For those who work as psychologists, achieving a full schedule isn’t easy, especially if you’re just starting out, and it’s even possible to feel helpless at the beginning of your career.
My aim with this article is to give you extra help in overcoming any of these challenges.
As I’m a web designer, I’m going to give you some advice on various aspects to take into account on your website so that the potential patient who visits your website actually uses your services as a psychologist, rather than continuing to look elsewhere.
The design and content of your website are your potential patient’s first impression of your practice. And there you will get the necessary clues as to whether she is the right person to accompany you, whether for clinical psychology consultations, psychotherapy, other…
It’s true that word of mouth continues to carry weight, but it’s still losing momentum in the face of the internet, where more than 50% now start their search for a therapist.
And if we think about ourselves, even when someone speaks well of a particular service or professional, we often end up wanting to look up more information about that professional on the internet before moving forward.
Now, without further ado :
7 points to apply to your website for more patients
1- Avoid phrases/jargon that the visitor doesn't connect with
I often see a lot of psychology sites that use complicated phrases (from the visitor’s point of view). For example, highlighted phrases from Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung.
These phrases may be of interest to other psychologists who visit our website, in fact.
But…
We don’t want our website to appeal to other psychologists!
We do want you to please the visitors who come to our website and who can become our patients.
Jargon keepspotential patients away from you, because many don’t understand the jargon and don’t connect these difficult phrases with what they really need, which is to improve their situation.
As much as possible, the text/copywriting on your website should focus on solving the visitor’s problems.
Now imagine that instead of the patient reading that complicated sentence from the founder of psychoanalysis, he reads it in highlight instead:
” You deserve to be happy “
or
“We help with your stress or anxiety”
This will undoubtedly capture the attention of the future patient much more, and he will be able to relate these phrases more easily to his own life.
We have to remember… We can’t just use our website to please other psychologists or talk too much about psychology-related subjects that we like as experts in the field.
On the contrary… We have to meet the patients, who are above all concerned about whether we are going to help them with their problems.
2 - Use Empathetic Copywriting
If you don’t know what copywriting is, don’t be alarmed. Copywriting is the production of content focused on conversion, i.e. guiding the reader to a specific action.
In this case, the specific action may be to contact you to make an appointment. It applies both to websites and to other forms of marketing or branding.
One of the most important principles of copywriting is to put yourself in the shoes of the other person, trying to understand what’s on their mind, what their problems and desires are.
So you know, develop an empathetic connection with your potential patient by developing empathetic copywriting on your website, which shows empathy and that you know what they’re going through or what they want.
3- Show Authority
A site that shows authority is a site that serves to build a perception of your competence in the mind of the visitor. This concept comes from the term “Authority”, which was coined in North American marketing.
We’re not talking about the authority linked to the police 😉
In other words, we’re talking about a website that contains content, articles and videos that are of interest to your future patient and that end up showing that you’re good/competent at what you do. In other words, it shows that you are an “Authority” in what you do.
For example, in the case of a psychologist who works exclusively with vocational guidance, his website should have at least 6 articles on vocational guidance at the beginning of its design.
Examples of articles: “3 steps to better discover what you want to do in the future”, “how to choose my career”, etc… In other words, articles that would be useful to visitors of that professional and at the same time let them know that that professional is competent in that area.
In other words, this type of authority site is much better than the so-called “institutional site”, also known as a “showcase site”.
The problem with the showcase site is that it is limited to showing what you do and your services, which falls short when it comes to convincing visitors to move on to the services you offer.
4- Own Photography
Well… This look is quick to apply!
Post at least one photo of yourself so people know who they’re meeting.
It’s also a way for people to start creating a connection with you.
The absence of a photograph of the professional in question obviously has the opposite effect, i.e. it makes the visitor suspicious as to why the professional isn’t showing their face.
If possible, also include photos of the space/consultancy, for the same reasons as above.
The biography is of course also an important piece, ideally placed on the About page.
5- Use a Relaxing Color Palette
Cool colors tend to be more calming, so blues and some greens make people feel more at ease because they bring a sense of tranquility.
In the opposite camp, examples of bad choices are bright colors of red, orange, purple and yellow.
I also don’t recommend using gray-based color palettes on psychology websites, as they bring a sense of sadness, lack of emotion and movement.
6- Automatic appointments
One of the advantages of using these automatic appointment systems is that they make it possible to avoid having to exchange calls/messages, since the professional enters the vacant/occupied times into the system beforehand and the patient can quickly choose one of the vacant times according to the professional’s availability and their own.
Important tip: if your professional activity is not yet at the level you want, and you still have a lot of free time, don’t show it all.
When potential patients notice that you have a lot of spare time, they may associate a lot of spare time with poor quality of service, which is probably not the case.
The system I usually use for psychologists’ websites and which works very well is called Calendly. And it has the advantage of a free version for small practices.
7- Define your target audience
Pertinent example: If you know that the majority of your patients are adult women, it makes sense to have mostly female photos throughout the website.
Now talking about your practice, not the website, when it comes to defining a target audience.
Trying to cater for all demographics (seniors, adults, teenagers, children, others…) and all specialties (clinical psychology, family psychology, sexology, parenting, psychotherapy and others) can also have the detrimental effect of you not feeling 100% confident in your consultations for all types of needs, which can in turn undermine patients’ trust in you.
The idea here is that by having the precise support you need, you will gain more confidence in yourself, as you become more effective in your role.
EXTRA BONUS
Although not related to websites, I couldn’t resist sharing this video I saw, which provides a lot of value, on how to create a medium-term strategy for attracting patients that doesn’t involve the typical paid advertising/marketing.
I hope you find this article useful 🙂
Cheers,
Gabriel,
