This content is provided by Brighter Vision, an affinity partner of AAMFT. This information is not necessarily the views of AAMFT and should not be interpreted as official policy.
You already know that your homepage is important. After all, it’s the very first thing your website visitors see, the face of your site!
The introductory text you write for your homepage is the very first chance you get to greet your potential clients and persuade them to choose your practice. It’s not an opportunity you want to waste.
If you’re worrying that your own homepage might not be written up to snuff right now, fret not! We’ve cracked the recipe for a solid, engaging private practice homepage that will entice your potential clients to reach out to you right away, and boiled it down into 3 easy steps for beginners.
How to Write a Better Homepage
1. Connect with your ideal client
The first thing your homepage text should do is call out to your ideal client. There are a couple great ways to do this. One of the most powerful is by identifying what your ideal client struggles with. This shows that you understand and sympathize with what they’re going through, which your clients will feel is necessary in order for you to help them.
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Take this example from the homepage of Abby’s therapy practice, Welcome Home Family Therapy.
Image credit: Welcome Home Family Therapy
See how she starts off with a series of questions that pinpoint issues specific to clients struggling with family relationships and communication issues? Abby has identified her ideal clients as those who are experiencing these familial issues in their home and are therefore best suited for her kind of in-home group therapy.
Another great way to connect with your ideal client right away is to show that you understand their goals for both their personal life and their expectations for therapy.
Let’s look at this example from Tammy Toriello’s private practice website:
Image credit: Tammy Toriello, LMHC
Tammy opens up with a motivation her ideal clients can connect to, already putting herself on their team as she provides encouragement that identifies with those potential clients. Empowering your potential clients by making their goals seem so achievable (-with you) makes them more likely to want to take charge of their own care by hitting that button to schedule an appointment.
2. Make yourself the solution
Now that you’ve identified either the struggles or goals of your ideal client, you can take this opportunity to explain why you and your practice are the answer they need.
If you started out by looking at some key issues your ideal client struggles with, explain how you would be able to help with those particular issues. If you chose to talk about goals you can help your potential clients achieve, explain how you would help the client accomplish them or why you would provide better support in achieving these goals than others would.
A good example to start with is from Texas-based practice, Mansfield Counseling.
Image credit: Mansfield Counseling
Mansfield Counseling didn’t have to write a lot for their pitch to be persuasive. They’ve touted their accomplishments and the qualifications that make them uniquely suited to help their potential clients, but at the same time they’ve made sure to stay personal and keep it all about the reader – their ideal client.
They paint a picture of the goals that their website visitors would want to reach, making their goals sound achievable with Mansfield Counseling’s help by writing descriptively. The result is short and sweet.
For a slightly more formal example, let’s swing on over to Joanne’s business, Change Agent & Associates, which is aimed at online coaching for women.
Image credit: Change Agent & Associates
Again, Joanne has made her clients’ goals seem so accessible with her help because of how descriptive and specific she’s being about both her understanding of what her clients want to accomplish and how she can help them.
You don’t want to write forever on your homepage – remember that you still have other pages on your site where you can elaborate on you personally and your services! However, taking the time to explain to your potential clients what they can really expect from a therapy experience with you can really increase the contact rate from your homepage visitors.
>> Still worried your site isn’t quite “up to snuff”? <<
Double-check yourself with Brighter Vision’s free Website Grader!
3. Call to action (CTA)
This third and final step of our quick homepage recipe will likely be the shortest of the three but is arguably the most important – your call to action (CTA).
If you’re looking for a more detailed explanation of what CTAs are and how you can use them on your private practice website to capture more potential clients, check out this article that Perry wrote a couple years ago that still rings true today.
If you’re looking for the quick version, however, here it is: a call to action is any part of your website that both A) asks your website visitor to take an action, and B) provides them with the means to take that action. CTAs often take the form of buttons (such as any “Shop Now” button you’re used to seeing in online stores), but they can look like almost anything.
It is essential that you have a CTA at the end of your homepage text. Now that your thoughtful website introduction has persuaded your potential client to reach out and take the next step, you have to give them a way to do that!
Here is a great example of a homepage CTA from Archway Counseling & Wellness.
Image credit: Archway Counseling & Wellness
Not only has Archway provided their potential clients with a way to contact them with one click, but they gave the reader another little taste of what they’ll get when they reach out – “a better, happier, more fulfilled you.”
This second example from Dr. Lily Van Cleave Psychotherapy is just as thoughtful but shows a slightly different format using an actual button.
Image credit: Dr. Lily Van Cleave Psychotherapy
As you can see, Dr. Lily also reinforces the positive of what she can provide her potential clients, while also providing a clear set of instructions and a path to take the next step with her.
That’s it!
And just like that, you have a beautifully written new homepage!
If you’re looking for some extra advice, it’s important to remember to keep things personable. It’s important to avoid rattling off qualifications that won’t mean much to the average potential client visiting your site. If you’re ever struggling to write in a more casual tone, try recording yourself with a tape recorder and transcribing the results – you may think it’ll sound like a mess, but you’ll be surprised how useful the results can be.
Want the Beautiful Therapist Website You Deserve?
After all that, are you still feeling a little uneasy about your homepage? Don’t worry!
When you become a Brighter Vision client, not only do you gain access to expert marketing advice and website design guidance, but you’ll also gain access to our homepage generator tool. Plug in personal information about your private practice and pick out your writing style, and presto! Out comes all the brand-new homepage text you need.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, please contact us today.
Brighter Vision is a preferred vendor of AAMFT, specializing in making marketing simple for private practices. Their all-inclusive website design service helps therapists grow their practices with a variety of marketing tools and resources. All members receive their entire first year of a new website with Brighter Vision for only $49/month plus no setup fees; that’s a savings of $220. To take advantage of this offer, please click here