4 Things Every Therapist Website Homepage Needs to Fill Your Private Practice [Ep 159]

The key here, and that's kind of, most people tend to flip it. The copy, they tend to focus on where clients want to be. So getting into more of that esoteric language and more of the root causes, which is valid, that's what you're trained to do and to see. And then the design is more focused on where the client might be currently. And my argument is flip that. Speak from a place of like, I understand where you are in this moment and design the website in an aspirational way. So how they want to feel, create an environment that signals to them. This is possible without saying that in so many words. (upbeat music) - Hey there, and welcome to the Bad Therapist Show, the podcast for current and aspiring private practice therapists who want to earn more money, work less, and have a way bigger impact. I'm your host Felicia, the bad therapist. Former Goody Goody Therapist turns six-figure private practice owner and therapist business coach. I'm here to help you learn everything you need to know about private practice and expanding beyond the one-to-one model so you can earn more money and increase your impact as a therapist without burning out or hustling. Using my proven liberated business method, therapists at all stages of business have been able to grow their income while becoming even better therapists. And I'm on a mission to help you do the same. It's time for you to get your time back and enjoy being a therapist again. You ready? Let's get started. (upbeat music) Hello and welcome back to the Bad Therapist Show. Today I'm joined by the incredibly talented Monica Povitch who is the founder of Hold Space Creative and a former therapist turned website designer for private practice therapists. I've been referring my clients to Monica for years. And today I wanted to bring her on the show to talk about something that so many therapists get stuck on, what actually belongs on your homepage. We're breaking down exactly what needs to go above the fold, the most common copy and design mistakes therapists are making and how to fix them. And by stopping the good therapist conditioning of hiding behind your credentials could be one of the best things you do for your practice. Whether you're building your website from scratch or wondering why the one you have just isn't converting this episode is for you. Let's get into it. - So Monica, thank you so much for coming here and welcome to the show. - Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. It's always a pleasure talking to you and your students. I love working with bad therapists. - Me too. And I'm so glad that we get to bring some of what you do inside of liberated business out to my listeners on the show because this is such an important topic for therapists because I think they get really stuck sometimes or confused about what exactly belongs on a homepage. They obviously know that they need to talk to their ideal clients. They probably need to mention their niche. Maybe they need to talk about themselves, but like what does belong on a homepage for a private practice therapist? Can you run us through what you recommend to your clients? - Yeah. First of all, it's really normal to feel overwhelmed with like what to put on your homepage and your website in general. I think this is something that we, I'm gonna say we as therapists 'cause I kind of still think of myself as a therapist even though I'm not practicing anymore, but it's not something that we learn in grad school and then the work after grad school, marketing ourselves is something that doesn't always come naturally. So very personally, does marketing come naturally to therapists? I feel like in general, there's such an aversion to marketing and that's why I'm so glad people like you exist who have the experience of being a therapist and do really understand marketing and kind of help us along in those moments when we are feeling stuck. That's why I love your template so much because there's such an easy way for people who are uncomfortable with marketing to get started and have something that's just like really high quality out of the box. - Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's really helpful to have kind of like a base structure to go off of in that solid foundation then you can bring in your clinical expertise and experience and then just kind of fill in the gaps and so you don't have to worry about all the, you know, learning an entirely different field before you can market yourself. But to answer your question about home pages, there's several things that I recommend therapists put on their home page but the most important thing, I always start with the what, who, and where. If we look at the home page from like top to bottom, top usually being the first thing that we see when we land on a website, that first top section of the home page is gonna be really important in terms of what you say there. And so this is where I recommend putting the what, who, and where. And what I mean by that is saying what you do. So the service that you provide to like individual counseling, couples counseling for example, that's the what, the who is your niche if you work with a certain group of people that might not apply to you if you don't have a specific niche like in terms of a group of people. But if you do, definitely say that right there in the first section of the home page and then where, say where you work. Say where you're licensed. If you don't work in a physical location, say that you work virtually. This is super important. It's something that I always look for when I'm looking at therapist websites. It's one of the first things that therapy seekers are looking for too. Because if they don't find you on a directory, let's say where that location is usually listed pretty prominently, like if they find you on Instagram or TikTok or anywhere else, they might not already know that like where you work or whether you work virtually or not. So say that right up at the top of your home page. Like I said, where that physical location is or if you work virtually or not. I also like to put this information in the footer of the website as well. So that if somebody doesn't land on your home page, if the first page that they're landing on is not your home page, they're gonna find that information elsewhere as well. Does that make sense? - Oh my God, that makes perfect sense and I'm so glad that you said this because this is actually one of my pets. He was just going to a therapist website being like, where the fuck in the world are you? And you make a perfect point. I think a lot of times we just assume that people are finding us through maybe a referral or through a directory. But yeah, if you're using something like social media marketing to promote your practice and also in your social media profile, you should list where you're located, you should list the states where you're licensed but you have character limits. So sometimes you have to be a little bit be like careful about that. But yeah, people may not be coming to your website from a position of already knowing where you're located and so it has been so frustrating to me to like hunt all over someone's website to be like, where the hell are you? Can you work with me or not? Where is your office located? Do you have an office? So please do make sure that that is very apparent to anyone who's visiting your website on your home page in that top section, the above the fold section of your home page as well as in the footer. So yeah, a huge fan of this so far. And I think we often overcomplicate what's in the above the fold section of our website. I think sometimes in an effort to be, I don't know, therapists often want to be compassionate. We want to say something about how we're going to help you. And so we can sometimes end up using these vague statements in the first part of our website that don't actually answer the most important questions. And people spend just like a few seconds looking at your website before they decide to invest more time than actually. Like read what's there, right? So they want to know, first and foremost, can you help me with my problem? So they need to see their problem on that page. They need to see themselves on that page. That's the who. And they need to be able to see that you can even work with them. So they need to see where you're located. So don't overcomplicate it. Keep it really simple. And I love this framework of what who and where. Is that, did I get that right Monica? - Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of different ways to go about the homepage and the above the fold section. But that is the formula that I tend to use for therapist websites in particular because of who you're serving. Like people are looking for mental health support and they need answers quickly. So let's just get straight to the point on that homepage. We can use more creative language and kind of tell a story as we go through the homepage but leading with that basic info is gonna support your future clients much better. - Right, it gives them that immediate sense of like, oh, you're in the right place. And once they know they're in the right place, then they're more likely to stick around. If what they're seeing is some like esoteric, big message, that's to you feels really sweet and cool but to them is confusing. They're probably going to, you know, click out of that website and look at somebody else's. So we just really need to understand that we've got a few seconds of their attention to work with before they potentially move on. And this is something that of course, as you continue in your business, you can always test. It's not like you couldn't ever change this up. You couldn't ever try to use maybe even more compelling language, get a little bit fancier, a little bit more creative. But if you are just starting or you're wondering, like why isn't my website working, then this is probably one of the first things you should look at. - Absolutely. When people are looking at your website, they're looking at it from, I'll say like a kind of a selfish perspective because that helps me kind of get into the framework of a visitor. So as a therapist, you want to explain the work that you do in a way that helps people understand and kind of explain the power of your work, but set that aside for a minute and think about what a visitor is experiencing and if they'll be able to take that information in when they're looking at your website. Well, so it makes sense to me. I think I know what you're saying, but I want to break this down a little bit for people to be like, wait, what? I'm smiling because I think this thing happens with therapists where we're like, I just want to like share my whole story with you or like, you're going to be so impressed with like all of these different things I know or the different trainings I had or like why I decided to become a therapist, which like can have a place on your website. It's not like that shouldn't be anywhere, but like we can kind of accidentally make it all about us. We slip into jargon and we end up losing our client. We end up forgetting that they are there for selfish reasons as they should be. They are out on the internet trying to make a buying decision to solve their problem. They're out on the internet looking for a place to spend their hard earned resources, their money and their time. And so they are there for selfish reasons. So we need to really cater to the problem that they're facing and make it clear that we can help them with their problem. So everything that we're sharing needs to be filtered through that lens. Unless you're Taylor Swift and people are just fangirling over you and are just obsessed with you and that's not going to be most therapists, your website really just needs to be focused on your client, right? This isn't a fan site for you and that may sound a little harsh and I don't think many therapists are actually doing that, but you really need to understand that the client is there to figure out if you're the right person to take the next step with. And so it doesn't need to be focused on them. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. I broke that down, it was like a concept of an idea, I wasn't sure if I was articulating it well. So a concept of an idea, right? That phrase. There's a concept of a plan. So now we've covered what belongs above the fold on your homepage, what knocks, what else belongs on your homepage? Yeah. So after you've got that first section of your homepage set, the next thing is a mini bio about yourself with a photo. You don't necessarily have to put this in the very next section, but one of the first few sections on your homepage, you should talk a little bit about yourself and show yourself an image of yourself that's current, clear, not taken with the cell phone. Those are all really key, important things. And then the bio itself is going to just explain a little bit about, just like introduce yourself, who you are, who you work with a little bit about why. Just kind of think about this as like an elevator pitch that you might say to somebody in the real world who could be a potential client. Don't think about talking to your colleagues, speak in a way that would make sense to potential clients. Yeah. That's a really good reminder. And it kind of goes back to us getting out of our own heads as therapists and really having the website centered around the client. There are of course some therapists who work with other therapists primarily, but most of us are working with people who are not as familiar with the world of mental health as we are. And sometimes we forget that we start using things that feel totally normal to us, especially if you're coming straight out of grad school or you're like really deep into a particular modality. It's so easy to slip into using jargon or to talk about things that are really centered on self-actualization rather than really speaking to the problem our client has. I can't tell you how many websites they see where therapists are talking about. Like they're clients being integrated or more connected or feeling whole and it's like that is wonderful. Like absolutely we want that for our clients. That is a perfectly reasonable and worthwhile goal, but it doesn't feel tangible. You know what I mean? Clients want to stop fighting with their spouse. They want to be able to go out to dinner with friends without panicking over what they're going to eat. And they want to be able to stop arguing with their parents about money. Like whatever the case may be, they want something tangible to change in their lives. They want their problem removed. And so sometimes we end up talking past that because we have bigger goals for our clients. Like we want them to feel whole and complete and free and all of that. And there is, again, room for some of that language on your website, but if we blow past the problem and we start using really esoteric language and jargony language, then we miss the client where they're at. And so that's so important. Monica, you've said something again and again whenever you've visited, liberated business, which is the copy on your website should connect to where your clients are today. It should connect with their problems today. But the design of the website should speak to where they aspire to be. And I really love how you put that. I might be getting a bit ahead of myself because maybe there's more you want to say about what else belongs on the homepage, but I'm just remembering that and that was such a helpful distinction and perspective for me and my clients at liberated business. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that because that is the key here. And that's kind of, most people tend to flip it. Like the copy, they tend to focus on where clients want to be. So getting into more of that esoteric language and more of the root causes, which is valid. That's what you're trained to do and to see. Yeah, absolutely. So instead of filling your website with photos of people who are like, obviously depressed, if you are a depression therapist, it might make more sense to have your copy speak to the real pain that someone who is experiencing major depressive disorder would be experiencing. But to have the actual design of your website to be more uplifting where they would like to be what they would like to feel instead using photography of people who are not looking, you know, like they're on a verge of a breakdown. Right? You want your copy to reflect. Again, the real acute pain someone would be feeling, but you want the images and the design of the website again to reflect how they want to feel. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. So we've got the above the fold somewhere early on on the homepage, probably not the very next thing, because I think we want to see some problem awareness on that homepage. And then somewhere on that homepage, not too far down, we're going to have an introduction of bio professionally shot photo. You know, if you're starting with the small budget, you don't have to get tons of photos taken. But get yourself a few photos, or if you can't afford a more thorough brand photography session, you can do that. But just something that's done professionally with a good camera. And then what else? Is there anything else that folks need to be making sure it goes on their homepage? Yeah. I'm just hitting the highlights here. So like you mentioned, Felicia, like there are certain sections that you'll fill in with a little bit more content, but just kind of the most important things for the homepage. The next one would be a section dedicated to your areas of expertise or your services. I'll kind of break down the difference in a couple different examples. So if you offer one service, let's say you're an individual therapist, and your one service is individual therapy, but you have a few different specialties. Let's say you work with ADHD, eating disorders, OCD. Those are slightly different niches that you'll be focused on. And so I would dedicate a section of your homepage to summarizing those. Just listing them out, putting a little blurb about each one, potentially linking to more expansive pages about each or and/or. You could list a summary of your services. So if you provide more than just one service, let's say you provide individual therapy, couples therapy, family therapy, you'll want to include a section on your homepage, similarly, that summarizes each. So that visitors can see what you offer and funnel themselves into a category in your website to learn more. This makes a lot of sense. This really goes back to what we were talking about earlier about helping clients really quickly determine if they're in the right place. Because again, people are looking for help with their specific problem. And so we want to quickly be able to answer those questions about, yeah, do you actually have something that can serve them? Yes. Exactly. And this section does not have to be super extensive. I, in fact, would encourage it not to be just quick summaries. You don't even have to include a blurb. You could just include like the title of each service or the title of each specialty with hyperlinks or buttons that link out to different pages of your website. Don't make this too complicated again and don't overwhelm people with too much information. So that's what I would say about that. And then the last thing I would recommend on the homepage is a call to action section. So at the bottom of every homepage, I like to include a section that describes how a visitor can work with you or purchase from you. So if the action that you want people to take on your website is to book a free consultation with you, I would dedicate the last section of your homepage to that. So explicitly describing that process. So this is what I offer. This is how you book, including a link to book. Just making that process very, very explicit and very clear at the end of that homepage. Amazing. Generally, I also recommend that folks would have CTAs throughout the homepage. This is something you would also recommend buttons throughout that homepage that say something like Book of consultation, compact me, get started. Yeah, I would say in moderation, I would say having a call to action in that first hero section that above the full section that we were talking about is a good practice, and then at the bottom of the page at minimum. And then you could include one or two in the middle of the page, but I would make sure that they're all the same call to action. This is not, again, not an area to get super creative. You could say if your call to action is book of call, make sure each of those buttons says book of call and leads to the same place. Yep. It won't make five different calls to action throughout your homepage, leading to different places that's going to confuse and overwhelm your visitors, and they're probably not going to take any action. So that's the caveat that I would put with that. Right. Exactly. And don't do five different calls to action that all have, you know, they're different calls to action, but they all actually lead to the same place that can also be confusing. I think for people who are like, oh my god, like, what do I even put on my website? I'm hoping that this is feeling really soothing because everything that you're saying, Monica is actually really, really simple. You have that great framework for like, what belongs above the fold? You have the biosection, we're going to spell out your different specialties or services, and then we're going to have a CTA again at the bottom, and we'll sprinkle some CTAs throughout. Usually like a nice, obvious button for somebody to click. That's actually really, really simple, and I think when folks are, you know, trying to figure out what they need to do to change their website, it can feel so overwhelming and complicated. But this is a really simple framework to begin with, and I think if your website is in a place where it's just like confusing and unclear to people, then everything that you've described so far is just going to make what you're doing more obvious. It's going to make you a more obvious choice. And then when it comes to, you know, your service pages, that is where you can do more story-telling. That's where you can go into more depth, and there's room for like storytelling on your home page too, but I like how simple you made it for us. Yeah, I think just at minimum, everything I described is like, what should go on your home page? So you can have more, but like at the very minimum, those four kind of main sections are what I would recommend. Awesome. Yeah, there's always room to like improve and tweak, but get these basics in place and you're already a lot further along than many therapists with websites. Yeah. So Monica, you've looked at so many different therapists websites. What would you say is the most common mistake that therapists are making with their copy on their home page? Yes, I have looked at so many different, hundreds of not-thousands at this point. And the one thing that I keep seeing over and over again and I'll make it my mission to end this is starting your website copy with welcome to my website. Ooh, that feels very 90 because that feels like welcome to my home page. Yes. Well, it's still happening in 20 seconds. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I have to mention it because I still see it out there. And you know, we talked at the beginning of the episode about that first section of the home page and how important that copy is. So if you're a person who has welcome to my website somewhere on your website, go back and follow that formula, the thing is I know that it comes from such a genuine place. And when you welcome people into your office, you're saying the same thing like welcome to my office. And it's such a natural thing to say. And so of course you want to put that on your website. But let's say that without saying that because when people see that over and over on therapy websites, it gets really old, it gets really redundant. And I know that as a web designer for therapists, I see a lot of websites. So of course I've seen this a lot, but I've also been at the therapist's seeker. Like I've sought out my own therapists and I see this in my own life. And I, you know, family and friends who are looking for therapists, they're like, what is it with welcome to my website? Why do all of you know what I mean? That's so funny. I'm trying. I'm trying. You're like, I'm doing my best, I'm trying to change all the therapist's websites, but there are a lot of them. Yes. Yeah. So I mean, it seems very simple and innocuous, but it actually when it becomes such a like an epidemic, it makes people blend in and it prevents you from standing out to the people that I really trying to find you. This feels similar to me to therapists having images of succulents on their websites. Like that's another kind of therapist trope that people are just like, what are, what is with therapists and succulents or like landscape photography is like another one, which I'm not saying you can't, I'm not, none of the things we're saying here are like things you can never do except for maybe welcome to this website, like that's unnecessary. That doesn't need to be there. But like, yeah, there could be like a good use of a landscape photo, but like it kind of falls into that category of things that are just like so ubiquitous that they've completely lost meaning or significance, also saying things like I work eclectically or when you say like, I want you to feel whole, it's like literally every therapist wants that. And like kind of misses the problem that your client is actually trying to address. So anything that you might put on your website that kind of falls into the category of like an image or a statement that has been used so much that it's actually lost its meaning, like that probably shouldn't go on your website. Yes. Like if it feels cliche, it probably is, and might want to skip it. Great pointer. And now you've given people something else that they could put on their website instead of welcome to my website. So you already know, if that is you, you already know exactly what you should do instead. Yes. I'm here for the solutions. So we just talked about the mistakes folks might make with copy on their website. What about design? What are some of the design mistakes you see people making on their home pages and what should they do instead? Yeah. Well, you kind of touched on it, which was kind of relying too heavily on stock photography in particular to tell the story for them or to connect with clients for them. I see this a lot where folks are trying to find, you know, kind of the perfect stock photography for what they're trying to communicate, but it doesn't really translate. You know, it ends up being whether it's a succulent, like you mentioned, or like a stack of rocks to like to communicate peace or calm. Again, that's such a, I understand where the impulse is coming from because you want to communicate with more than just words, but stock photography is so up for interpretation, especially what I call like representational imagery, so imagery of objects or people. And so I would say if you're finding yourself searching through stock photos to try to find like the perfect photo pause and think about like, what am I trying to communicate with this type of photo? And how can I communicate that in my copy instead? I love this. I love this because when I'm trying to help my clients write copy for their websites and then I start asking them to get more tangible, like describe the life their ideal client has right now. Describe what they want to be different. They start using real examples from like human lives instead of these kind of big, aspirational or more internal problems. They start talking about like the day-to-day tangible problems that people are having in their lives or the real changes that they want to experience. And I love that you said when you're looking for the perfect photo, reflect on like what you're hoping to convey with that because there's a really good chance that it is something that is more tangible, that it is something that is more concrete. And then how can we tell that story in our copy instead of trying to do that with an image? And I've been thinking about this, like, it keeps on coming up in my mind as we've been speaking. This feels like a good time to bring it up, which is building a story brand. This is a text that we reference all the time in liberated business. And it has to do with telling an effective story through your brand. And I feel like that's what you're really speaking to here, Monica, like everything is about telling a really effective story without making it too complicated, right? Because nothing we're describing here is complicated, but it is compelling. And how do you write compelling copy or how do you create a compelling story? It's with tangible, real life examples. And so getting out of the photos and into more tangible copies. Yes. Exactly. Because it kind of creates the same situation as like the welcome to my website line when folks rely too heavily on stock photography from a visitor perspective or from a therapy secret perspective. They see all these websites with all these kind of generic stock photos on them. And they're like, I can't even really tell these websites apart. I don't know what's going on here. And so that's where this comes from. It's like, let's pull back from stock photography a little bit and start to ask some questions about it and see if there's any other ways that we can communicate what we're trying to communicate and save stock photography or photography your own custom photography for creating an environment just similar to how you would decorate your office or your home. You know, you're looking for colors and textures primarily to create this environment. That's how I like to encourage people to think about stock photos or photos in general. Don't so much think about the content. I mean, the content is important, but focus less on the content, more on the colors and the textures. Okay. I really like that switch. So when we're thinking about photography for websites, it's going to be like professional photos of yourself and also maybe photos of an environment that might be related to therapy or photos that are maybe less representational, but have like the colors and the textures that you would like. That creates the aspirational environment on your website that you're client would like to see themselves in. Exactly. Okay. While we're on the topic, of design mistakes that people are making on home pages, one of the things that you and I are always talking about are walls of text. I feel like we can't talk about design mistakes without mentioning walls of text. I feel like this is the biggest killer of viewers attention when they go to a website and it's just like, it's like a live journal of text, you know what I mean? And it's again, it's like well meaning, but one of the things that I really love on a therapist website when it's done effectively is that they're using things like different font choices, color blocking, negative space, bulleted lists to really help a person's eye move through the copy without really getting stuck anywhere. And when you have a website that doesn't use like variation in layout, you end up with huge blocks of text that someone ends up getting lost in and it actually can feel really overwhelming to somebody and then they don't read it. So I wanna just throw that into our list of like things to avoid because this is something that I see all the time on websites. - Yeah, yeah, great point. And yeah, I agree, I think in general, this is like why my job exists to like design a page in a way that's gonna be digestible to a visitor. And so it's okay if you're listening and you're like, I have no idea where to start on even like breaking up my wall of text, but I always like to say, you know, break up your content into digestible chunks. So little paragraphs, like you said, Felicia, like use headings to your advantage. That's what they're there for. Break up areas into, I don't know, smaller digestible chunks is what I always kind of revert to and. - Well, and you're like so close to the problem because you're looking at this all the time, but as somebody who's like just like a little bit removed from it, what I like to tell people is like, go get one of Monica's templates. And like if you were just getting started with website building like change very little about it, like use her exact outline and just swap out like the placeholder copy that she's put there with your copy, like really don't tinker that much because it's been beautifully designed and it looks like a designer made it. It's gonna like do the thing that most of us therapists don't know how to do, which is create a website that looks modern, looks fresh, looks cared for. And when you go in and you start making too many changes without really understanding the power of design, you can kind of undo some of the things about the template that you just, you know, you just bought and was really good out of the box. So I always ask people before they're working on a website, I'm like, are you a graphic designer or web designer? And if they say no, then I say great, you're not gonna mess with fonts, you're not even gonna mess with colors. You're just gonna go in and like swap out that whatever information is there for your information and that will help you avoid things like walls of text, that will help you avoid things like vague language or overwhelming amounts of information. And it will help you hit the points that Monica has talked about here today in terms of what belongs on a webpage. - Yeah, thank you for that little plug. I mean, I feel like this episode is kind of like become, I swear to God, I didn't ask Monica to come on just to like advertise her business, but like I am such a big fan of your work and I feel I'm so protective over who I refer my clients to and I've just been really happy with the quality of the websites that you've made over the years and I just love sending my people to you 'cause I feel like they get really good experiences. So sorry not sorry for just like having you on the podcast and advertising your work. - Well, thank you. Yeah, I mean, as you were talking, I was like, oh yeah, that is why I created my templates. - Yeah. - It's a good reminder for myself too. But yeah, I mean, I put a lot of intention into my designs and I place the text, the placeholder text in certain places for a reason and I give you a certain amount of text to work with and so if you are working with one of my templates and you find that you have more text than what this little content area originally provided, think about editing down. Like how do you say this more succinctly? How do you simplify and streamline what you're trying to say? - How do you come up with a sentence that has the most oomph with the least amount of words, right? 'Cause again, we wanna say so much and we wanna say it in such a specific way, but the experience I want somebody to have on my website is that everything is almost like punch in the gut where they're like, oh my God, yes, I'm feeling that and sometimes if we're using too many words, we end up losing that experience. And so I love this challenge monica that you just gave as somebody's working with one of your templates. See if you can actually edit it down into something that's punchier. And also your website is an iterative process. So if you're working on it and you're not there yet, it's okay, you can go back and work on it later, but again, I really like the idea of just keeping it super, super simple, testing it out, seeing how effective it can be and then knowing that you can come back and update it over time, especially as you get more information from your ideal clients as you test out messaging and this is a completely different topic, but I just want to make a little plug for it. This is one of the reasons why I really do like social media marketing for therapists because you can be out in the world testing different messaging and seeing what's getting responses. And something like that can be really helpful information in terms of what messaging resonates and can help you know what changes you would need to make to your website, right? - That's a good point, yeah. - Yeah, it's a really fast turnaround on getting that direct feedback on what's working and what's not. So if you were to be like, okay, thank you so much Felicia Monica, I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna update my website. I would love for you to just do something like quick and dirty, use one of Monica's templates, update it to your own information, but if you want to continue to test that messaging, then go test that on something like a social media account. If you have an email list, you can test messaging in your email list to see what people are responding to, what subject lines are getting the most open and that can give you more information about how to adapt the messaging on your website. - Absolutely. I have to ask because I'm the bad therapist, what is one of the symptoms of good therapist conditioning that you see therapists doing on their home pages on their websites? - Well yeah, and I'm not sure if you talk about this in your program, but something that just popped into my mind was hiding. So like hiding behind credentials or trying to maintain this like very specific facade of professionalism, quote unquote professionalism, like whatever that means. And trying to blend in on your website. I see that I've also experienced that myself coming out of the therapy world and experiencing that kind of conditioning myself. So I'm not sure if we should, is that something that you talk about in your program? - Yeah, I mean, maybe not in those exact words, but I feel like it's really aligned with the good therapist conditioning that we're trying to undo, which is the sense of I can't be a full person, you know, like I really have to be very careful about how I present. And I'm just seeing more and more that the way people are choosing therapists has really changed. In my opinion, based on what I'm seeing in the market, people are not really looking for blank slate therapists, you know, it has to do with the destigmatization of therapy, it has to do with the rise of public mental health conversations and therapist influencers, mental health influencers, but there is the sense of, I actually want to know who my therapist is and what they're like and what they're about, and there is more room for your personality to show through. And what's so interesting is like earlier in this episode, we were talking about like not making your website all about you, right? So we're not talking about like you need to share your whole life story, you never have to disclose something personal that you don't want the world to know about, that's totally fine, but you can actually let your personality show. You can be who you really are. I'm thinking about a conversation I had with Mary Beth Sommage and we were talking about times in our careers when we were making a personal change that we were so worried about how our clients would interpret. Like for me, it was at one point, like cutting my hair really, really short. For her, it was that she really liked this pair of pink pants and wanted to wear them, but was like really worried about how her clients would be affected by her pink pants and it was like, that's wild, but it comes from this perspective that we were taught in our therapy training to be the split slate, that is the industry standard and has been for decades, but that is really, really changing. So don't hide on your website, bring yourself forward. You are the most unique thing about your business. So when it comes to standing out in a world where there are more therapists than ever, marketing themselves online, we do really wanna see you in your marketing. Exactly. And this comes down to the design as well. Like, I've seen this throughout the course of my business where folks are looking for like a really simple, really like understated design, like barely any color. And I am beige. So much beige. Bra and gray and white. And I'm like, why? It doesn't have to be clinical. I want to see some of you in your personality because you are gonna be the one sitting on the chair or the couch across from this person. Shouldn't they know who that person is? Like that's part of what searching for a therapist is, is deciding like just based off of a simple thing like a website, do I think I can trust this person enough to like even give them a call or schedule a consult? That's the type of thing that I'm talking about here is if you can show a little bit of who you are, what your vibe is, what your therapeutic style is on your website, gonna make it that much easier for people to contact you. So stop hiding, be more visible, be more you on your website. This is such a good conversation. We've covered so much ground. I had so much fun talking with you and hyping you up and just making sure that therapists out there have like the best information on what needs to go on their website and you know if you want to learn more about this, if you want to get to have your own conversation with Monica, join us in this next round of Liberated Business which will be starting in April. We always make sure to have amazing guest experts come in and speak to our students in the program, like Monica, like Mary Beth Stomach, like Daniel Swim, all of these amazing therapists, coaches, marketers to give you the most up-to-date information. Head to my website, thebadtherapist.coach/liberatedbusiness to learn more and if folks want to work with you Monica, learn more about you, how can they find you in your work online? Yeah, my website is holdspacecreative.com and I'm on social media at holdspacecreative, just about everywhere. Nice. And we'll make sure that your website is linked in the show notes in our bio so you can always go straight to Monica's website and get one of her amazing templates or custom design. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Felicia. Yeah, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope this episode gave you a clear, no overwhelm, framework for what? Actually belongs on your homepage and maybe a gentle nudge to go check whether your website says welcome to my website anywhere. No judgment. Monica has been such an incredible resource for therapists and if you want to work with her or grab one of her templates, you can find that at her website, which is linked in the show notes. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, it would made the world to me if you left a five star review and followed the show so you never miss an episode. You can also come find me on Instagram at the bad therapist. That's all today for the bad therapist show. Thanks so much for hanging with me. I hope you got some gems that you can start using right away in your own business so that you can break out of good therapist conditioning and build the business that you want. If you've gotten something out of this episode, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one of your good therapist friends who really needs to hear it. And while you're at it, please consider leaving a rating and/or reviews so that we can change not just our individual businesses but transform the mental health system that got us here in the first place. Thank you so much. I'll see you next week for more private practice and coaching tips. Remember, bad therapists make the best therapist.