Client Interview: What Happens When You Get A Professional Website

Jeffro (00:00.982)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Today’s episode is a special one because instead of talking about digital marketing tips or strategies, we’re talking with one of my clients. That’s right. You’re going to get the inside scoop on what it’s like to have Frobro on your team. Andrew Brewer is my guest today. He is the practice manager for Oak Health Center and a longtime client of Frobro. We’ve done a lot of things over the years from redesigning their website to referral campaigns, brochure designs, and even SEO.

So I’m gonna try to focus on the website primarily, and then if we have time, we can touch on the other pieces. Or maybe we’ll come back to do another episode, who knows? Either way, I’m excited to dive into this, so thanks for joining me, Andrew.

Andrew Brewer (00:39.062)
Absolutely, thanks for having me, Jeff.

Jeffro (00:41.486)
Oh, awesome, of course. Now, I want to give the listeners a little background before we dive in. So Oak Health Center offers comprehensive, compassionate mental health care to patients in Southern California. They do a great job of it and have earned a wonderful reputation. Oak Health was started in 2015, and now you guys are up to four locations. But yeah, you guys have just been growing, which is great. And I started working with Oak Health in

Andrew Brewer (01:01.038)
That’s correct. That’s correct.

Jeffro (01:08.238)
2019 doing some website updates and some basic marketing and business development stuff. In 2020, you became the practice manager in training at that time. And shortly after that’s when we started the full redesign of the website. So, I mean, do you remember the old website at

Andrew Brewer (01:16.91)
Yeah.

Andrew Brewer (01:25.282)
I do. And I just remember how clunky the old website was, whether it was the transitions between different sections of the webpage, just the look and feel itself felt very outdated. so moving from what we had before, which I believe they had gotten a friend to custom design. So not only was it an outdated look, but it was all custom designed so that the platform couldn’t easily be managed.

by the team at Ockel Center, it always was bottlenecked at this one individual. And so we had to take all that and go from scratch. I was really happy with the work you did with WordPress. And if we need to do some of our own minor tweaks, we could do that. yeah, I just remember it being a huge bear just even starting that process because we were basically starting from ground

Jeffro (02:16.543)
Yeah, so do you remember what were some of your goals for the new website since this is one of the first things you worked on as the practice manager?

Andrew Brewer (02:23.096)
Yeah, I think the main thing and when, when I was thinking about our website at the time is just what’s going to be the easiest way for a patient to get connected to their provider and so that they could go from seeing our website and to their first appointment so they can get better faster. And, you know, over time the site has evolved, but I just remember, you know, it wasn’t as easy as click and schedule as you can do now with, different integrations,

before it just felt very tedious for a patient to get connected to Oak Health Center. And so I think that was the number one thing we worked on. And then the second thing is conveying our brand of being compassionate, providing a personalized experience that you were coming into an organization that was not just going to be, you know, there are a lot of clinics out there that do high volume, but for us, we’re kind of a boutique group and that you want to come in and feel like you’re getting that white glove service. So we wanted a website that would

translate that message to our patients, our clients, and I think you did a really good job of capturing who we

Jeffro (03:29.324)
Yeah, I think you guys were unique in the sense that you already had a pretty strong vision and mission for the organization. think a lot of companies don’t start there and they just know the services they provide, but they don’t necessarily know why they do it or why they’re really in it. And so that was actually a great starting point. And we were able to kind of draw that out and convey that through the colors and the design and the words on the page. And it was a process,

Do you remember what that process was like, the back and forth?

Andrew Brewer (04:01.582)
Yeah. And, for any of you listening out there, one of my favorite things about working with Jeff is he will over communicate if you need it. And so, you know, we started off just trying to build out what the sections of the website were, right? And then we’d look at what that skeleton, what that template would look like, and then realize, no, we should probably, you know, categorize these things under a menu. But it was just really great because it felt like we were seeing the site built.

as we were having these conversations. so taking the map of the site and what the breakdown of the layout was going to be and what that journey was going to be for all of our clients. And then from there, you know, then diving deeper into the messaging. But really the thing that impressed me most was how responsive you were and how willing you were to even, if we were having a misunderstanding of something, it’s, hey, let’s hop on a Zoom, let’s have a phone call.

and really dive deep into what we’re trying to accomplish. And so I know previously when I’ve worked with other web designers at different organizations or for different projects, you sometimes feel like you’re sending a request and then you’re waiting a few days and then they’ll update the request, but they may not ask any qualifying questions. So they may not follow up and you may not even be getting what you want. And I just liked how it felt like a conversation, not just kind of

know, service request or support request when you think about, you know, when you were thinking about our company’s needs. And so that to me was what stands out the

Jeffro (05:35.308)
Right. Because really I view it as a collaboration because at the end of the day, it’s not my website. I want you to be happy with it and to meet your goals and expectations and hopes and everything. So if I just say, you want a website? And I disappear for a few weeks or a month and come back and say, here you go, take it or leave it. You know, that’s not helpful. So yeah, I’m always willing to do the back and forth and get it figured

Andrew Brewer (05:56.89)
Yeah. And I think especially what was good about it being so collaborative is if you go one or two steps forward and need to go back one or two steps, that’s not a big deal. But if somebody does a bunch of work without communicating with you, and this has happened before where they get, you know, 60, 70 % of the way that they think we’re going to want it done. And then we have to say, no, we need to go back, you know, to the beginning. just, think the consistent check -ins and conversations we were having just, that was the difference maker

For me at least.

Jeffro (06:28.63)
Yeah. And I think I always like having that relationship with whoever I’m working with because sometimes the clients I have have a very specific idea in mind for something. Sometimes that’s a good idea. Sometimes it’s not a good idea. So in order for you to trust me when I step in and say, actually, that’s too much orange. We know you like orange, but let’s take it easy on the orange. Right. And to actually take my advice there.

Andrew Brewer (06:54.17)
I don’t possibly know what you’re talking about. Too much orange, what, what, no. Yeah, no, and it was helpful to work with you, even though I was the point of contact, it’s always nice to have somebody with your expertise and I to be able to, you know, I think there were times that I was disagreeing with some of the leadership within our company, but also being new to the role, it was good to have somebody else to back me up and say, no, no.

this Andrew’s right and or both of us, you know, both the company and me are wrong. This is actually the best way to do it. And so having a there’s a reason we work with you. You’re the expert and you have the knowledge that we we don’t. And so just because we may like the look, we may like the the particular brand of writing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s going to be the most effective way to build out our site. And I think that’s another thing you did well, which

kind of the understanding of I know what you’re looking for and I get it. However, from best practices perspective, that’s not going to accomplish what you think it’s going to accomplish. And a lot of folks will just take your business and if you ask them to do something, they’ll just do it because that’s what you’re paying them to do. And I really like the fact that even if we ask you to do something, you have the willingness to say, hold on, wait a second. I understand where you’re coming from, but this is not what’s going to be best for your company.

So we should rethink what we’re

Jeffro (08:27.916)
Right, because if I can understand what you guys are trying to accomplish, then I can run everything through that filter, right? It’s not just, okay, we added the page like you asked, ding. Like, okay, sure, I could do that, but I want you guys to succeed. I want you to have a website that’s going to actually work. So there is that, you know, sometimes when appropriate, I’ll push back and kind of not in a way to be like, you’re wrong, but more of like, hey, I think there’s a better way that we can, I see what you want to do. We can do it like this over here.

But if we do it this way, it’s gonna cause this problem that maybe you hadn’t thought about. So I like talking through that

Andrew Brewer (09:01.336)
Yes. And I will say you were very diplomatic about how you translated your wrong into, you know, speak that was not nearly as, as provocative, but yeah, it was, it was really helpful though. And I mean, as you know, I, I worked with you on another project and asked you to work with another organization that I was with at the time. And I was super pleased with the work you did there too. And it was completely different from what O ‘Kell center was doing.

Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun working on a variety of projects with

Jeffro (09:36.29)
Well, I appreciate that. What did people say about the website after we ultimately finished revamping it and getting it live?

Andrew Brewer (09:43.834)
Sure, I mean, we still get comments about the site today, just to let you know, and this was back in 2020, but I recently had two, no, three separate, not patients, but clinicians who reached out to me and said that they were Googling, know, mental healthcare practices in Southern California because they were interested in working with a group, a private group practice. And they said that when they Googled that our site is what drew them to reach out to me

And, you know, two of them we’re bringing on board actually within the next few months. And so immediately after we launched the new look and feel, everybody talked about how it was much more up to date, how it was easier to navigate and how it showed the audience who we are. But what I really love is that it has maintained and continued to evolve. still do work on it so that

you it doesn’t ever feel outdated and that we’re still getting people who are reaching out to our group because of the impression they get from the website we build with you. So it’s been, yeah, it’s been nothing but good feedback for the most part, you know, that I can think of since we launched it. And then it continues to get, you know, really great results for

Jeffro (11:00.344)
Well, that makes me happy inside to hear that. So thanks for sharing that. Let’s talk about some of the other things that we change over time, because a website is never done. You can do a great job on it. And obviously, the design and the messaging is a huge piece of it. But there’s also the functional side, right? The workflow, day -to -day business, how is it going to actually help you and your team? So we did some forms, some custom forms for patient intake information. Do you want to talk about that at all?

Andrew Brewer (11:29.486)
Yeah. And, you know, I think that’s, that’s obviously, like you said, evolved over time, but being a healthcare organization, there is a level of security HIPAA, HIPAA, that we need to follow. And so that’s, that’s a pretty big lift when it comes to the backend and creating our custom intake forms where we can share it. You know, the technology has not always been there to do those custom forms and you were able to build something out that we could share with our patients

was not only easy to use for our patients, but also ensured that we were doing right by them on the privacy -compliancy side. And that, I remember the challenge and the fact that you were able to do it in multiple languages, both English and Korean. And I just remember that was a, boy, was that a lot of back and forth, but it’s what we needed to do because…

things change and patients don’t want to come in and fill out their forms in person and spend that 15 to 20 minutes. If we can take care of that on the front end, it makes their lives easier when they come into the office. so having somebody who can build that into our website was really important for us at the

Jeffro (12:45.27)
Yeah, and it’s interesting when you start thinking about a website, it plays a lot of roles, right? It can be the first impression for someone who’s never heard of you, but it can also be providing information to your existing patients, like questions about insurance or sending in a request for moving an appointment, and then stuff like this, right? Like, okay, new patient intake, save their time from coming to the office, submit the form online. So there’s a lot of things you can do with

Jeffro (13:14.038)
Now we also had all the providers on the website. So the whole team and we wanted to give bios on them so people can get to know who they’re going to be working with or even sometimes they have a specific request, you know, if they came recommended. And so we now have a newer iteration of the teams and how to filter through them so people can find really any provider that’s going to fit them, whether that’s gender or what language they speak or what they can help with.

Andrew Brewer (13:42.874)
Yeah, and we shared some different examples of functionality that we liked. And I think if you recall, we didn’t actually like how any of them looked, but we were looking for a specific functionality. And when you have a large team, we’re I think at about 45 or so clinicians now within our group, that’s a pretty, it can be overwhelming for individuals when they’re trying to find the right fit for them.

But at the same time, if you go to like a page and it’s just like, here’s a list of names, kind of this dry, not very engaging, you know, table format type of filter system. I also feel like it takes away from the energy of the site when you, you know, maybe you have this great homepage and then you click on the team and then it’s just this grid and then you start clicking the boxes. And so I think, you know, and we recently made a change to it again, but each iteration of what you’ve done has kept the same.

I guess warmth and engagement level while also creating that functionality is it doesn’t feel like you’re leaving the original website. It’s just additional functionality that maintains the same branding and the same, yeah, the same engagement.

Jeffro (14:58.156)
Right. Well, and that’s really important. We’ve talked about branding and on other episodes, but maintaining that consistent user experience is really important because that builds trust and helps people feel comfortable with you as an organization because they know what they’re going to get. There’s no surprises. Right. I was going to mention something else too, like the homepage, something that worked early on with a small team stopped working as the team got too big. So we had done a cool thing on the homepage where

laid out providers in a little mosaic grid to make the shape of an acorn to kind of go with the oak theme and everything. And that was cool. then it’s people… I mean, it looks pretty cool, but then I kept trying to shove people in there and I’d have to remove someone if they left or add someone if they were new and make this one smaller, this one bigger. And we had a bigger acorn, but at a certain point it was like, okay, I don’t know if people even can tell this is an acorn anymore. We need to try something else.

Andrew Brewer (15:34.082)
Which we loved. Yeah.

Andrew Brewer (15:55.758)
Yeah. And I hadn’t even thought of that. And that goes back to one of the things that I appreciate about you is that these changes oftentimes have happened by your prompting. And that was an example of something you prompted where, you you said, look, Andrew, I’m spending an hour, two hours, three hours, just trying to add two images to this unruly acorn on the homepage that has taken up a lot of space. And you’re probably missing that message now.

we should probably rethink what we’re doing here. And I think working with maybe another vendor, another partner, we would request the additional picture. They figure out some way to do it. There would be no additional conversation of, hey, do we want to pause and reconsider what our needs are now that we’ve grown? And this feels like a little bit of a bad use of our resources. It’s not conveying that same message anymore. Maybe it’s time to switch it up. And so I really appreciate

I really always love that you’re so proactive about thinking about how the website can be better and not just better, but how it needs to change as we as an organization continue to grow and do new things and create new programs.

Jeffro (17:08.512)
Right. And this all comes from paying attention to your website. I think a lot of businesses, it’s an afterthought. They’re like, I’m too busy running the business. I got the website up a couple of years ago. Why do I need to keep looking at it? It’s good enough. It’s got my contact info on there. And I think that’s the wrong approach because it does get stale. Websites get stale pretty fast. And especially if you are making changes to your organization, which you do on a fairly regular basis, whether that’s updating your pricing or adding a new service or

anything like that, you need to make sure your website’s up to date so people aren’t frustrated or confused. Because otherwise, you’re telling them that that’s the experience they’re going to get, right? If you’re not willing to take the time to post the latest information and you’re going to make them call, you’re just going to tell them, I inconvenience my customers because I’m busy. And that’s not someone they want to work with,

Andrew Brewer (18:00.975)
Yeah.

Jeffro (18:05.932)
All right, are there any other updates to the website you think that we did that are worth talking about? We’ve kind of touched on all the big ones.

Andrew Brewer (18:14.232)
Yeah, I just think in terms of engagement and requesting information from clients, I feel like I must have a little bit of anachronistic thinking when it comes to what websites can do. But in addition to the custom forms that you did that were HIPAA compliant, the informative forms that can be personalized or changed based off the different programs we have, and that’s really been helpful because before we just kind of had this generic request.

box and we’d kind of have to do a little bit more triage on the back end or we’d have to contact our potential, you know, maybe a potential provider, a potential patient, a potential partner with very little to go on except for, hey, here’s a message from me and here’s what I want. But now, you know, on each of the different pages, we are able to, you know, send anything sleep related to our sleep team. We’re able to send anything TMS related.

to our TMS team and the questions can change. And I know that probably seems like a very simple idea of request customization, but that wasn’t always the case. so having you helping us embrace the new changes and the new functionality, again, it goes back to the, appreciate our check -ins every month because I feel like, as opposed to needing to worry about, like you said, refreshing your site, that our site is

We take little steps forward and like little bites at the apple to improve the site, you know, every, you know, maybe every month or every few months, there’s never, it’s never in a state of stagnation. So yeah, I think, recently that’s been a fun project that, that I’m excited about. And then also how we can integrate with external, you know, tools, booking, you know, patients booking online, you know, we can integrate that with the site. So there’s just so many more.

customer service related pieces that I think we didn’t have access to, you four or five years ago, which, yeah, I’m really excited to continue building.

Jeffro (20:17.964)
Awesome. Meet you. There’s one other thing I just thought of, you know, after we spent all this time getting that design and some of the messaging figured out, we were able to carry over some of that to other things like brochures and referral campaigns where we’re using that same color scheme or design motif on those brochures so that again, we’re extending that branding to these other areas and it all kind of matches that central hub, which is the website.

Andrew Brewer (20:46.072)
Yeah, and it’s, I get lots of feedback when I’m doing my networking and connecting with other service providers of how the high level of design that we have and how professional everything looks and how they feel comfortable handing our stuff to their patients or displaying it on their referral wall just because it stands out and it looks good. So yeah, thank you.

I love the consistency that we have as a brand, not just on digital stuff, but that it’s now continuing into print.

Jeffro (21:21.474)
Yeah. And we can talk about that first big campaign we did, which was a referral campaign. Cause you know, within your organization, there’s always the question, how do we get more clients or patients? How do get more people in the door? And with mental health, it’s kind of interesting. Like it’s not a direct approach. Like let’s run ads and say, you know, feeling down, call us. A lot of people won’t self -select that way, you know? So we put together a referral campaign to introduce you guys to

Andrew Brewer (21:42.286)
Yeah.

Jeffro (21:51.468)
know, physicians, pediatricians in the area so that when they come across a patient who they feel could benefit from your services, they refer them to you. And so I, do you want to talk about that a little

Andrew Brewer (22:01.678)
Yeah, and I think really we knew what our message was and then obviously you had built out a great brochure. I think my favorite part of the process was the help in terms of the logistics of putting a mailing together and helping us as we were kind of looking through local, like you said, pediatric offices, primary care physicians, things like that. But just how, and coming from a nonprofit background prior to this, I’ve done a lot of

for fundraising, if you’ve received one of my mailings because you’re an alumnus of any of the campuses I’ve worked with, I’m sure it was perfect and you really enjoyed the message. But there’s a lot of really kind of intricate steps behind the scenes and a lot of operations management that needs to happen to make sure that gets done in a timely manner. And it was just so much easier working with you on that type of project.

Jeffro (22:34.142)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew Brewer (22:59.23)
because you handled a lot of that back -end work and we just got to focus on what was our message, what was our audience, and once we give you that, you make it look good and then you get it sent out. And then we just reap the benefits of the referrals that are getting sent to us, which we’re going to do again, you know, probably at the end of the year with South Pasadena, you know, we’re opening up another physical location and we’re going to want to reach out to that community and send them some of our information. And so that’s going to

one of the first steps and one of the next things we do because as much as everybody has gone digital and people like doing things virtually, sometimes these kind of more old school ways, when it comes to connecting with other offices, you know, they can ignore a phone call. They might, you know, miss an email. But if you send them something that’s compelling in the mail, they’re going to share it with their other clinicians because one thing I have learned in this business is mental health

a referral within, you we work with insurance, it’s always needed. But if you’re needed, but they don’t know about you, you know, how are you going to get that business? And so working with you to get these referrals, to do SEO, to make sure our site looks good. You know, that means that people know that we’re here for them and that we are a resource that they can take advantage of. So yeah, looking, looking forward to seeing how all this works together for South Pasadena.

Jeffro (24:20.766)
Yeah, well, I mean that referral campaign has been paying dividends now for multiple years because you constantly get these referrals and new patients coming in because that’s now their process. They’re like, hey, anytime I see someone, send them to Oak Health because they get feedback from the patients they send, right? And the patients say, it was great. Thank you for recommending them, right? Now they know, okay, I can send more. And I feel confident in that recommendation. So kudos to you guys for doing a great job, obviously.

Andrew Brewer (24:43.236)
Yeah. thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We’ve got solid folks. We have a really great child adolescent psychiatrist you might know.

Jeffro (24:54.963)
Yes, I know we’re very well actually So I’ll you’d also mentioned SEO we did start doing that together not initially when the site was first launched but that was probably within the past year I’d say when we started doing SEO and

Andrew Brewer (25:07.928)
Yeah, and focusing more on, I think, Google Business SEO, right?

Jeffro (25:12.726)
Right. Well, as far as I’m concerned, Google My Business falls under the umbrella of SEO. As a local business, you have to have a Google Business profile. You need to have it optimized so that you show up in the search on the Google Maps and all of that. So that’s just part of what we do. We set that up, we optimize it. We even post there on your behalf. And we do press releases too to help generate backlinks to build up your domain authority over time. And of course, we do all the on -page optimizations too. Now this was an interesting thing because…

Initially, we spent all this time writing good messaging, right? Coming up with good headlines. And this is an important thing for businesses to remember. If you hire an SEO firm and just hand it off to them, they’re going to go change all your titles and headlines. Maybe they’re just going to insert something in there. So instead of TMS treatment, it’s going to be like, affordable TMS treatment near me in Laguna or something like that. And that just doesn’t convey the same warmth and connection

you guys are trying to convey at Oak Health. So I had to work with my team to make sure they understood like, guys, yes, we’re going to optimize, but no, we’re not going to ruin the messaging. And that’s very important. So yeah, you can tell me your thoughts on that too.

Andrew Brewer (26:22.798)
Yeah, and this goes to one of those things that I actually think, and you’ve done a good job helping us get to the more effective side. I’ve spent a lot of my career doing a lot of copywriting for campaign messaging, fundraising messages, philanthropy. And in my head, there is what a good written piece should look like, right? But the challenge with SEO that I’m discovering more and more is that SEO doesn’t care how nicely.

you’ve written your blog post, right? Or how nicely you’ve put together your website. In fact, it probably cares less about you being able to use five words to say something that somebody will use 15 words for. It probably wants you to use 15 words instead of five in SEO. And so it’s been a lot of, think in particular for you working with me directly, because I’m so particular about writing, I feel like you’ve had to do a lot of heavy lifting saying, you know, Andrew,

this is what’s going to improve, you know, Oak Health Center’s SEO results. And it’s probably been less easy on this particular front than anything else, but I think you’re dragging me slowly with my heels dug in, kicking and screaming. But I see the results with our Google My Business, you know, and like you can see even comparing our three active locations and then just launching this fourth one, you you look at our Laguna Hills location, which obviously has the longest running, you

presence on the web. When you search psychiatry in Laguna Hills, mean, it’s the first thing that usually comes up. We’ve got great ratings and the work has been done. And it’s just one of those things that over time as we’ve continued to develop every other site, I can see the results in Fullerton, in Beverly Hills, and then hopefully moving forward in South Pasadena. And I think that’s something also that I needed to remember as we’ve worked with you is that some of this stuff just does take time. Like SEO requires

not just the expertise, it’s not just something you can turn on unless you want to really heavy, heavy amounts of dollars, which I’m sure you’ll take, Jeff, but it’s really about being consistent. so, yeah, we have seen the results though, and I like seeing year over year how, yeah, the line is always going up in terms of the calls we get from our Google searches.

Jeffro (28:47.298)
Yeah. And one last thing I’ll say on the SEO balancing, because yes, we want to appease the search engines and be ranked highly, but we can’t let that be more important than having that good user experience and that proper communication to the human. That has to be priority number one. And if you can also then appease them, then great. So you got to do it in the right order. Well, I think…

I mean, we’ve covered a lot of stuff today. I’m to go ahead and wrap us up for now. Thank you, Andrew, for joining me today. It’s really helpful to kind of look back at what’s been done and the impact that it has. For those of you guys listening, if you’re in the Southern California area and you want to learn more about Oak Health Center, go to www .oak .care, C -A -R -E. And if you want Frobro to help you the same way we helped Oak Health Center, go to frobro .com, up a call. Real quick, Andrew, last thing I’ll ask

I mean, you kind of touched on this a little bit, but maybe if you can summarize, why do you continue to work with me and

Andrew Brewer (29:49.988)
For me, it’s the consistency and communication. That’s it. There are a lot of people who can put together nice designs. There are a lot of people who will check the boxes of getting things done. But you go that extra step to ensure that we have a monthly check -in, right? That you are looking at different aspects of the pages. You prompt me periodically to review text and language on the pages that we worked on years ago.

to make sure that everything is up to date. so having somebody that’s not also taking charge of like the design and the SEO, but you’re basically project managing, know, lot of the stuff, basically everything related to the website and lighting a fire under me. And I know, especially when you’re working with small business, the folks are gonna be very busy and they’re spinning a lot of different plates and.

the website, if it wants to continue to evolve, or if you want it to continue to evolve, you need somebody thinking about that. And that’s not going to be first in line for an organization that’s a little bit smaller where this leadership is wearing a bunch of different hats. So working with you helps ensure these things are being thoughtfully done. And so that’s why I continue to come back and I will continue to refer you to other people I know who are in kind of that environment where they need somebody who is going to be mindful and thoughtful, but also

Jeffro (31:17.396)
I really appreciate that Andrew. Thanks again for being here. Thanks to all of you guys for listening and I’ll see you back here for the next episode of Digital Dominance. Take