4 Unique Benefits of Having a Website for your Therapy Practice 

Regardless of the industry you are in, it is widely accepted that having a website is an extremely important part of running a successful business. Whether looking for information on services, hours of availability, contact information, or other business information, the first thing potential customers often do is visit the website of the company or individual they are looking to interact with.

For those in the Mental Health field, we’ve noticed that having a website can often appear as more of a burden than a fundamental marketing tool. We get it. Having a website can seem overwhelming… ‘Tech’ stuff is just a bunch of headaches… And then there’s all this new jargon and lingo to learn. Add in concerns such as potentially exposing private information, advertising sensitive issues, and being sure you are totally HIPAA compliant, and suddenly having a website feels like way too big of a headache.

While these concerns are legitimate, they are nothing that an experienced web developer that’s intimately familiar with the mental health industry won’t be able to take care of **COUGH COUGH**.

In fact, if you and your web designer are aware of these perceived burdens they can end up creating unique benefits that will set your website apart from your competition.

Here are the benefits of having a website for your therapy practice:

1. Establishing Trust – A lot of therapists don’t consider word of mouth referrals and the impact their website can have on their business. If a customer hears your name from a friend or colleague, they are likely to Google it. If they are unable to find a website for your business, the conversation is likely to end there. Having a high-quality website in place keeps the door open, and encourages prospective customers to engage with you.

2. Proving You are a Good Fit – From our experience, therapists can sometimes tend to be wary of talking about themselves online due to privacy concerns. While this is understandable, leveraging your personal experiences on your website can be one of your most powerful assets. Here at Brighter Vision, we’ve found time and time again that our customers with a strong ‘About Me’ page find greater amounts of traffic to their websites. The reason? Therapy is a very personal experience, and people want to know before they even schedule a consultation that their therapist is someone they can relate to. This is conveyed not only through the content on your pages, but the look and feel of the website as well. Visitors tend to tie all branding elements directly to the business itself, so if the website looks old and outdated, customers may assume you don’t take your business seriously. On the flip-side if your therapist website is modern and visually appealing (like these in our portfolio of therapist website designs), it will lead customers to associate your business with a forward-thinking, progressive approach to mental health.

3. Ensuring Ease of the Therapy Experience  – It can take an individual years of thinking about seeking help before actually reaching out and scheduling a consultation with a therapist. When one does decide to reach out for help, it can be an extremely stressful and anxiety filled action to take. One way to counteract this is by letting potential clients know how easy you are to work with directly on your website. Things like having your contact information readily available, paperwork easily accessible, and shortcuts to schedule and pay online reassure potential customers of your ability to serve them. You can also include tactics from benefit #1 and #2 to create trust with your potential clients. Additionally, this conveys a modern approach to the therapeutic process.

4. Instilling your Commitment to Confidentiality – Your customers want to know their confidential information is safe with you. The first place you need to establish this trust is through your website. Being able to advertise your website as fully encrypted goes a long way in showing your commitment to confidentiality and privacy. To help therapists with this, Brighter Vision provides fully HIPAA Secure Emails and Encrypted Contact and Appointment Request forms. And for free to all of our customers, we provide SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certifications for every website we build. This means that when a potential client arrives on your website, they see a green bar showing your website is Secure and Safe. It is a necessary first step in creating a safe environment for your clients.

Have questions about any of this? We’d love to provide answers.

Please feel free to schedule a time with Sam Chlebowski, Brighter Vision’s Director of Customer Happiness via his online calendar below:

About Wyatt Megla