If writing a blog takes you two or three hours, you want to know it’s actually going to help you get clients. Especially now that AI can answer almost any question in seconds.
So, does blogging still work for counsellors – or are you wasting your time?
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It’s a question I get asked a lot, and one of my clients asked me this exact question only last week. And I understand why. You don’t need another marketing job to add to your list just because somebody somewhere said, You should be blogging.
You want to know it’s actually doing something. And ultimately, for those of us running a business, that something needs to lead towards getting more of the right clients.
Are People Still Reading Blogs?
You might be thinking, 'Well, I don’t really read blogs anymore'. But I think we often read blogs without even realising they're blogs.
For example, imagine you’re thinking about buying a new coffee machine. You don’t know whether you need a pod machine, a bean-to-cup machine or one of those beautiful expensive ones that will apparently turn your kitchen into a branch of Costa.
So you Google something like 'What type of coffee machine should I buy?' or 'Are bean-to-cup coffee machines worth it?' You find something that looks useful, click on it and spend five minutes reading it before deciding what to buy.
You’ve just read a blog!
So we haven’t necessarily stopped reading blogs, but the way we find and consume them has changed.
And this isn’t just my opinion. HubSpot, one of the biggest names in content marketing, found that 93% of marketers working for businesses with blogs considered blogging important or very important to their strategy. Half also said the return they were getting from blogging had increased compared with the previous year.
HubSpot's 2025 State of Blogging Report [Data from 500+ Marketers]
There’s an interesting message coming from the team at NP Digital too, the digital marketing agency co-founded by Neil Patel. Nikki Lam, their SVP of SEO, calls it the ‘human edge’: as AI becomes more embedded in content and search, genuine expertise, experience, judgement and an original perspective become increasingly important.
NP Digital/Neil Patel – ‘The Human Edge: What AI Still Can’t Do in SEO’
I’ve been blogging for a very long time, and every episode of the Grow Your Private Practice Show also becomes a blog on my website. So I’m not suggesting you carry on blogging while abandoning it myself – it’s still an important part of my own marketing.
So the people who live and breathe this stuff aren’t saying blogging is dead. They’re saying blogging is changing.
What Does It Mean for a Blog to ‘Work’?
When a counsellor asks me whether blogging still works, what they’re usually asking is, 'Will blogging actually help me get paid clients?'.
And yes, that’s the point. We’re not spending hours writing blogs because our lives desperately need another job to do.
But I think we sometimes expect blogging to work something like this:
You write a blog > someone finds it > they read it > they book a session with you.
Ta-da! My blog worked! 
And yes, that can happen. But if we don’t see that neat little journey, it’s very easy to decide that blogging hasn’t worked.
The problem is, that’s rarely how somebody chooses a counsellor.
How Do Blogs Help Counsellors Get Clients?
Someone might find your profile on a directory and then visit your website. They read your homepage and notice a blog whose title describes something they’re struggling with, so they read that too. Perhaps they have a look at your About page.
And then they leave.
No enquiry. No booking. Nothing obvious to tell you that your blog did anything at all.
But perhaps they come back three days later. They read something else, think about it some more and eventually get in touch.
Or perhaps somebody recommends you. They’re still unlikely to immediately book a session without finding out anything else about you, so they Google your name, arrive at your website and discover that you’ve written several thoughtful articles about the exact things they’re struggling with.
Now that recommendation has something else behind it. They’ve had a chance to see what you talk about, how you talk about it and whether something about you feels like a good fit for them.
A blog doesn’t have to be the thing that gets somebody through the door to be part of the reason they choose you.
Check out 'What If Getting Clients Isn’t the Best Reason to Create Content?'
Getting Found Isn’t Enough – Your Blog Can Help You Get Chosen
We talk a lot in marketing about getting found, and of course that matters. If nobody knows you exist, they can’t work with you.
Blogs can help with that. Someone might discover one through Google, see it shared somewhere else or follow a link to it from another page. But getting found is only part of the job, because once somebody has found you, they still have to choose you.
And that’s particularly important in counselling. They’re not choosing a plumber or buying a toaster; they’re choosing a person they may eventually tell some of the most difficult things in their life.
The therapeutic relationship really matters, and people are increasingly aware that counsellors aren’t interchangeable. They don’t simply want a counsellor, they want the counsellor who feels right for them.
A directory profile and homepage can only tell somebody so much. Your blogs give them another opportunity to see what you understand, what you notice, how you think and how you talk about the things they’re experiencing.
They allow you to demonstrate your knowledge and experience without having to announce, 'Look at me, I’m an expert!' And over several blogs, somebody can start to get much more of a feel for you – what matters to you, the way you explain things, the things you notice and even some of your personality.
All of that gives them more information to help answer the question that really matters: Could I see myself talking to this person?
That’s one of the reasons I created Framework First. I don’t want counsellors churning out blogs simply because they’ve been told blogging is good for marketing. I want you to have something worthwhile to say that shows more of your knowledge, experience and way of seeing things.
Has AI Changed Blogging for Counsellors?
Yes. A big, fat yes.
If your blog is simply giving people generic information – What are the symptoms of anxiety? What is people-pleasing? Five ways to manage stress – AI can give them that information in seconds. And there are already thousands of articles covering exactly the same things.
So trying to compete with AI by producing more information means you'll be fighting a losing battle.
But AI can’t be you.
It hasn’t spent years doing the work you do or learnt to notice the things you notice when somebody is struggling. It doesn’t have your particular way of explaining something, your observations, your stories, your warmth or your humour.
And it doesn’t have your understanding of the people you work with.
You already have something AI doesn’t: your knowledge, experience and understanding. That’s what needs to find its way into your blogs.
Because we don’t need another generic explanation of anxiety that sounds exactly like the other 5,000 explanations of anxiety. We need something that makes the right person stop and think, Oh God. That’s me.
Or even, 'I think I could talk to this person'.
So, Does Blogging Still Work for Counsellors?
Yes. I really believe it does.
But perhaps we need to stop judging a blog solely on whether somebody finds that particular article and immediately books a counselling session. A good blog can help the right people find you, but it can also help people who have already found you choose you.
And in a world where we’re drowning in generic information, your experience, knowledge, observations and particular way of seeing things become more important, not less.
Because ultimately, the person reading isn’t choosing a blog.
They’re choosing a counsellor.
Want to Write Blogs That Help the Right Clients Choose You?
If you’re thinking, 'That’s all very well, Jane, but what on earth am I supposed to write about?', that’s exactly what Framework First is designed to help with.
Every month, I give you a different blogging framework that gives you a way into an idea, so you’re not sitting staring at a blank page trying to dream up yet another blog from scratch.
And I’m not giving you a blog to copy. You already have the valuable bit: your knowledge, your experience and all the things you’ve noticed from doing this work.
Framework First helps you turn that into a blog that sounds like you, rather than adding another helping of generic AI slop to the internet. And we’re not doing all that work just to end up with a nice blog.
We’re doing it because every useful, thoughtful blog gives someone another opportunity to discover what you know, how you think and what it might be like to work with you – and another reason to choose you from all the other counsellors they could work with.
Framework First is just £9 a month, and you can try it for a month and see what you think.
