Licensed esthetician. Certified search nerd.
Practitioner first. Strategist second.
I am Joann Schermerhorn. Most people call me Joni. I spent twenty years in wellness before I spent any of it in search, and that order is the whole point.
(yes, the twenty years includes permaculture. long story.)
Twenty years in wellness. Building websites since 2017.
How a wellness career turned into an SEO one
I started in spas. Managing them, working in them, rebuilding them. Along the way I kept collecting the training that the work asked for: permaculture design, herbalism, an esthetics license, a yoga certification, lymphatic drainage, Ayurveda, natural skincare formulation, therapeutic sound.
That is not a tidy career path. It is a practitioner’s path. You learn the modality because a client needs it, then you learn the next one because the first one raised a question you could not answer.
Somewhere in there I became the person who fixed the website. The spa’s site, the studio’s booking page, the practitioner friend who could not figure out why nobody could find her. I had been building sites since 2017, and I kept noticing the same thing: the work inside these businesses was excellent, and the way the internet described that work was terrible.
The treatment was never the problem. The translation was.
So I went and learned the other half properly. The Google UX Design certificate, two SEO specializations, the Interaction Design Foundation’s UX Designer + AI career program, and a lot of hours inside Search Console and Google Business Profiles figuring out why a sound healer was categorized as a spa and competing against spas.
I also know what it takes to run one of these businesses. I once rebuilt a spa’s staffing, policies, and pricing and doubled its yearly revenue in a year. That is not an SEO story, but it is the reason I will tell you when your problem is not search.
Today I live in Overland Park and work with practitioners across the Kansas City metro and online. I write about your modality the way you would, because I have practiced it.
Joni x
hasCredential · with issuer, year and proof
The full record
Every credential with the body that issued it and the year. A credential with neither is an assertion. A credential with both, and a link, is evidence. That distinction is most of what I fix for clients.
Search, UX, and digital
- 2026UX Designer + AI, Career Program CertificateInteraction Design Foundation · cpc-201914-2026-3154 · verify
- 2026Product Designer + AI, Career Program CertificateInteraction Design Foundation · cpc-201914-2026-3558 · verify
- 2026UX Writer and Content Designer + AI, Career Program CertificateInteraction Design Foundation · cpc-201914-2026-3208 · verify
- 2026UI Designer + AI, Career Program CertificateInteraction Design Foundation · cpc-201914-2026-3058 · verify
- 2026Human-Centered Design and AI Skills for Any CareerInteraction Design Foundation · cpc-201914-2026-3076 · verify
- 202615 IxDF courses and more than 25 master classesInteraction Design Foundation · Outstanding Learner and Best-in-Class distinctions · full record
- 2026Google UX Design Professional CertificateGoogle, via Coursera · verify
- 2026SEO Masterclass with AI SEO, Beginner to AdvancedAlex Genadinik, via Coursera · verify
- 2026Search Engine Optimization SpecializationUC Davis, via Coursera · verify
- 2017Building and maintaining websitesWordPress, Squarespace, Showit · ongoing since
Wellness practice
- nowLicensed Esthetician and Esthetics InstructorKansas State Board of Cosmetology · licenses 200-85498 and 206-86039, active
- nowRegistered Yoga Teacher, RYT-200Zen Den Yoga School · Yoga Alliance registered since 2013
- 2026Certified Therapeutic Sound PractitionerInternational Sound Therapy Association (ISTA) · professional member · renews 2028 · verify
- 2026200-Hour Sound Healing Arts Facilitator and EducatorThe Sound Medicine Academy · builds on the 100-hour Facilitator certificate, 2025
- 2022Natural Skincare FormulatorSchool of Natural Skincare · Joan Morais Cosmetics School
- 2021Ayurveda Health CounselorKerala Ayurveda Academy
- 2021Panchakarma TechnicianMaharani Ayurveda Academy
- 2019Vodder Manual Lymphatic DrainageASTECC
- 2014Holistic EstheticianThe Touch of Yin · trained with Bethany Kristiansen
- 2009HerbalistPrairie Wise Herbal School
- 2006Permaculture Design CertificateRegenerative Design Institute
Why this matters for your search visibility
Wellness is a health-adjacent category, which means Google holds it to a stricter standard than it holds a plumber.
What that means in practice
Google’s guidance asks for evidence of first-hand experience and real credentials before it recommends a health or wellbeing business. An agency writing about sound baths without having sat in one produces exactly the content those guidelines were written to filter out.
What it means for your site
Your training goes on the page with the body that issued it and the year. Your bio says what you actually do. Your claims stay inside what your license supports. None of that is a trick. It is just evidence, written where a machine can read it.
result · so far
Early results from real practitioners
Reported result
An energy healer’s schedule filled soon after our first engagement, and it has stayed busy since.
Reported result
A chiropractor’s brand-new practice, built from zero, with steady traffic growth and phase two already planned.
Case study in progress
Wild Yonder Wellness
“Grand Schema caught tons of discrepancies across my business listings and platforms, many of them small details that would have been very easy to miss but can make a real difference in whether your business shows up in search.”
A Prairie Village massage practice, audited from the ground up. Before and after numbers publish when the data is in.
Results as clients reported them to me. Some early clients are friends, and Wild Yonder’s owner is family.
I still practice
I am not a former practitioner. I still hold licenses, still teach, and still run sound baths, yoga nidra, and breathwork through Carried Sound, my sound healing practice. That is partly because I love the work, and partly because it keeps me honest: I am selling visibility to people whose week looks like mine.
It also means I understand the parts of your business that have nothing to do with search. Cancellation policies. Intake forms. What it costs you when a Tuesday goes empty. That context is why my recommendations tend to be things you can actually do between clients.
Free scorecard
Start here
See where your practice stands
Twelve questions about whether search engines and AI assistants can find, understand, and recommend you. Three minutes, no call required.
- A letter grade and a score on each of the four pillars
- The gap that is costing you the most
- What to do about it first
Ready to move faster? Book a $350 site audit and get your report in seven business days.