Show Notes

Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast and I’m your host Kayla Das.

A website is the most important and powerful marketing tool you have in your private practice.

I get the question all the time. Do I really need a website? And my answer is always yes, you do. And that’s because your website is your virtual office.

Long are gone the days where businesses can go without having a website. Even if you’ve heard of someone who’ve made it big without a website, I would question how long they’ve been in business, as they’ve probably built a strong referral base over the years. And who their ideal clients are. And what I mean by that is, are their clients searching for therapists on the internet?

But even if you have a website, you might be missing some key elements. In this episode, I will share with you five of the most overlooked elements your website should have. So, whether you’re just designing your website for the first time, or you’re missing any of these elements on your existing website, you can make the necessary changes to enhance your website’s performance.

Hero Image

The first thing your website should have is a hero image, or what’s also called “above the fold” image. Which is an attractive and attention-grabbing image that someone sees the minute that they land on your website’s home page.

But it’s not just a hero image that’s important, but also what’s written on the hero image. On your hero image, you’ll add your business’s title and slogan so that website visitors know they’ve landed on the right page and they’re intrigued to learn more about your services.

Call-to-Action Buttons

Next, you should have call-to-action buttons spread throughout your website that send visitors either to your contact page or your online booking link.

Even if you might think that it’s common sense that you want website visitors to reach out, without accessible call-to-action buttons, website visitors will have to search throughout your website to find a way to contact you. If you make it as easy as possible for website visitors to reach out, then when they decide that they want to become prospective clients, they can easily click on the button and make an appointment with you.

Your first call-to-action should actually be after your business title and slogan on the hero image that I mentioned a few minutes ago. Because sometimes visitors already know they want to contact you, so having a call-to-action button the minute they land on your website can help them move swiftly along to become your client. It’s important to have call-to-action buttons throughout your website in several spaces such as the beginning, middle, and end of a web page, depending on the length of that page, of course. This way you’re making it super easy for prospective clients to contact you. If they have to search and search for a way to contact you, you can bet that they’ll just leave your website first.

Add Your Prices

The third element is to add session prices to your website. All too often, therapists and coaches leave this important information off their website. Although some people will say it’s a marketing strategy, where they hope to get clients on a consultation call so then they can tell them the prices, this can also backfire because it can either deter clients from ever reaching out to you. Or it takes up valuable time from you and your client if your prices do not align with your prospective client’s budget.

And some clients want to know how much they can expect to pay for sessions before they reach out, especially if they’ve never been to a therapist before. They may not know what to expect when it comes to prices. If your prices are not within their expected price range, they might not be able to work with you.

I remember a time I reached out to a business coach for a consultation who didn’t advertise their prices on their website, but I thought their services looked interesting. Due to prices, I charge in my own business practice, I assume the price might be a couple hundred dollars an hour. But when I met with this coach, they shared that the cost to work with them is $20,000 for two sessions a month for a commitment of a year. Yes, you heard me right, $20,000. Although I’m all about making a profit, I just know that I had total sticker shock and it wasn’t something that I could afford at that time. If I knew the price up front, I wouldn’t have reached out and wasted their time, or mine.

Like I said before, I know getting people on a call and then giving them the price is a marketing strategy in itself. But I feel that this is a little too salesy for my own liking. In addition, if people enroll in services that they can’t afford, they are likely going to feel buyer’s remorse afterwards, and that’s not going to look very good on your practice or your reputation.

Going back to my example, imagine if I enrolled in the $20,000 program. I didn’t by the way. But then I had to max out my credit card and I didn’t see the results that I had hoped for. Yes, the company would have gotten their money, but I wouldn’t be a happy customer doing so.

Although some may disagree, there’s no reason to hide your prices because when the client reaches out, they’re going to eventually find out what your prices are.

Privacy Policy

The fourth element you should have on your website is a privacy policy. I should clarify that this isn’t just a should, but a must. Privacy policies on websites are a requirement under the Canadian law, specifically the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act, or otherwise known as PIPEDA. Other countries such as the U.S. and U.K. also have privacy policy requirements under similar legislation, but criteria for what might be included in a privacy policy may vary.

So, what is a privacy policy?

A privacy policy is a legal disclaimer usually placed at the footer of your website. A privacy policy explains how you gather, store, protect, and use personal information gathered or tracked from your website.

If you have a contact form, online booking scheduler, Facebook pixels, Google analytics, or any other software gathering, sending, storing, or tracking information, you’ll need a privacy policy.

Even if you’re saying to yourself, “Well, I don’t use any of these, so I’m good.” you may not be, because some hosting platforms have apps or plugins that are preloaded. For example, when I first set up my WordPress account, a plugin called Jetpack, a site performance and website growth tool, was already on my site tracking visitors. Honestly, it’s a great tool and I recommend it. But the plugin does track how many people visit my website, which countries they are from, which pages they landed on and which links they had clicked.

Unfortunately, some people think if websites are not tracking people’s names, then it’s not personal information. However, that’s not true. According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, personal information is, and I quote, “any factual or subjective information, recorded or not, about an identifiable individual.” Even if your website is tracking other computer’s IP addresses, that could be considered personal information.

So honestly, having a privacy policy on your website is a smart and essential move to protect your practice and comply with privacy legislation.

If you’re wondering where you can find privacy policies for your website, Online Legal Essentials, owned by Corinne Boudreau, a Nova Scotia lawyer, sells legal templates for Canadian business owners. Online Legal Essentials has the Website Legal Essentials Template Pack, where you can get privacy policy templates specifically for regulated health professionals, terms of use disclaimers, copyright notices and more

To check out the Website Legal Essentials Template Pack, head to kayladas.com/onlinelegalessentials or scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

And because I’m an affiliate for Online Legal Essentials where I receive commission for any products purchased using my links, I also have a discount code for 10% off that I can share with you. It’s EVASPARE10, that’s EVASPARE10. So, purchase any of the Online Legal Essentials legal packs and use this code EVASPARE10 at cart and you’ll instantly get 10% off.

Blog

Finally, add a blog to your website. Blogs are an amazing marketing tool that can help you build a know, like, and trust factor with website visitors and improve your website’s search engine optimization. If someone lands on your website, say through a therapist directory, your Google business page, or an advertisement you posted somewhere, they likely haven’t met you yet and are unaware of your empathetic and trusting nature. So, your website can help build trust with prospective clients before they ever reach out to you.

To build trust through a website it takes more than just saying that you have the skills to help them but instead you need to show them you can help them and the best way in doing that is through helpful blog articles.

Some people worry if they write blog articles that they’ll give away their service secrets and then no one will want to reach out to them, but the contrary is true. When people read your blog and they found value in it because maybe it gave them some helpful tips about a problem they are having or it addressed a long-standing question that they had, then it builds trust.

In addition, when you have a blog, it helps improve your search engine optimization. If you’re considering hiring an SEO expert and paying thousands of dollars in doing so, but you don’t have a blog, you’re likely going to be wasting your money. Because the number one thing that Google looks for is blogs. Well, maybe not blogs per se, but Google are looking for new and unique content that aligns with something called search intent.

And search intent is essentially what a searcher is typing into Google. Google then shows the most relevant results that can help the searcher with their query, which for most businesses translates into blog articles.

One of the most common key phrases that therapists and SEO experts alike try to rank therapists for is “Therapist near me.”

First of all, this key phrase is very popular and competitive on Google, and that’s because it’s usually what clients are typing into Google to find a therapist. But unless you are contributing new content to your website regularly, your page will unlikely reach page one of Google organically.

 Now, if you pay for Google ads, or you create a free Google business page, you might have a shot at showing up under either the “sponsored” section for Google ads or the “places” section in your location on Google Maps. But if you’re not contributing content to your website regularly Google isn’t going to reward your website with being on page one for the key phrase “Therapist near me.”

But each helpful blog you create can be a checkmark for your website’s authority, so that one day your website is competing for the top spot for competitive keywords such as “therapist near me.”

In addition, every time you create a blog that aligns with what your ideal client is searching for, the article itself, if optimized appropriately, may be found on Google for different keywords. So, if someone lands on your blog post about managing anxiety and they read it, if they found it helpful, they may be inclined to click on other pages of your website to learn more about you and your services. So they kind of found you by coming in through the back door, we’ll say, from your blog.

I don’t know how many therapists I spoke with over the years that have paid thousands of dollars to SEO experts so that they can rank better on Google. However, it’s important to keep in mind that SEO experts are not magicians and they can’t make something out of nothing. Even though they might make some promises that they can, if you are not contributing new and unique content to your website regularly, there’s not a whole lot an SEO expert can do to improve your SEO. So you might want to save your money.

Some people think that you can trick Google into ranking higher, but this simply isn’t the case. In fact, websites that try to trick Google can actually be deranked because Google looks for trustworthiness as a part of its algorithm.

So, the best way to play the SEO game is to try to play it fair by starting a blog. When you write great content, Google will reward you for it.

Recap

So, there you have it, the five most overlooked things that your website should have.

Now let’s recap.

One, have a hero image on your homepage.

Two, spread out call to action buttons throughout your website.

Three, display your session prices on your website.

Four, include a privacy policy at the footer of your website.

Five, write blog articles regularly.

Thank you for tuning into today’s episode of the designer practice podcast. If you like this episode or the podcast overall, please share it with your colleagues. I hope to reach as many therapists and coaches as possible through the podcast, and with your help, the podcast can continue to grow and reach more people.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

The Designer Practice Podcast and Evaspare Inc. has an affiliate and/or sponsorship relationship for advertisements in our podcast episodes. We receive commission or monetary compensation, at no extra cost to you, when you use our promotional codes and/or check out advertisement links.

References

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. (May, 2019). PIPEDA in Brief. Retrieved from https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/the-personal-information-protection-and-electronic-documents-act-pipeda/pipeda_brief/