You’ve poured your blood, sweat, money, and tears into your private practice. Whether you’re just starting out and need a brand new private practice therapy website or you’re ready to redo the site you created just to get yourself started, you deserve a website that shows the world how awesome you are!
Private practice websites are special and not like every other type of website out there. You’re selling your brand but you’re also selling yourself. Because so many people are Googling therapists these days, you want to make sure that when someone finds your website it speaks to them. It should make them say “wow, they’ll really get me.”
Therapist website copy isn’t like a lot of other website copy out there. You’re not an e-commerce store, you’re not an academic institution. You’re a human being offering a service to other human beings that need to be able to connect with you on an intimate and sensitive level. The copy on your website needs to reflect that.
When I create a website for therapists I take all of that into consideration. What is your voice? Who is your target audience? What does your private practice stand for? What are your core beliefs? All of this is important when creating your website if you want it to be well-written.
What Makes a Good Private Practice Website?
First of all, you need to know who your target audience is. Identify your ideal client. Don’t be afraid to niche down. The more specific you are, the easier it’s going to be to market your services. It also means you’ll be able to reach more people if you get really specific. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but if you try to reach too many people, you’ll have a hard time getting people in the door. Find your specialty. Show that you’re truly an expert at what you do.
Although as a copywriter I mostly concern myself with the words, having a clean design with colors that portray your brand is key. You should use a clear logo and not have too many pictures or other graphics on the page.
You also want copy that’s easily digestible. It should be SEO optimized both in the copy itself and on the backend, which an SEO copywriter will know how to do. They can help you do it yourself so you know how the basics work if you need to change anything.
Your website should be easy to navigate, with a clear navigation bar at the top and buttons that take your audience exactly where you want them to go. Your private practice website needs a strong call to action (CTA) on each page, which is where the buttons come in handy. Say you want someone to book a call with you – you can have a button at the top, middle, and bottom of the page that takes the reader directly to the contact page to book that consultation.
Ideally, you should have the following pages:
- Homepage
- About page
- Services page
- FAQ page
- Contact page
It’s also beneficial to have a blog, both for SEO reasons and to provide additional resources to your readers. Your blog should also be SEO optimized with a clear CTA.
How Can a Website Help Your Private Practice?
If your private practice therapy website is SEO-optimized, it will bring in organic traffic. People who are Googling therapists will find you if you’re using the right keywords. Most people either find therapists on Psychology Today (which links to your website) or by Googling therapists.
If you have a strong website, people will want to spend more time learning about you and your services. If you have a blog you can provide additional resources to potential and current clients and establish yourself as an authority figure in the field.
Also, other therapists can visit your website and see you as someone they may want to connect with, and eventually, you can get referrals from them. This is also a good opportunity to trade backlinks with other therapists. Backlinks are links to someone else’s page. If you cultivate a relationship with them, they can give you a backlink too! Blogs are great opportunities to earn backlinks.
How is a Private Practice Therapy Website Different From Other Websites?
Most therapists in private practice aren’t selling products unless you’ve written a book. Private practice therapy websites sell the services you provide, which is basically selling yourself and your brand.
You don’t necessarily need a lot of bells and whistles because you’re not trying to sell products, you’re trying to get people to trust you and want to work with you. Your private practice therapy website should be warm and inviting and not too “sales-y.” Therapist website copy should speak directly to the reader in a way that says “I see you, I get you, and I’ll hear and listen to you. You’ll be safe with me.”
Therapist Website Copy is Important for Your Private Practice
While the design is important because you want to be aesthetically pleasing to the reader’s eye, the words on your site are what will hook people. Having good copy is incredibly important for engaging new audience members.
Therapist website copy that is SEO-optimized is crucial to your site’s success and therefore to your private practice’s success. Your website represents you and your brand, which is your practice and you, the therapist.
If your copy doesn’t reflect you as a person and a therapist, then your audience either won’t connect with you via your website. Or, they’ll be surprised when they talk to you in person that you don’t sound the way you did on your site.
How Do You Successfully Write a Website for Therapists?
SEO optimization is the key to successfully writing a website for therapists. As a copywriter, I need to write in the therapist’s voice. I need to write in your voice.
My process is a collaborative one, in which I do the bulk of the writing based on a conversation I’ve had with the therapist. Then they get to edit the pages until it sounds like them 100%. I’m also working on the optimization part, which includes keyword research and writing meta descriptions that use the keywords we want the therapist to rank for.
Writing a website for therapists takes time, which is why hiring a copywriter to write your website is an investment that is worth doing. Once it’s written and optimized for SEO, it’s out there in the world for Google to find and for readers to see in their searches. SEO is the gift that keeps on giving. Once the site is written well and optimized for SEO, the rest is up to Google to crawl and find and rank the private practice therapy website.
If you’re ready to hire an SEO copywriter who knows how to market private practices by writing great websites, contact me today to set up a call and talk about how I can help!