Your therapist website copy is only effective if it helps your website visitor know who you are and reach out for your help.

But writing effective copy is more challenging than it sounds.

It’s not like writing an academic paper nor is it like writing an email to a friend. For copy to be effective, it needs to be written to represent you and help website visitors feel seen and understood.

Effective therapist website copy is more than just words on a page, it’s what inspires your website visitor to reach out

So how can you ensure your copy is written to be effective? How can you avoid the most dangerous mistakes and, instead, help your visitors feel welcome, hopeful, and inspired?

Below is a list of the 5 things you may be doing in your website’s written content that make it ineffective:

1. Your Copy Doesn’t Highlight What Makes You Unique

If you write copy that makes you sound like every other therapist, you will blend into the crowd. You’ll also not help your website visitors understand why you’d be their best fit over the many other websites they are looking at in their research for a therapist.

When you sound like a cookie-cutter therapist, it also reduces your authority.

It also reduces your ability to demand the prices that you deserve to charge. If you are a commodity rather than a specialist, then you won’t be able to demand specialist prices.

2. Your Copy Isn’t Inviting Visitors To Take The Next Step

The invitation for your website visitors to take the next step is called a call to action.

The call to action should typically be in the form of a button, link, or phone number that will help your website visitors act on taking the next step.

For best results, every CTA should be paired with a statement on the benefits of reaching out.

So instead of just cruising around your website aimlessly, your website’s CTAs are what helps a website visitor go from reading about how you help to actually getting your help.

Problem is, many therapist website’s are written in a way that totally leaves calls to action out.

On therapist websites you’ll want to encourage your visitor to reach out to you for that first step in your intake. That first step could be a free consultation call or scheduling a first appointment.

If you’re a therapist who’s branched into other income streams, you might also be writing your website so that it encourages visitors to buy your book or course or maybe attend a workshop or retreat.

Don’t leave your website visitor uninspired and unsure of how to proceed. Make CTAs irresistible, consistent, and easy to follow.

3. Your Copy Isn’t Confident

Therapists are not immune to struggling with self worth and self confidence and it can come through in a therapist’s website copy.

If you aren’t convinced yourself that you can help others, it is hard to write convincingly that you can.

You need to be confident

  • In your vision for the world you want to help create
  • In the results that you can get for people
  • In the processes that you’re using to provide a positive experience of getting your help
  • And most importantly, in yourself

These lay the foundation for writing copy that doesn’t self-sabotage and instead is client-attractive. You show that you’re the professional and ready to help.

Lack of confidence also shows up in those calls to action. Instead of saying, “I might be able to help you” you can say, “reach out and we can explore how I can help”

Sometimes it’s the small things that make confidence shine through.

4. Your Copy Tries To Help Visitors Diagnose Themselves

There’s a difference between writing copy and educating clients.

Writing copy helps a website visitor identify that you are their best fit therapist and guides them in reaching out.

Vs. educational content which might help a visitor gain knowledge or insight on a certain mental health condition or topic.

You are doing this mistake if:

  • You include a detailed list of symptoms in clinical terms
  • You ask the website visitor to consider if they have a certain challenge (“here’s how you’ll know if you struggle with depression:”)

Focusing on helping website visitors diagnose themselves is not helping them get your help. When you focus so much on diagnosing, you aren’t leaving space for meeting the true needs at that point: which is making sure that people feel seen, hopeful, and guided to getting your help.

If you’d like to write educational content, that belongs in your blog, not within copy about your services.

5. Your Copy Is Full of Psychobabble

Therapist website copy needs to be written with words that your best fit clients are already using.

  • How would they describe their experience?
  • What would they say the benefit of therapy is?
  • If they talk to their best friend on the phone, what are they saying they are struggling with right now?

Let me give you a hint, your best fit clients aren’t saying things like, “I really need to heal my nervous system” or “I wish I could find someone to give my a psychophysiological assessment right now”

Psychobabble makes it feel like you don’t really see who your clients are. You don’t “get them” and that is one of the key feelings that a website visitor needs in order to reach out to you. Feeling understood is vital.

Avoiding These Mistakes Helps Create Effective Copy

Every word on your website should help your visitors get to know you and get the help they need.

They should know what makes you unique so they can match themselves to you. You should write with confidence that helps them feel safe.

Instead of asking visitors to diagnose themselves, you are letting them know about the benefits of your services and in language that they actually use themselves and can relate to.

Once they understand that you’re the one for them, they should have consistent and easy to take steps offered to them so they can get started.

Your goal is to help visitors feel connected to you and hopeful for change. Achieving both leads to more website visitors becoming clients and therefore means helping more people.

So go out there, write effective copy, and help more people heal.

Posted in Website Copy