How Clients Can Best Fill Their Role in the 3 Collaborative Phases of Page Writing
At CounselingWise, content writing is a collaborative process between our client (you and your expertise) and our writers (their skills).
This collaboration begins even before a writer gets assigned to your project. The prewriting step of filling out page questionnaires to provide us with your expert insight on your services is typically the most time-consuming part of this collaboration.
Phase 1: Page Questionnaires
Our page questionnaires have anywhere between 3 and 13 questions to answer, depending on which type of page we are writing for you.
The most important thing to keep in mind when filling out these questionnaires is to not get bogged down with too much information and details. We understand that your enthusiasm for your work can make you want to explain it all, but pause a moment and consider your audience and what you’re trying to accomplish with the page. (TMI is not good for keeping readers engaged!)
Think about some of these important factors:
- Purpose of your page – Explaining to a layman (potential client) what services you’re offering and motivating them to call you.
- Simple, clear, and straightforward is typically best.
- A reader’s understanding of your services – How many details would you have to provide to give potential clients a good general idea of why they should seek your services? Depending on the page’s purpose, what type of information do they really need to have about the approaches you’re using to help them?
- Most readers prefer a well-rounded, comprehensive outline over too many details.
- A reader deciding to call you – How can they benefit from your services? Why should they work with you?
- Bringing in the human element and your unique way of working with your clients is typically the most compelling reason for a reader to call you. While credentials, training, years of experience, and other quantifiable aspects of your work can be reassuring, most people are looking for a connection with the therapist.
Ultimately, with your questionnaire answers, you want to provide the writer with enough information to write content that will help a potential client make an informed choice, but not so much that they will feel overwhelmed.
The flavor of who you are and what you bring to the table in therapy is something that your interview with the writer in the next step will allow you both to explore. This is the most personal part of our collaborative process.
(IMPORTANT: Please do not just provide links to sites—neither for the content nor the tone of the page. It’s not our writers’ responsibility to pick out information for you or spend time figuring out what type of tone a sample page represents.)
Phase 2: Interview(s) with Writer
Our writers need to infuse the page content with your personality, warmth, and uniqueness. That is why interviews are about more than just clarifying the information from the questionnaire; they give the writer an opportunity to learn about how deeply you care for your profession and clients.
As mentioned above, the human element of the therapeutic relationship—your uniqueness when interacting with your clients—plays a huge part in converting a reader into a client. We want to bring that out in the page content and make you and your services stand out from the crowd. While it’s tempting to talk about your services by just giving information like “we provide a client-centered, solution-focused approach,” consider being more specific so that writers can include something more inviting for the reader.
So, when you talk to your writer during the interview, think about how you can bring that unique flavor across as you explain in more depth how therapy sessions with you work. Consider:
- In what ways is working with you a unique experience?
- What is your special way of approaching clients’ issues, forming a connection with them, and making them feel at ease?
- How would you describe the level of exploration you do in therapy? (After all, therapy is more than laying on a couch and someone taking notes.)
After the interview, your writer will combine the information from the questionnaire with their notes and understanding of who you are to compose your page content. Once they send you the first draft of your page, the third phase of collaboration will begin.
Phase 3: Draft Revisions
Communication is the imparting—transmitting or infusing—of a message or instructions into another person’s mind so that they understand what you mean by what you’re saying.
While both you and your writer may think that you’re on the same page, please keep in mind that you’re still two different individuals. And that means that, sometimes, a writer’s interpretation of what you had in mind may differ from what you had actually envisioned.
This is why we include two revisions in the writing process for every page. Your feedback is very important! Especially for the first page, the revision phase allows you and your writer to get into a groove together. And it’s important that you give this process a chance.
Our experience has taught us that the revision phase can be the most difficult part for the majority of therapists. We’ve found that many therapists are too timid when providing feedback for the first draft. It is as if they’re still wearing their therapist cap, per se, and easing into what needs to be adjusted so as not to overwhelm or upset the writer. It’s an understandable mindset considering how many therapists typically approach working with their clients.
However, in order for our collaboration to be most successful during the draft revisions, we need you to take off the therapist cap and put on the editor cap instead. Keep this in mind:
- Purpose of each revision – For the first draft, we need the most direct and thorough feedback. If you follow that advice, the second draft should mostly require light input to dot the I’s and cross the T’s.
- What we need from you – Feedback should be frank and specific. No worries; our writers expect this type of input and won’t take offense.
- How to approach revising content – We also recommend making fewer direct edits to the content and providing more comments about what you feel didn’t hit the spot. That means saying more than “I don’t like this part” or “the language is not empathetic enough.”
- Note: Of course, we do understand that you may do better making direct edits to the content than explaining what might need to be changed. But if anyhow possible, we would like to avoid you putting in too much time reworking the content and, instead, let the writer do that. (In certain cases, a phone call may be beneficial to talk about needed adjustments.)
- Finalizing the page – When you accept the final version of a page, we will conclude that you are satisfied with the work and ready to move on with the next page. (If you are not, you need to let us know before finalizing the content.)
Over the years, we have found that when our clients are informed and go into the writing process with the right expectations and mindset—expressing themselves freely, providing clear direction, and keeping in mind that miscommunication can happen—it enhances our teamwork. And even if there are kinks along the way, together we can find solutions to address the issues and make collaborating on your project an enjoyable experience for both you and us.
Thank you for taking the time to understand how you can enhance collaboration with us!
—The CounselingWise Writing Team