let's go out and find a lot more people like this and they've gotten a lot more effective at that. So now we see search terms that were like, I wouldn't have necessarily gone after that, but they're not just targeting keywords anymore. It's user intent and it's user history and what they've been looking for and serving the ad at the right time.

Winnie (22:13)
me.

John Sanders (22:17)
So that's a really long-winded answer, but Google Ads has definitely gotten a lot more complicated. And even like things that we were doing six months ago, we figured out a formula on a particular type of ad. We've had to trash most of that since the start of the year because of different things that Google has done in the platform. So it's definitely very, very much a quickly evolving thing right now.

Mary (22:20)
No, I mean...

Winnie (22:42)
I'm glad to know that SEO and paid ads are really overlapping in that right now because it's just been a whirlwind of changes. but also the fact it's, it's interesting to hear that now kind of what we're needing to track, how

of what information is important is I think more aligned than ever. Probably much to all of our dismay because it is a ever-changing landscape. I don't know about you, but I think SEO is going to keep changing pretty steadily and rapidly for the next little while.

kind of seems like we're in that boat together, but that, like you said, understanding the user intent, the behavior, what exactly, like following it all the way through, that's always been a part of SEO and important, but I would say even for us, it's gotten more important, more strategic over the past six months to two years.

John Sanders (23:36)
Yeah, it's, uh, it, you know, I often say, you know, for, for the industry that we are in, it's evolve or die. And like, you've got to keep up with this stuff. And it's, it is amazing to me. Sometimes people will come to me and they'll be like, yeah, I worked with this Google ads person and they set up this campaign for me a year ago. And it looks like a campaign that would have been set up a decade ago. And I'm like, all of this is, is, is the thinking of 2015 and does not work anymore.

Mary (23:43)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah.

John Sanders (24:04)
And I think you probably hear the same thing on SEO, like, well, can't I put keywords in the page? Doesn't Google do anything with that? And I don't think they've done anything with that. It's since 2009, I believe. Am I right on that one? So yeah, we constantly have to be watching this stuff and evolving with it, especially with

Mary (24:20)
Yeah.

Winnie (24:21)
Yeah.

John Sanders (24:31)
know, bring up the AI stuff is, you know, now that that's really more and more people are starting to use AI for us. Later this year, Chad GPT is gonna roll out their ads to the public. We're gonna see what that looks like. I've occasionally look at that test. And then on the Gemini side for Google, eventually Google ads will appear in Gemini.

Mary (24:45)
Mm-hmm.

Winnie (24:47)
Yeah.

John Sanders (24:56)
There is no official date on when that's gonna happen, but Google makes two thirds of its revenue from ads. There's no way that they're not gonna put ads in Gemini at some point. It's just a matter of what that form is gonna look like.

Winnie (25:07)
yeah.

Mary (25:10)
Yeah, and I mean, go ahead, Winnie.

Winnie (25:12)
I was just gonna say, I didn't even think about how that's like another layer added on for you guys. Another type of ad, another thing not only is AI changing, how every part of the digital landscape works, it's adding new components to it. Just continuously. yeah.

John Sanders (25:28)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, even for you guys, too. So

my wife, Laura, who you guys recently did a three month SEO job on the other day told me all of my clients are saying they found me on Gemini. What is going on? I'm like, that's all of like some of that SEO stuff that that we had you do earlier this year. And so that's it's definitely good to hear. And.

Winnie (25:39)
Yes.

Yeah.

John Sanders (25:56)
So, I mean, there's, there is that aspect, but still a lot of people are using just traditional search, but now it's kind of having to deal with, you know, both, you know, kind of the, the keyword stuff, the therapy near me's and also the person going into Gemini, you know, writing two paragraphs about what their ideal therapist looks like. And, and, and then Gemini trying to find that for them.

Winnie (26:02)
There we go.

Mm-hmm.

Mary (26:09)
Mm-hmm.

Winnie (26:15)
Yeah.

Mary (26:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, I

mean like it.

Because people are using, like we talk about, talk to text a lot more and not just typing in three words into the Google search bar. They're typing in these big, long, complicated things that they're looking for. And AI is trying to decipher that and do that user behavior pattern and really match to that specific problem that they're dealing with. So I mean, one thing we've noticed is that as content has gotten easier to create with AI, it's also become harder to differentiate.

Winnie (26:24)
you

John Sanders (26:27)
Right.

Winnie (26:48)
Yeah.

Mary (26:50)
So many people are just throwing stuff, like talking to AI, creating a blog, and throwing it up on their website. But you still have to be specific, differentiate your content, and stand out some way, like be unique. you talked about that earlier, where you prefer that if they're going after the whole set, you want them to have a unique perspective or a unique thing that they're trying to accomplish, right? Because AI.

It's easier to create content, at the same time, it's harder to tell that content from just everybody else that's using AI to create content.

John Sanders (27:23)
Yeah, think it's also, I mean, it's easy to create that content, but now it's about creating good content, stick out. Just we were watching, I think a video that Google made for, it was one of my account managers made a video for like a YouTube ad with using some AI and like they showed it to our group. within five seconds, we're all like, uh-uh, no, she not real. She's not real. She got the uncanny valley in the.

Mary (27:30)
Right.

Winnie (27:30)
Yep.

Yeah.

John Sanders (27:50)
face.

No, we're not we're not down with this. And, you know, I think people can smell that a mile away. And I think that they can also smell the AI content as well. Like there's there. It just it lacks a certain soul. And so like if you're going to write your own content, like you have to make sure that like your soul is actually in it and and that

Winnie (27:55)
Yeah.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

John Sanders (28:10)
resonate with people, it's not just content for the sake of trying to get clicks.

Mary (28:18)
Yeah, I mean we recently had a client, didn't we Winnie, was like putting up 30 blogs a month.

Winnie (28:22)
Yeah, I was just about to

say during team meeting this week, we have a client who's like, I can write all this content now because of AI. And we're like, you need to way scale that. You're like posting one every day that needs to go back. more, sometimes our answer is you need more content. A lot of times that's our answer because people aren't wanting to put out content. But in some cases, you need to dial it back, reassess it and...

John Sanders (28:26)
Yeah.

Sure.

Bye.

Winnie (28:48)
put more effort into it, Mary made suggestions to make videos to put in it, but like the whole point of that content is one, obviously to get you ranking in Google, but to make that first connection with a potential client so they feel something, they feel like they can start to trust you, that they have a connection with you before they ever fill out the contact form or pick up the phone or however they kind of reach out to you.

John Sanders (29:14)
Well, also from just like a content perspective, you you put all of that stuff in Google search console and tell Google search console, hey, look at these 30, these 30 blogs. Like how does Google know which one is the most important when you're just pumping that much information in all the time that cannot be.

Mary (29:26)
Yeah.

think yeah Google

can't differentiate it Google has to decide then what it's gonna pick as an important piece of content and everything else is just gonna get ignored so yeah I mean that's that's definitely conversations that we have with some of our clients yeah

Winnie (29:45)
It's like a fine line to walk. feel like everything

in digital marketing, there's too much and there's too little and you have to find that in-between spot.

John Sanders (29:49)
us.

Right, right. Well, you know, I famously, you know, some when somebody asked a question about, you know, absolute, you know, is it this or that? the answer always starts with in marketing. It depends. And it just it depends on it depends on so many so many things.

Winnie (30:06)
Thank you.

Mary (30:06)
Yep.

Winnie (30:10)
Absolutely.

Mary (30:11)
And I've

also noticed, I keep reading about Google automating ad campaigns so people can do it on their own. Have you had any experience with people trying to utilize that? Totally just end it coming, you would be like, help, this is a disaster.

John Sanders (30:19)
yeah.

So the problem is, and this is why agencies like mine will continue to survive, because Google's number one priority will always be to maximize their revenue and profit. Their second priority is to get you clients.

Mary (30:40)
Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (30:41)
So in a lot of cases, you talk to that Google rep or you take those automatic recommendations from Google, they're not necessarily good for you. You are paying for Google to do testing with a new product or put you in a, you you put your ads in a place that they're not going to convert.

Mary (30:53)
Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (31:00)
You know the example that I have is you know at the start of the year we were running a certain type of ad and then all of a sudden Google decided for all of these clients to create these 15 second AI videos based on images that we had given it and put them on as YouTube ads and they are Horrible and it crashed a lot of campaigns and so it's stuff like that Unfortunately, you do have all there there are options to go in and turn a lot of the stuff off But you have to know

and in a lot of it is buried deep, deep, deep down in there to go in and say, no, do not create images for me. No, do not create ad text for me, which I just absolutely won't let Google do. Google one time, in my case, this was back in probably like...

Mary (31:31)
Right.

John Sanders (31:47)
2019 or 2020 where I had a master's level therapist and in their ad started calling this master's level therapist a psychologist and I was like, nope, nope, nope, we're not gonna get in trouble with the licensing police for this client. And so yeah, definitely don't want them writing ad content for me.

Winnie (32:00)
Yeah.

and

I think that kind of ties back into that, you know, saying the wrong thing, not only can it get you in trouble, but it can build the wrong relationship before they become a client, before they contact, if they see one thing and then they get on there, what have you. And then it's like, wait a minute, was that a bait and switch? What was that? If it's, you know, not good looking videos or whatever that Google creates, it affects

that opinion that is made long before even they're on the website or they're on the contact page.

John Sanders (32:41)
So mean, Google's gonna constantly tell you, yeah, you should spend more money, you should.

Mary (32:46)
Mm-hmm.

Winnie (32:46)
Yeah.

John Sanders (32:47)
due to

this experimental product. And in a lot of cases, those are things that's not in your interest. I've had a couple of clients recently who have said, well, Google said that I was supposed to spend more money. And the small therapy practices, they're spending $10,000 on ads a month. And I'm like, please stop doing that. You're making me very uncomfortable that you're spending that much money a month. It can't be effective. Otherwise, your practice would be huge, and you would be rolling in leads.

Winnie (32:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mary (33:07)
Yes! No!

Winnie (33:09)
Thank you.

Mary (33:14)
Right.

John Sanders (33:15)
So yeah, you definitely, if anyone listening to this, you know, takes anything away from this, it's, if you were a therapy practice, unless you are extremely, extremely large and have like 20 offices or something along those lines, you should not be spending north of $10,000 on Google ads. That's crazy.

Mary (33:36)
That is insane.

Winnie (33:36)
Why all of

them?

John Sanders (33:37)
But you'll also have

people who they'll be like, I talked to this one agency and they said, I definitely need to be spending $10,000. I'm like, no, it's because they want you to spend a lot of money with them. It's not, they don't have your best interest in mind. They're just trying to line their pockets.

Mary (33:51)
Right.

Winnie (33:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Another kind of version of that to you guys here, because we, for this one, well, chat, GBT said, need to do this or. Grymnize says I need to do this. Why aren't you doing that? I'm like, because that's, that's not, that's not right. That's not going to get you the results you want or like, that's a whole different ball game than.

Mary (34:03)
Yeah.

John Sanders (34:05)
sound.

Mary (34:07)
That's not right.

John Sanders (34:09)
we've seen it.

Winnie (34:16)
what we're playing and it can be so hard to be like it's a tool it's a great tool we love it as a tool but it is not the end all be all it needs to be checked and it is not looking out for your best interest it's not it's

John Sanders (34:29)
right much

like chat gpt

can't necessarily replace your therapist. It definitely not replace your marketing professionals because yes, we have definitely had people come. Well, I asked chat GPT about my Google ads and they said that we should be doing this, this and that. And it's like, well, there's a reason we're not doing those things because we don't, we don't want you to necessarily spend a whole bunch of money that you, that you don't, that you don't have because you know, most of the people who are listening to this are small business owners and you, you, you do not have

Winnie (34:34)
Eggs. Exactly.

Mary (34:36)
Right.

Winnie (34:42)
Go.

Mary (34:48)
Yeah.

Winnie (34:49)
Yeah.

Hmm.

John Sanders (35:02)
unlimited amounts of money to spend on ads or search engine optimization. You have to really pick where your marketing dollars go. And so you can't necessarily go out and do all of the things. And just in a lot of cases, it depends on the industry. And there are just certain things that are not going to work for marketing therapy that would work in other industries.

Mary (35:25)
Right, and we've

even had some people who do consultations and are like, why should I pay you to do this whenever I can just go to chat GPT and SEO everything myself? I'm like, okay.

not recommending that you use chat GPT to find your keywords and write your content and do all of that. But we do get pushback like that where they think that they can just use AI and do it all themselves. And some people can't be talked out of that because they think chat GPT is the, or Gemini is like the end all be all of everything.

John Sanders (35:55)
right.

Well, and I mean, the key you said there is they can do it themselves. And the problem is if you are a therapy practice and you have five therapists right now and you're looking to scale to 10, you don't have time for that.

Mary (36:03)
Right.

Right.

John Sanders (36:13)
You 100 % need to offload that much like I don't do my own taxes. Could I? Yes. Sounds miserable. I don't want to do it. That's why I have an accountant and that's why you have marketing people. like if you get sued, you don't just try to chat GPT your way through it. Although my brother is a lawyer and he has actually said that he has had

Mary (36:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

John Sanders (36:37)
other people, potential clients come to him and say, well, Chachi PT told me this. Yeah. So I think every profession is getting questioned.

Winnie (36:42)
no.

John Sanders (36:47)
that. to me, the AI models that we're dealing with are still, they are not hyper the hyper intelligent AIs of science fiction, they have just seen a whole lot of stuff, and are regurgitating it in a way that a lot of times makes sense. But there's definitely a lot of times that it does not make sense specifically in your situation. So yeah.

Mary (36:56)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And especially

like with Google Ads, mean, I know, like I've looked at it before, but I don't understand a thing about it. So I'm like, I need a professional to do because I don't understand, what is it? Negative keywords or all of, I don't understand any of that stuff. So I know that I couldn't do it.

John Sanders (37:27)
Right. So.

Well, and it's just it's constantly changing, which is why, I you you guys in the past have run ads with us. That's why right now you guys are working on my SEO. You've worked on my wife's SEO is that like it's, you know, there's deep expertise that we have that chat GPT and Gemini's and Claude's are just not gonna have.

Mary (37:35)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Winnie (37:54)
I,

in consults, sometimes we get, you we answer the questions about SEO and then they'll ask about like ads and that sort of thing. And they'll mention like AI. I'm like, you need to go talk to John at Refke. Here is his website. Go talk to Refke. Don't, don't trust what AI is saying. I wouldn't trust it. Go talk to them. I was like, I don't understand it. That is not my wheelhouse. I am glad that they are the experts in it. Here, go.

Mary (38:10)
Don't do ads with AI.

John Sanders (38:14)
Yeah.

Winnie (38:22)
Go talk to an expert about it because half the information you learned about SEO from the large language model was not applicable to you in this position.

John Sanders (38:34)
Yeah, and I mean, even

in a lot of cases, like you can find like outdated information. Yeah, you can go to, you know, whatever your AI of choice is, and you can ask it something and it might spit something back at you. And it's like, no, you pulled that and you could go into the sources now and you can be like, no, this article that you pulled from is five years old. None of this exists anymore. So.

Winnie (38:51)
Yeah. Yeah, especially with

everything is changing so quickly.

John Sanders (38:57)
Right, and that's our job is to keep up with that. And I don't think the AI always does so well with kind of that time differentiation.

Mary (39:07)
No. And I like the one thing you said about if you do have a larger practice, or even if you're a single practitioner, you're not going to have time to invest in how.

you know, how much work actually goes into the Google Ads, how much work actually goes into the research and all of that. And I think that one of the biggest challenges we see is that sometimes people feel pressure to like do everything. Like they have to do SEO, they have to do ads, they have to do social media, they have to do directories, email marketing. how, when a client comes to you, you know, because eventually that starts feeling like, you know, it's exhausting. I can't do all of that. So when a client comes to you for,

John Sanders (39:44)
Right.

Mary (39:48)
consultation, how do you like help them determine like what the best fit is for them? Like I know sometimes we will just say this this is a you know you need to go work with John that you're not right you know you're not right for SEO at this time this is going to be a better fit for you. So how do you kind of help those clients make those determinations about you don't have to do everything all at once?

John Sanders (40:08)
So I think it depends on where the client is in their life cycle. I recently talked to a client who signed up with us who was just starting and was hiring like two to three people off the bat. And yes, in the long run, they're gonna need some SEO, but that's gonna take six to 12 months to get going.

Mary (40:27)
Right.

John Sanders (40:28)
they don't have that type of time. They need clients in a month. They need clients in two months to keep these therapists fed. And so that's really where Google Ads comes in. And so like if you're starting a new practice or you're really trying to expand, or if you just have that Gulf where, you you're losing, you know, or eight clients a month are graduating from your practice and you're only getting four leads a month, you have a gap.

Mary (40:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Winnie (40:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mary (40:45)
Right.

Right.

John Sanders (40:57)
and the number of leads that you need to keep going and to keep growing. And I think that that's where ads definitely comes in for newer practices. As far as social media, I think that that is better for bigger practices who have a brand. But if you're going to spend money, and this sounds very self-serving for the three of us to say,

Mary (41:07)
Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (41:21)
You should probably work on your SEO and your Google Ads before you jump off into the social media landscape. I think that, yeah, if you've got four locations and 40 therapists, yes, you need to have more of a social media presence and doing some things over there and more of the email marketing. you know.

Mary (41:36)
Right.

John Sanders (41:41)
social media, because you're interrupting people's disassociation as they're scrolling through Facebook or Instagram or whatever, doesn't lead to necessarily to a lot of direct conversions. It is more of an exercise in branding. And in the beginning, when you need butts in seats, that's where SEO and Google Ads come into play.

Mary (41:49)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, we've just made the shift to doing like SEO with the brand amplification for, and I think our target is usually practices who are wanting to grow, who are wanting to get their brand out there. But you can't, but just to do it by itself necessarily, you know, we.

We want you to have that good SEO again. I mean, it all comes back to, okay, you're gonna see the social media post, you might click on it, but is your website decent? Do you have all the things you need? So I mean, yeah, it's like, it's again, that fine line you have to walk to determine what's gonna be the best fit for you.

John Sanders (42:42)
Well,

and really thinking about it, SEO is really kind more of a subset.

or excuse me, social media is really more of a subset of SEO because like you're trying to get these links going to your website. so ultimately, before you do anything like that, you've got to have those basics done. And that really comes back to your website, the visuals on your website, do you have good content on your website and making sure that everything on that is working correctly before you go out and start trying to do these other marketing avenues.

Mary (42:50)
Yeah.

Right.

Right. And

I think, you know, ultimately for both of us, the goal isn't just to get people traffic. You want quality traffic. You want ideal clients. You want people who are going to convert. I think at the end of the day, you know, that's the goal for both of us is that to do the best we can to connect people with their ideal clients and people who are actually going to follow through.

John Sanders (43:35)
Right. Yeah, especially on our side of things. You know, I'll have people come to me and be like, yeah, I've been spending a whole bunch of money on Google ads and I'm only spending like a dollar a click and I go in and I find that, you know, you've been putting ads on massage therapy and a whole bunch of other stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with you. and people are only spending five seconds on your website and they're leaving. This is bad traffic. You're wasting money on.

Winnie (43:52)
Thank you.

Mary (43:55)
Yeah.

Right.

John Sanders (44:03)
on traffic that has nothing to do with what you're doing. And if you're not careful and you take all of Google's recommendations, you can end up with a lot of that. Or even just like informational traffic. And when people are looking for something on anxiety, tease for anxiety. I don't want that ad.

Mary (44:16)
Mm-hmm.

Winnie (44:17)
with that.

Mary (44:21)
That's right.

John Sanders (44:22)
or they're looking for blogs or they're looking for products to solve their problems. They're not actually looking for therapy or counseling. And those are the searches that you want to avoid. In a lot of cases, those are really inexpensive clicks and you can get a bunch of them, but they will never do anything for you.

Mary (44:29)
right.

Winnie (44:37)
Yeah.

Mary (44:37)
Right.

Winnie (44:38)
From an SEO standpoint, can't tell you how many times we've had people come who they were told.

from somewhere else that they should target a specific niche or topic that they don't resonate with. It does not align with their ideal clients, but it was like easier ranking difficulty and the search volume. And then they come to us and I'm like, okay, so this is who you want to go after grief. And they're like, actually, no, I don't enjoy working with grief. Those people don't convert. I'm like, well, no, because if that's not your specialty, if that's not who you're wanting to work with, they're not gonna be those ideal clients.

people that convert because you're advertising to the wrong audience. We got a shift. We need to make sure what you're putting out matches. Just like in the ads, it needs to match the service you're offering. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.

John Sanders (45:22)
it.

Mary (45:27)
I you should.

John Sanders (45:30)
Right.

Do you know, letting kind of Google determine like what your what your business should be is always that that doesn't that doesn't always work. And then I think the other danger with niching, though, I will say is that you can go too, too far. Mitch rabbit hole. I once had a customer who was like, I only want to work with women who are in like this 10 year age range who have these issues in this very limited physical space. And I'm like, you're

Mary (45:36)
Right.

Winnie (45:44)
absolutely.

Mary (45:44)
Right.

Winnie (45:53)
Yep.

Mary (45:58)
Mm-hmm.

John Sanders (45:59)
your clientele

Mary (45:59)
That's too much.

John Sanders (46:01)
is about is like you and the five people you know who are like you and that's it. So you can't go that far down the rabbit hole.

Winnie (46:06)
Yeah.

Mary (46:06)
Yeah.

And that's one of the misconceptions we see about niching when we talk to clients is that they think that they have to limit it so much that it's this tiny window. But we tie, like if you're doing EMDR, we'll talk about anxiety and how EMDR helps that, how EMDR helps depression. I mean, you don't have to narrow your focus so much that you're excluding people. You just are fine-tuning who you want to actually connect with, I think.

Winnie (46:11)
Yeah, it's.

John Sanders (46:32)
right.

Right. Yeah,

I think that that's a really good way of putting it. yeah, and so that is a danger that with all of the niche talk is that you can go too far so you can niche far enough from being a generalist and still get clients and not be so hyper specific that you've made your target audience is just really, really small and ultimately not going to be enough to

Mary (46:44)
Yeah.

Winnie (46:45)
Thank you.

Mary (46:51)
Right.

John Sanders (47:01)
your business even if you got 100 % of them and you're not going to 100 % of them.

Mary (47:06)
right.

Winnie (47:06)
What

about finding that balance?

Mary (47:08)
Yeah, and I think, you know...

think one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that visibility is layered. Sustainable marketing is becoming less about choosing one strategy, but it's understanding more about how multiple things work together, how multiple touch points work together to build a comprehensive, complete strategy. It's not just I need to be ranking number one and that's all I need to do, or I need to do Google Ads and that's all I need to do.

fine-tuning your perspective and understanding how different things work together.

Winnie (47:43)
At the really at the end of the day, it's not just about helping professionals build up traffic. It's about helping them build trust with potential clients, build trust with Google.

and just start to build those connections with the people that are like, I say this a lot, but the people that are gonna fill their cup. And also on the reverse side, I know I really enjoy knowing that we're helping people who need support from helping professionals find the right fit for them as well. The people who are looking to help them and what they're dealing with also.

John Sanders (48:17)
I think that's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job is like.

Winnie (48:19)
Yeah.

John Sanders (48:20)
you know, getting to hear, especially from old clients who, this one old client, he was like one of my first like contract clients. This was even before I was doing RevKey. And you know, he had quit his job at a state mental health agency and he had just gone out on his own. That guy now has three offices and like 20 people working for him. And like, and how many people, how many people have those therapists been able to go out and help them? So that's super rewarding for me, because I don't, I'm not a therapist.

Mary (48:37)
That's awesome.

help. Yeah.

John Sanders (48:48)
And so I don't have those skills, but I can use my skills for some good and help people indirectly with some of their problems by getting them with a good therapist.

Mary (48:49)
Yep. Right.

Winnie (48:53)
Yeah.

Mary (48:55)
Yeah, and I think that's

the same perspective that we have. I that's what makes us passionate about what we do is that we are helping people find the help that they need that's going to help them have a better life. mean, and from the client perspective, their business is going to hopefully thrive. And from a...

a perspective of the people who are going to see them, their lives are going to improve. that's why we do what we do. So for closing thoughts, if you could give people just some tips on things that are really important to keep in mind about Google Ads, what would you tell a potential client?

John Sanders (49:35)
I think it comes down to being realistic with your goals and having the budget to spend on those goals. So if you come to me and say, I need 50 clients a month, you have to be willing to spend the money to get enough traffic to your site. To do that,

Winnie (49:52)
you.

John Sanders (49:56)
And then I'd say the second thing is, especially if you've tried Google Ads on your own and it's not worked, in a lot of cases, Google is kind of taking you down some rabbit holes and they make it very easy for you to spend money on.

putting your ads in places that they shouldn't be on keywords that they shouldn't be on, on third party websites that might not necessarily be good actors. So, you know, be skeptical of some of those things. you know, but ultimately it goes back to my tax example. You shouldn't try to do your own taxes in a lot of cases, unless you really enjoy that and you're really good at it. And in a lot of cases, you shouldn't be trying to do your marketing

Mary (50:12)
right?

Winnie (50:14)
This is...

Yeah.

John Sanders (50:35)
in the same vein.

Mary (50:37)
Yeah,

I I totally agree with that. But I just think that we practice being very transparent with people, and I know you guys do too, about the cost up front. And I always tell people to be leery of people who guarantee results, who will do it for like $100 a month.

Winnie (50:55)
Thank

John Sanders (50:59)
Yeah.

Mary (50:59)
Be smart about who you ask to help you do your research. Find people who are transparent, who are honest about the potential for results, the return on investment. And I think that that's why we refer to you all the time, because we trust you, and we've seen the work you do, and you have great results with your clients. So we appreciate having somebody that we can refer clients to and feel comfortable that they're going to be well taken care of.

John Sanders (51:26)
Aw, thanks. Yeah, that's always nice to hear. it's the same thing for you guys, is being able to, know, people will ask, well, do you do SEO? No, not really, but I know some people who do.

Mary (51:39)
Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you for joining us today and sharing your perspective on all of this. I know that this is going to be very helpful for a lot of practitioners who are sitting on the fence about, what do I need to do? How do I need to move forward? you know, we appreciate you being on here. We love you.

John Sanders (51:55)
Yeah,

I appreciate it. And so, yeah, if you guys want to find us, feel free to go out to revkey.com. That's R-E-V-K-E-Y.com slash podcast. And you can actually see some other podcasts I've been on. And much like some of the things that we've been talking about here, ultimately, we want you to click on that contact button and fill out that schedule. And so figure out how we can help your practice. Absolutely.

Mary (52:15)
Yeah, I mean and it doesn't cost anything to do a consultation, to get information,

to educate yourself and see what options are available. I mean, you know, that's important. Do that and, you know, take the time to learn about what your options are. Don't just assume that you don't need it or it's not going to work or, you know, just I encourage you guys to just, you know, schedule that consultation and hear what they have to say.

Winnie (52:32)
Yeah.

John Sanders (52:41)
Yeah,

I appreciate you guys having me. This has been fun.

Mary (52:43)
Yeah, awesome.

Winnie (52:45)
Thank you for being

Mary (52:46)
Go ahead.

Winnie (52:47)
here. Thank you to everyone that is listening for joining us for another episode of From Keywords to Connections.

If

this conversation resonated with you, share it with another helping professional who's trying to navigate modern visibility with SEO, with Google Ads, with social media, with all of the things that comes with modern visibility. We aim to help you do it ethically, thoughtfully, and sustainably. We'll see you next time.

Mary (53:14)
guys

John Sanders (53:14)
Thanks.