Creating a therapy website is one of those necessary evils in running a private practice. As a mental health professional, your passion lies in helping clients—not learning website strategy best practices. Between design, messaging, and optimization, the whole process can be overwhelming.
Luckily, we’re here to help steer you away from the 5 most common mistakes people make when building a therapy website!
Before we dive into this digital world, let’s make sure we’re in agreement on the importance of a therapy website. With over 20 years of experience in the space, serving thousands of clients across countless specialties, I can tell you with complete confidence a website is your number one marketing tool.
Whether clients discover your practice on social media, directories, search engines, or word of mouth—all roads lead back to your website. It is the cornerstone of your brand; offering the priceless opportunity to truly connect with your visitors before ever speaking a word to them.
A therapy website is so much more than a calling card or an “I suppose I need a website” box to be checked. Your site should be structured with intention to resonate with people who need you most and guide them to take the next step.
1. Leading with Qualifications
When we build or redesign websites for therapists, the homepage is always a top priority. We have to get this one right because it’s the most-visited page on your entire site (by a significant margin).
Therapists tend to lead with information about themselves and their qualifications on the homepage. Don’t fret—this is a totally natural inclination. You want to prove you know your stuff. There is certainly a place for your backstory, education, training and certifications, but “above-the-fold” should be all about your clients.
A good therapy website isn’t about you. It’s about them.
Before a client can care about you, they need to be assured you care about them. We accomplish this by demonstrating empathy for their issues. Speak directly to your ideal-fit client. It’s amazing how effective it can be to convince someone you are the person to fix their problem simply by demonstrating you understand their problem.
Your website’s messaging and overall structure should be a mirror on the visitor—not a billboard for your practice. Focus on the transformation. Allow clients to feel a sense of serendipity and connection. Only then will they pursue learning more about your methods and qualifications.
2. Overly Clinical Jargon
From undergraduate through graduate and clinical supervision, you spent the better part of a decade learning how to be a therapist. Being immersed in the academic side of mental health surely expands your vocabulary—which comes in handy when speaking to fellow therapists. However, potential clients may feel alienated or intimidated by excessive clinical terminology.
Your therapy website exists to create a viable path between your clients’ issues and your solutions. It’s important to remember your visitors did not put in years of hard work to learn the science of psychotherapy. Craft your content for the average Joe.
A good rule of thumb is to pretend everyone who lands on your site has a 5th grade education. Using fancy technical words doesn’t necessarily elevate your proficiency in the eyes of a client—especially when it comes to marketing.
Instead, employ simple, compassionate language that resonates with people rather than trying to write a medical journal article.
We talked about leading with plain English further in our SEO for Therapists blog post (in case you missed it).
3. No Clear Call to Action
If you’re getting visitors to your website but aren’t converting them to a consultation call, the culprit could be your Call to Action (“CTA”). This is another wildly common misstep when non-web designers create their own therapy website.
By definition, a Call to Action is your site’s way of guiding potential clients to take the next step. Every visitor that doesn’t go down this path is a missed opportunity for your practice—not to mention, a missed opportunity for them to benefit from your help.
A good CTA is prominent, consistent and clear. Okay, but what the heck does that mean?
Prominence
For some people, a few thoughtfully-worded sentences on the homepage are all it takes to pursue your services. Others may really need to drill down into every letter and pixel of your therapy website to feel comfortable. Either way, when they are ready to take action, don’t make it difficult.
Your primary CTA should follow them from page to page (usually as a distinguishable button in your main navigation). Don’t ever let a visitor get lost without that CTA beacon guiding them to their destination.
Consistency
On the topic of getting “lost” in a therapy website, it’s ideal to keep your Calls to Action minimal and consistent. I’m sure you’ve browsed a site or two in the past overwhelmed with buttons and links sending you every which way.
Determine your ideal CTA and commit to it. Sure, you can link to other pages here and there but keep your primary Call to Action loud, proud and consistent throughout. This also means always phrasing it the same way in every instance.
Clarity
As a general best practice, being descriptive with the text in your links and buttons is wise. For example, instead of your CTA being “Move Forward”, consider “Book a Consult”. Nothing is worse than a “More” button—visitors don’t know what to expect when they click.
I’m a big fan of taking clarity to the next level by including descriptors in my Call to Action. Don’t just tell them to “Book a Consult” when you can assure them it’s just a 15-minute consult or a free consult in the same breath. This not only offers a clear CTA, but sets expectations and diminishes objections in one fell swoop.
4. Cheap Therapy Website Builders
I totally get it. When bootstrapping your private practice, every penny counts. Then you factor in the technical hurdles of learning the in’s and out’s of web design while simultaneously ramping up your client book and wearing literally every hat required to run a business.
It’s easy to see why so many therapy websites are created with cheap services like Wix, Squarespace, etc. They help you check the “I have a website” box so you can focus on what you do best.
At a certain point, though, you need to graduate in order to grow. A modern custom website with decades of proven strategy baked into every line of code just hits different. It screams professionalism and instills trust with potential clients, referral sources (and search engines).
Look ahead to where you want to be. The prominent group practices in your area are not placing the fate of their business in the hands of a $29.95/mo DIY website building platform. They know what their #1 marketing tool is and the investment justifies the upside by a longshot.
5. Poor Mobile Optimization
Think about your target audience. Are they researching local therapists on their work computer or on a laptop at a coffee shop in front of dozens of passersby? Probably not. More than likely, this is a more private, personal endeavor. A smartphone is the preferred medium of curious potential clients—and we have the data to prove it.
This revelation begs the question: how does your therapy website look on mobile?
When devices account for more than half your visitors, good enough is far from good enough. In fact, studies show that mobile users are uniformly intolerant of non-responsive experiences and will bounce without a second thought.
When you’re building a website on a desktop computer, it’s easy to neglect the mobile interface. However, it’s as important (if not more important than) the full screen view. For every element on your site, from fonts to images to columns to navigation, there needs to be a definition for how it responds to different devices. This is known as responsive design and should be top of mind when designing any therapy website.
So let’s bring this home. Obviously, your therapy website is an essential tool for attracting and connecting with potential clients. By avoiding these common mistakes—leading with qualifications, using overly clinical language, neglecting clear calls to action, relying on cheap website builders, and overlooking mobile optimization—you’ll create a welcoming, professional, and functional space for clients to feel comfortable and take the next step in their mental health journey.
Remember, your website should reflect the care and empathy you provide in your practice, guiding and serving visitors with clarity and ease.