Lots of therapists go for a DIY website when they first qualify, so this month I’ll be looking at some simple steps to making your website as effective as possible. And the first step to building your website is not to build it – yet!
As with most things, you need to start with research, so you know what your potential clients are looking for and what their needs, questions, and expectations are. Then you can write your content to cater to their specific interests, which can make a significant difference in engaging them effectively.
There are two main aspects to making a good website and one is to develop good SEO. The other is making your website “sticky” – i.e., encouraging visitors to stay on it and/or contact you once they get there. This article will introduce you to SEO, and help you start to put your website content together, and next month I’ll be writing about those other aspects.
SEO stands for “search engine optimisation”, in other words, it’s how to make sure Google likes you. SEO strictly applies to all search engines, but they all have similar algorithms and Google provides plenty of help and support if you are working on this yourself, so I’m focussing there.
Search engines have an algorithm, which means a kind of formula that tells them which websites to list, and what order to list them in when people make relevant searches. Ideally, you need to come up on the first couple of pages of results since few people bother to look further than that. The algorithm is, of course, a closely guarded secret (a bit like Colonel Sander’s exact recipe for fried chicken) but we can guess some of the key elements by the way websites perform. I can’t turn you into a website expert in one article (or even two) but I can give some easily implemented ideas based on what the algorithm is widely accepted to include.
How to Find Relevant Keywords
To optimise your website, you need keywords. These are individual words or phrases (called “long string keywords”) that appear frequently in your potential customer’s searches. They therefore need to appear on your webpage as well, so Google realises it’s relevant to the search.
There are a few ways you can find relevant keywords but I'm going to look at how Google search can highlight some for you.
Ask a few people what they would put in a search engine if they were looking for your services or brainstorm a couple of search terms you might use yourself. Then enter these in Google and hit “search”. There are a few things to look out for as you do this.
Firstly, as you start to type, Google will suggest some ways to complete your search term – these suggestions can be added to your list of keywords.
Now hit search.
You’ll get a lot of competitors’ websites coming up. The ones labelled “sponsored” are paid-for ads, but if you look at the ones immediately under that, you will see the sort of thing that ranks well without being paid for. You can take ideas from these but never copy them exactly. Not only is it a breach of copyright, but Google doesn’t like duplicate content so both sites are likely to be penalised.
Look at the “others want to know” section – this should give you some ideas for more keywords and phrases.
Look at the “related searches” further down the page. This will give you up to half a dozen ideas for more keywords and phrases. You can click on them too, to get more search results, want-to-know suggestions and related searches. Go through the same process for each of them.
I tried this for “hypnotherapy for spider phobia” when writing this article. As you can see, one of the related searches was “Can spiders hypnotise?”. That almost certainly wouldn’t do as a keyword phrase for a page about reducing arachnophobia – the very idea is likely to freak out people who are already afraid of the little beasties! But it might make an eye-catching blog title and could be tied into a plug for your services at the end. Something along the lines of “Whether spiders can hypnotise you or not, getting hypnotised yourself may help you lose your fear of them”.
You can obviously spend an infinite amount of time trying out different keywords and following up on the various options and end up with a huge list. Especially since your keywords are going to be different for each page of your site. Keywords for a phobia won’t be the same as keywords for quitting smoking, for example. Assuming you haven’t got an admin team doing this for you (and if you have, why would you be reading this?) don’t let the possibilities become overwhelming. Decide on a time limit or a maximum number of keywords for each page and remember that a little research is much better than none.
If you already have a website and you’re reading this to improve your SEO, tackle one page at a time, starting with the most important. Set yourself a goal of improving one page each month, or week, until you have worked your way through the entire website.
Choosing the Right Domain Name
Your domain name is your web address – the part that starts https://
Keep it concise and avoid using complex words or symbols.
Use a name that you don’t have to spell out every time or that they are likely to misspell when they search for you.
Choose a domain name that reflects your therapy practice, is easy to remember and give out on the phone, and that will fit onto business cards or small print ads if you intend to use them.
Having said that, your domain name doesn’t have to be your business name. HypnotherapyInMytown might be better than FlowersHypnotherapy, especially if you provide primarily an in-person service. My own therapy site domain is simply my name – debbiewaller.com. This is partly a lack of imagination to come up with anything more exciting, but it’s also useful because if my service changes (if I add additional therapies, for example) it’s still relevant. My training is yorkshirehypnotherapytraining.co.uk because that's what people search for when they look for hypnotherapy training in my area.
It used to be considered “better” to have the .com domain. These days, that doesn’t really apply and having something that sites you geographically (e.g., including .uk) might help Google place you geographically.
Writing Effective Website Content
At last, we come to it! Content refers to the blogs, articles, or sales pages you have on your site. The stuff clients look at when they visit you.
When you come to write these, you should try to include as many of your keywords and phrases as possible whilst still writing in plain, easy-to-understand language that your clients will respond to. Write for people and don’t try to pack in as many SEO tricks as possible at the expense of readability.
Break content up into short paragraphs and use subheadings so anyone skimming down the page can find what they need easily.
Put the most important words and phrases in your page titles, headings, and subheadings – this helps to indicate to Google that they are important.
Make sure your contact link is prominent at the top of the page as well as the bottom – and part way down as well if your page is more than a few paragraphs. Some clients may need educating but others will have already made up their minds you can help and don’t want to wade through a long article before getting to the nitty-gritty of how to book.
Update your content regularly. Many businesses set up a website then forget about it, or even go out of business and abandon it. Google wants to provide a good experience for searchers, and being sent to abandoned or out-of-date sites isn’t a good experience. Knowing that yours is being updated tells Google it is still in use and relevant. These changes don’t have to be huge, just log in now and then to reword a couple of sentences or change an image.
Use AI if you like for ideas about developing content, but never use it exactly as it is. Tweak it to sound like you, so it appeals to the clients who will respond well to your approach. And run it through a plagiarism checker (there are free ones online).
Videos* are popular at present and placing them “above the fold” (i.e., so they can be seen when the page loads, without having to scroll down) is best. Shorter videos have the least impact on the loading time of your page.
You can either upload videos to your web hosting account or host them on YouTube for free and embed them on your website. How you do this will depend on what system you are using to design your website, but there are usually help pages available to give you a guide. Sadly, covering all the available systems isn’t an option in an article of this length.
Writing Web Page Descriptions
We’re getting slightly technical now, and I don’t intend to go too far with it since this is a beginner’s guide. Your page description is the line or two of text that comes up under your site name on a search results page. It’s also what is likely to come up if you post your link on social media.
You can’t fully control what appears here, but you can stack the odds a bit.
If you don’t specify a description, then Google is likely to grab a few words from your page. As they cut off after about 155 characters this could be a part sentence which makes no sense by itself. It’s better to specify one, even though Google sometimes decides not to use it. Somewhere in the system that you use to create your web pages, there will be a box called “Description”. Use the help pages to find it if it’s not obvious.
Put a short snappy phrase or sentence in here that tells people what the page is about and encourages them to click on the link.
A final word on SEO
This is purely a personal opinion, but I would never employ someone who cold-called me via text, phone, or email saying they could improve my SEO. If they’re not getting enough work from their own website, what makes them think they can get me work through mine?
If you decide to hire an expert to look over your site and improve your SEO, please find someone through recommendation. Facebook or Supervision groups are good places to find recommendations.
SEO is a complex process and can seem overwhelming. You can’t become an expert after reading one short article but you have to be proactive in getting people to your website. These simple and basic approaches will get you started on helping your prospective clients find you more easily, and get your practice off the ground.
Further useful information
*We have a blog on making videos if it’s outside your comfort zone. https://hypnotherapytrainingblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/videos.html
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Author: Debbie Waller is an experienced hypnotherapist and hypnotherapy trainer. She is the author of The Hypnotherapist's Companion, Their Worlds, Your Words, and The Metaphor Toolbox, all available from Amazon or direct from the author, and a co-writer of the Hypnotherapy Handbook.
Find out more about Debbie's services on
Yorkshire Hypnotherapy Training - multi-accredited hypnotherapy practitioner training, taster days and foundation levels.
CPD Expert - accredited CPD and other therapy training (online and workshops options), expert and qualified hypnotherapy supervision
This post first appeared on Hypnotherapy Training & Practitioner, please read the originial post: here
