Private practice
Someone looking for a therapist is deciding whether to talk to a stranger about the worst thing in their life. Your website is where they work out whether that stranger might be you — and most of that decision happens before they ever pick up the phone.
Where they are when they find you
They found you on Psychology Today or through a referral, they are reading on a phone, probably late at night, and they are looking for a reason to stop looking.
01
The most common reason a prospective client closes the tab is that they cannot tell what a session costs or whether you take their insurance. Making people email to find out does not protect the fee — it just moves the rejection to somewhere you have to read it.
02
Most people arrive from a directory profile written in your own voice, then land on a site written in stock therapy language. That gap reads as inauthentic at exactly the moment trust is being decided.
03
A list of twenty specialties tells someone nothing. Three you actually lead with, described in plain language, lets the right person recognise themselves and the wrong person self-select out — which saves you both a call.
04
A form asking "what brings you in?" is collecting health information before anyone is a client. A phone number and an email address avoid that question entirely. I am not a compliance advisor and will not pretend to be — but a brochure site that does not collect symptoms is a smaller problem than one that does, and that is worth deciding deliberately rather than by accident.
What gets built
Every site is designed from a blank page for the business it belongs to. These are the things that come up on nearly every therapists project.
Also
Trades and home services
On a phone, often outdoors, often in a hurry, frequently searching something like "plumber near me" rather than your business name.
Clubs and nonprofits
Someone deciding whether to come to an event, join, or donate — and quite often a member checking what time Thursday’s meeting starts.
Food and drink
On a phone, deciding now, often searching for a dish rather than a restaurant name.
Half an hour, free, no pitch. Tell me what your business does and what is wrong with the site you have — and if the answer is that it is fine, I will tell you that.
