10 Best Practices for Therapist Website Design to Get More Clients
Think back—why did you want to become a therapist? It's probably because you want to help people. And more than that, you’re pretty good at it! Now that you have decided to go into private practice finding new clients is harder than you may have thought. Your website is essential to your practice, so spending time developing a therapy website or getting a web designer needs to be a priority. Read on to learn the best practices for therapist website design, ensuring your site is professional, engaging, and optimized to attract the clients who need you most.
Why Your Therapy Website Matters
A website is a reflection of who you are as a therapist. It’s the first impression clients will ever have of you! You want them to be able to learn more about you to see if they want to work with you. Here are some reasons why having the best therapy website design matters for your practice:
Clients are visual—they want to see something that’s attractive and appealing that draws them in to book with you. This includes the colours, fonts, or images you choose on your website.
Clients want convenience—your website needs to make it easy to understand your services, book appointments, contact you, or answer common questions such as fees.
Clients want to know who you are—to build trust and decide if you are someone they will feel comfortable working with. Your therapist website needs to establish your background, credentials, therapy approach, and experience.
The therapy website you create for your private practice reflects you as a therapist. A well-designed therapist website helps you attract clients in your area, establish credibility, and make a lasting first impression. If you’re not confident in building your own therapy website, consider hiring a website designer for therapists to create a professional, client-focused, and SEO-optimized site that helps you attract more clients in your area.
Best Practices to Design a Website for Therapists
Your website is more than just an online presence—it’s your first impression and a powerful tool to connect with the right clients. A well-designed therapist website builds trust, showcases your expertise, and helps people easily find you when searching for a therapist in your area. Here is a list of best practices therapist websites should follow. If you get these basics right, it will help attract and retain clients.
Define your value proposition
Start by asking yourself: why did you become a therapist? What is unique about how you practice? What differentiates you from other therapists?
The answer to these questions will help you to identify your value proposition. It’s what sets you apart from other therapists and what you are uniquely able to offer clients. Some examples of a value proposition are:
Heal Your Grief
Helping You Raise Happy Children
Supporting Parents From Pregnancy to Postpartum & Beyond
When you know your value proposition, you can incorporate it into your website content. This helps clients know more about you and why you’d be a good fit for them.
2. Identify the goal of your website
Goal setting has many well-researched benefits, such as increased motivation, strategic direction, and lower frustration. And since a website is such a vital marketing tool for your private practice, understanding what you want your website to do for you is very important. Examples of goals for your website could be:
Attract new clients and get them to book an appointment.
Provide resources for existing clients through a blog.
Sign up for an online workshop or course to make some incremental revenue
Once you have identified the goal of your website, you can carefully craft your content to achieve that desired goal.
3. Determine the clients you want to attract
Whether you work with a wide variety of clients or specialize in a specific niche, it’s important to determine the clients you want to attract through your client-focused therapy website.
For example, if you are a grief counsellor and have a website with pictures of happy children, your site won’t connect with a client who has suffered trauma. By understanding your clients' needs, you will be able to properly create a website from their point of view.
4. Keep your branding consistent
People have short attention spans and make judgments quickly about what they see online. That’s why it’s so important to keep your branding consistent throughout your website. This can be done by:
Choosing a colour palette that creates the tone you want clients to associate with your practice and use it across your site.
Selecting one or two fonts throughout the site. Any more will make your website start to look messy and become distracting.
Designing a logo for your therapy website that is clearly placed and easy to see.
Consistent branding on your therapy website shows care and effort, which inspires trust with a client. 75% of consumers say they judge a company's credibility based on its website design. So, brand consistency and overall web design matter!
5. Keep the design clean with an easy-to-navigate layout
Studies reveal that 38% of visitors leave a website if the design or content is unappealing. The last thing you want is for someone to click away if they can’t find what they’re looking for!
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Use obvious headings like “About Me,” “Services,” or “Contact.” If you try to get too creative with them, people might not know what you mean.
There shouldn’t be more than six menu names in your top navigation bar so it’s not cluttered. This includes the button usually found in the top right corner.
Focus on making your content concise on every page. Don’t add words just to meet a word count. Clear headers and bullet points help make your content skimmable.
6. Include client-focused content
Your website is not about you. It’s about your client and what you can do for them. Your content should be written from a client-focused mindset, using clear and simple language that they will understand. Avoid using therapist jargon that can confuse clients.
Even in your “About Me” section, you should be discussing your client. For example, your education, skills, and experience are not just bragging rights, but show a client that you have the knowledge and expertise to help them with their unique struggles.
7. Have a clear Call to Action
A “call to action” (CTA) answers the question: now what? Say a client has been browsing your site for a while and thinks you might have the services and expertise they are looking for. The next question they may be asking is What do I do next? You need to define that next step with a CTA on your website. This usually appears as a button. Some examples are:
Schedule a consultation.
Let’s talk!
Join our waiting list.
CTAs have been shown to increase click-through rates significantly, so including a well-crafted CTA is a great way to prompt clients to take the next step.
8. Incorporate images
Images make all the difference in giving clients a sense of your personality and how you work.
Images evoke emotions, so using photos of people who are smiling and happy can boost positive feelings in the client.
Be sure your images are a representation of the clients you want to attract and are as diverse as the community your practice resides in.
9. Maximize SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of using keywords that make your website more visible in Google search results. For example, people often search for a therapist in their region or area—i.e., “Therapist in Calgary.” If you are, indeed, a therapist in Calgary, you will want to make sure your website appears on Google in that city!
Google reports that 1.5 billion people visit local businesses monthly from searches, making up 32.8% of all internet users.
SEO optimization is simply including the desired keyword into your website content so that Google “knows” what to search for. SEO is essential because search engines bring in 300% more traffic than social media, helping you reach more potential clients. So, if you only have time to invest in one marketing channel —make it SEO!
10. Continually analyze and improve
These best practices should help you get an impressive therapy website up and running. But it’s not going to be perfect right away! Make sure to continually analyze and improve your site to make it better and better. When you sign up for Google Analytics you can start collecting information like:
How many people visit your site?
Which pages are they visiting?
Did a visitor fill out your booking form?
By identifying what’s effective and what requires adjustment, you can fine-tune your website to better attract and convert clients. If you don’t know how to start, get help from an expert in website design and analytics to ensure your site is fully optimized and driving results.
Final Thoughts
Your therapy website is more than just a digital space. It is one of the best ways to attract and connect with new clients.
By following these therapy website best practices, you’ll create a site that not only looks great but also helps grow your practice.
The 10 best practices to follow when designing a website for your therapy private practice to get more clients are:
Define your value proposition
Identify the goal of your website
Determine the clients that you want to attract
Keep your branding consistent
Keep the design clean with an easy-to-navigate layout
Include client-focused content
Have a clear call to action
Incorporate images
Maximize SEO
Continually analyze and improve
Therapist website design is about more than just creating a new website and hoping clients can find you. It’s about carefully planning how to attract clients to your counselling practice and building the kind of business you have always wanted. These best website design practices should get you started on the right path!
Whether you’re looking to start a brand-new site or take yours to the next level, hiring a therapy website designer ensures your site is professional, easy to navigate, and optimized for search engines. Book a consultation today to get started with a web designer near you!
