The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Convert More Clients From Your Website
Ready to transform your therapy practice website and attract more clients without getting bogged down by design complexities? In this episode we reveal five essential strategies for making your site more client-centric and effective.
Don’t miss out on these actionable tips to enhance your online presence and grow your practice!
Ross Herosian with Tricycle Creative
Creating Your Brand Episode
Meet with one of our coaches
*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
A good website is one of the best ways for a business to generate leads and get more clients. However, oftentimes in therapy practices, our website is not quite up to the bar. So today I'm going to give you five ways that you can tweak or update your website so that it will not only draw in more people, but also convert more clients. My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. I know as a business owner, websites can be overwhelming. You're likely not a web designer and don't really know exactly what to put on there. Oftentimes and I know when I first started my business, the website was one of the first things that I did and, truthfully, I didn't really know what to put on there. So I posted a bunch of stuff about me, maybe a couple pictures about my background, my history, my family, and just left it alone for months and months. And sometimes, when I meet a business owner who's even been in business for years. We'll look at their website and realize it hasn't been updated. We'll click on links that go to nowhere. We will read word and text that is outdated and will truthfully push people away from working with you or hiring one of your clinicians. So having a updated and really targeted website is super important. Now, everything I'm going to give you today is not anything you need to go. It has nothing to do with design. So there are some designer tips that you can take to a web designer, but for the most part, these are things that you can change if you have access to it, or if you have a web designer that you can just send them some text, some copy or some requests for them to just make a couple adjustments and see how well it converts. Now I always recommend when making changes is to see how are you doing right now. Do you have a way to measure how many leads you're getting through your website? Log into your Google Analytics. If you don't have that set up yet, I recommend setting it up and check to see how are you converting. Are people coming to your website and leaving? How many people are converting right now? And then we're going to compare that to what it looks like after you've optimized your website. Now we're not going to get into SEO today either, but in a future episode we will bring in some SEO experts who can help you revamp your site to get more present on Google and attract more people. Let's dig into how you can tweak your website to get more clients. So the first thing you want to do is you want to be problem solution focused.
Speaker 1:Too often when we go to a website, it is all about you, the business owner. We're reading the website and it's about your mission, it's about your background, it's about your passions. It's about all those little acronyms that equals to some kind of degree or license that you have, and it's full of industry jargon. This will push people away. Oftentimes they don't care. They really don't care. Not only do they probably not know what those little acronyms, those letters next to your name, mean, they really are there for themselves when you are going to a website.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for I just bought a brand new sit-stand desk and as I was researching that, if I'm going to a website to check out this sit-stand desk that I'm going to invest some money in and all I'm able to find is information on the business owner and when they started their business and how many employees they have and what they like to do in their free time, I'm going to leave that website. It's not solving my problem and, honestly, I only going to leave that website. It's not solving my problem and, honestly, I only have so much mental capacity and so, as it's crowding my brain with more information that I'm not going to use, that I don't need, I'm just going to leave and I'm going to go to a different website that might more easily and more quickly speak to what I'm looking for. Now. That's not to say you don't want to share more about you. I know as a therapist, you're super relational. It's a relationship-based engagement that you're working on, so people want to get to know you.
Speaker 1:I know when I was looking for my therapist, I wanted to know more about them for sure, and so having a tab or a separate page or just further down on the homepage, even about you, is fine, but really in that top section, we would say it's called above the fold. What above the fold is is when somebody visits your website without scrolling at all, what do they see? The thing that's at the very top of your website. That's prime real estate. That is where we want to speak to your potential clients, to your target market. Speak to them directly, and we want to talk about problem and solution focused things. We want to identify their problem. Now, hopefully you know and if you don't, in a past episode I will link it in the show notes we have dug a little bit into speaking to your ideal market and your ideal clients and trying to figure out who those people are. But you know, your licenses is a great place to start. Who is your ideal client? What are they struggling with? What are the things you love helping people with? What are you licensed to help people with? Write just a list of those things.
Speaker 1:If it's trauma, people who are struggling with trauma then that's what we want to speak to on the website. Now, a fear here is that we're going to push other people away, that by speaking specifically to this one group of people, we're going to push everybody else away and they're going to be like oh, this is not the person for me and you're afraid you might lose out on some business. And that might be true, but what we usually find is you're going to draw in the right people. So the people who are struggling with trauma. If they come to your website and they see that that's what you're speaking to, they're going to be just completely drawn to you. They're going to feel that connection. They're going to know that you understand what they're going through. They're going to want to hire you.
Speaker 1:And the people who maybe aren't struggling with trauma. Some might leave the website, but some might dig further and read down and as they get further down and learn more about you and maybe you have a list of things that you could help people with they realize, okay, this person might be a great person to reach out to, but we want to speak directly to those people. So what's that problem solution that you can speak to? When we're doing this, we do kind of want to bring up those pain points. I know what it's like to struggle with anxiety. I know. Do you feel like you can't sleep at night? Do you find that you're spacing out when you're with your family, that you're present, but you're not present?
Speaker 1:So speaking to those struggles that those people may have is really, really important. It's a lot of times we might be afraid to do that because we don't want to agitate this pain point, but really what we're doing is we're just saying I know what you're dealing with, I know what you're struggling with. This is what we specialize in. We work with people just like you all the time. You're not alone and we can help, and that's where that solution side comes. So where are they now?
Speaker 1:Speak to that pain point and then start speaking to what can life look like as a result of therapy? Now, we're not promising results and we're not promising anything, but we're saying it doesn't have to be this way, and just having someone to speak to or having some tools in your toolbox or whatever your process is, we're going to speak to them and say this is what life could look like. What would it be like for you to not be losing sleep over this or to not miss out on life events or family events because of X, y or Z? So, really speaking to that problem, and then, what does life look like for them? That solution that's what we want most of your website to speak about, and then again a little section maybe about you, who you are, and then a list of things that you help with is always helpful, but really talk about their problem, talk about that solution. That leads me to the second thing that your website should have, and that is a clear call to action. What do you want them to do when they visit your website? What are you hoping they do?
Speaker 1:When I'm looking for that stand-up desk, the websites with a clear call to action are going to say buy now, right, buy now. Are going to say buy now, right, buy now. It's not saying learn more, it's not saying get started or just some vague terminology. It is buy now. And so I click that button and I'm going to get into the process of figuring out what is buying this desk look like. And that's what we want from you.
Speaker 1:My personal website it's book a consultation. So I sat down and I thought what do I most want people to do when they come to my website? If somebody is struggling financially in their therapy practice or in their personal finances, what do I want them to do? When they get to my website and they see that we're speaking to their problem, we're speaking to the solutions, I want them to book a consultation. That's that next step. And so, whatever your process is, if you do a consultation call with everybody, then that would be the next step. If you just want to jump right into them, scheduling a therapy session with you. Then schedule a session or book a session.
Speaker 1:Speak really clearly on that call to action. Speak really clearly on that call to action and then put it all over your website. Put it on your website over and, over and over again. It's going to feel like overkill, but that's what we want. We want a call to action button at the top of your website. So at that top of the fold, they see a clear call to action. So those people who maybe came to your website and are ready to take that action they will. Some will need to scroll down and read more. They're going to read about the pain points and the solutions. Call to action. They'll scroll down more. Maybe they're reading about you. Then there's another call to action button. So continuously throughout the website, on every page, on the homepage, everywhere, constantly, just ask for them or tell them to take that next step and make it clear what that next step is.
Speaker 1:I think and one way to do this is to have somebody who doesn't know you or your business very well look at your website and just be honest and say whether it's easy to figure out what you want them to do. I was just looking at one of our clients' websites today, and when we went there, they had one call to action button and it just said learn more. And so, as I'm looking at their website, I'm going I don't know how to work with this person. In fact, when I clicked on the button, it didn't work, so it just refreshed the homepage and then there was a contact form at the bottom, but again, we didn't know how to utilize that, so it wasn't clear on what to do. And so, when we were talking, we didn't know how to utilize that, so it wasn't clear on what to do. And so, when we were talking, we're saying if you can make these few tweaks, you will likely see an increase in people booking calls with you, booking consultations.
Speaker 1:So, being really really clear, now the third thing you can do with this call to action and so it comes down to that form I was just talking about at the bottom is book them straight to your calendar. We don't want friction in this process. The more friction, the more hurdles people are going to have to jump over, the less likely they are to take that action. And so what I mean by that is if they click a button and it opens up this form and it says fill out your name, fill out your email, fill out your phone number, fill out what's wrong. What are you struggling with right now? You know very well that a lot of times, if there's some kind of depression or anxiety involved with what they're trying to seek help for, if they're struggling with neurodivergency or whatever it is, they might get to that point, hit overwhelm and hit the X on the window. I've done that so many times. We want to make it easy on them. We want to make it as easy as possible.
Speaker 1:Now, the caveat here is if you are just swamped with leads more leads than you can handle and you're trying to filter those leads, that's where you might want to throw in a questionnaire or something to deter some people away and really only get serious inquiries scheduling on your call. But for the most part, most people and if you're listening to this podcast, likely you are wanting more leads, you're trying to get more consultation calls booked. So have it go straight to your calendar If it's through simple practice, if you're using a website like Calendly or any of the online calendar softwares. If you don't have one, I recommend getting one, but have it go straight there and let them book a call on your calendar and reassure them the whole way that this is just a no pressure call. We're going to help you feel comfortable. We're going to help make sure that you're taken care of, make it as easy as possible, reduce the friction in the process. When you go to my website once again, when you click any of those book of consultation, it goes straight to my Calendly calendar. It doesn't ask for any. It's pretty short on what information we ask for.
Speaker 1:Now we did start because we've had to vet more on who we're going to work with when we and this will ebb and flow, so sometimes we are at capacity and we're trying to keep our calendars open for serious inquiries. Only, you know, once in a while you can get tire kickers is what we would call them where they're just not really at the point where they're ready to hire somebody. They're just testing the waters. In therapy, the world of therapy, typically people know what you do well enough that if they're scheduling a call with you, they are likely looking for something, whereas us in the coaching world not everyone is familiar with what we do. They may not know how we help, and so they're just kind of checking it out. So sometimes we have a list of questions, sometimes just as simple as name, and a checkbox of what can we help you with, and even an optional blank form where they can free type whatever they might need help with. Sometimes we'll ask for their revenue and their business, because that can be helpful for us preparing for the call.
Speaker 1:The industry, the website we like to see their website if we can, but the shorter the better to get what you want out of it. Another thing you can add here, which we do, is just a how did you hear about us? And it's just a dropdown and it's you know. Did you find us through Google? Did you just? Did somebody refer you? Did you find us through a YouTube video, whatever it is? And just so you can kind of keep track of what's working and what's not working, but ultimately book them straight to your calendar, you're going to likely see an uptick in conversions.
Speaker 1:All right, the fourth thing that your website should include is video, video, and if you are somebody who hates being on video, I challenge you to overcome that a little bit. It doesn't mean you have to start your own podcast or video web series or anything. It just means record a really authentic video of you speaking to those pain points and to those solutions A 60 second video that's really targeted on. Here's the three main things we help with. You can just and speaking directly to them If you're struggling with this, if you feel like this, if you wish life was more like this. That's what we help people with and here's what life can look like for you. So, speaking pretty much what you were just saying needs to be written in your website. Speaking to that, you can also create a separate video that speaks about you If you want to share more about you.
Speaker 1:This is that connection piece. It's relational. This is largely why I do a lot of podcasts and video marketing when I'm out there. It's because what we do as coaches is relational, just similar, very similar to what you do as a therapist. It's a relationship and people are hiring us. They want money is such a vulnerable thing, yeah, that we want people to realize and get to know us and feel that connection.
Speaker 1:So there's a little bit of a trust factor when they get on that call. It can reduce that barrier of anxiousness when they can see who you are, they can hear how you talk, they can hear some empathy in your voice. It'll put them at ease getting on that call when they can see that background behind you that you'll likely be on the call on all those things. It puts a visual picture of what getting on a call with you looks like, versus if there's just no video of you and I mean at the bare minimum some pictures of you, but if there's none of those things on your website which I've seen. Many therapists have websites where their pictures are not even on it. It puts a lot of ambiguity in the world. There person who's going to be getting on a consultation call with you has no idea what that call is going to look like. They can't picture it and there's a higher likelihood they're going to cancel or no show, and those are the worst. So bridge that gap.
Speaker 1:Put out some video on psychology today. Put those videos up. They let you post a video Again in my search for a therapist, and even sometimes just I like to browse psychology today just to see what therapists are doing, what's working, what's not working, and the ones with the videos are, in my opinion, light years ahead of the ones who don't have video. And a good video not again, you don't need to be a news anchor on camera. You don't need to be super fluent, but be confident and practice and practice. Try again and again. Get the rhythm down. Write a script if you want, and just get familiar with it and try and be conversational. Those are the best ones. If we're too focused on reading or remembering words and we just turn into this robot, that's not getting your personality across and that's what we want. Number one is personality, to speak through that video.
Speaker 1:The final thing and this is kind of a bonus thing and this is where you would probably need to work with your web designer or if some kind of marketer, marketing coach or something to help set this up, if you don't already have the infrastructure set up. But that is having a lead magnet on your website. This is for those people who may not be ready to take that step, to book a consultation, but you can provide them some value of some kind. This could be a PDF document that's informational 10 ways to I don't know 10 ways to do X, y and Z on whatever your target market is. It can be a video series, it can be anything that they can just download, so it can be a downloadable, something that they get access to by giving you their email address. That's the key. They give you their email address in exchange for some valuable content.
Speaker 1:Now, if you have email marketing set up, if you're using active campaign or you're using something of that nature that's going to send out email newsletters, then they get added to that and then you just nurture them. You're sending them weekly, monthly, however often. You're sending out emails of value. Just here's some tips and tricks. Here's some things you can do. Here's some suggestions on battling depression during the holidays or whatever it is. You're sending out those things because you're in their inbox and when they are ready to book, you will likely be top of mind because you've provided value to them without them having to spend a dime with you yet. And when they get to that point where they're ready hopefully because you've been in their inbox once a week or once a month you're the person who comes to mind. You're the person they reach out to first.
Speaker 1:Now, this can be as complex as we want it to be, and again, this is where you can get some help. Our coaches are somewhat versed in this, so you can always reach out to us and see if we can help kind of guide you through this process. But we also know, so please feel free to shoot me an email and I can always connect you with some marketing people. I know Ross Herosian, who's been on this podcast before. He's a marketing coach who can probably help you through this, so I'll put his contact info in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:But setting up that, where they opt in and it automatically emails it to them Now you don't. If you don't have those structures set up, you can do it as simple as it's a form that they fill out. They just put their name and their email address and then, when you see that come in, it goes to your inbox, you can see it and you can just email them directly, whatever it is, and so there might be some turnaround time. Maybe they opt in today and you don't see it until tomorrow morning, and so you email them a PDF, whatever it is. So it can be as simple as that and as complex as using something like ActiveCampaign, where it automatically does it. So the second they enter their info, their email gets dropped into that system and it automatically sends them out an email with the lead magnet attached, and then it might send them into a nurture sequence where you have four or five emails pre-written that it's going to send out every day or two to them, just providing some value and encouraging them to take those next steps into booking those calls.
Speaker 1:When you do have those emails, check in on those people.
Speaker 1:Don't just send them the PDF and then hands off, all right, they got what they wanted.
Speaker 1:Check in with them, nurture them, reach out to them, collect their phone number if you want to on that lead magnet form and give them a call and just say hey, I saw you opted into our 10 ways to battle depression and during the holidays, is there anything we can help you with? And so really continuing to encourage them to book that consultation. If that's your next step to the thing you're targeting, then go ahead and do that. Push them toward that. Provide value. Above all, that's what we want is to provide value to people and to bridge that gap, to bridge that fear, that reducing that friction of they land on your website and now they are getting the help and support they need from you and your team. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
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