No fees anywhere
Not knowing the cost is one of the most common reasons somebody does not make contact, and it compounds every other hesitation. A published fee and any sliding-scale arrangement removes it.
Websites for mental health practices
Making contactis the hard part.
Custom websites for therapists and mental health practices, built for somebody who has been meaning to do this for months and is reading privately, late.
Hale & Roth is a KustomSite design concept for the boutique law firm category. It is not a client project and the business is fictional.
The moment they land
They have been thinking about this for a long time. They are reading late in the evening, probably in a browser they will clear, and the hardest thing they will do is send the first message. They want to know whether you work with what they are dealing with, whether you have availability, what it costs, and whether it is confidential. Every one of those is a reason not to make contact, and the site either removes them or leaves them.
What costs you jobs
4 things a template gets wrong here.
Availability unstated
Someone who has finally decided and then waits three weeks for a reply usually does not come back. Saying whether you have space, and when you typically reply, matters enormously.
Specialisms described in clinical categories
People search for what is happening to them, not for a modality. Pages written around the experience — not sleeping, panic before work, after a bereavement — meet them where they are.
Nothing about confidentiality or what a first session is
Two of the biggest unknowns. What is confidential and what its limits are, and what actually happens in the first fifty minutes, are the two pages that turn reading into contact.
What gets built instead
Mechanics, not features.
Fees and any sliding scale, published
Per session, with insurance or self-pay clearly separated, and any reduced-fee arrangement stated rather than hinted at.
Current availability and reply time
Whether you are taking new clients, and when somebody can expect to hear back. Honest and kept up to date — including saying when you have no space.
Pages written around the experience
In the language somebody uses about their own week, with the approach you take described plainly rather than named.
Confidentiality and the first session, both written out
What is confidential, what its limits are, and what the first fifty minutes involves. Removing these unknowns is the conversion.
Fair questions
The reasons not to.
“Directory listings bring my clients”
They bring the search; the decision is made on your own page, where there is room to be specific rather than to fit a template field. Most people check both.
“I do not want to publish fees”
The cost is the most common silent reason somebody does not write. Publishing it does not lose the people who could afford you — it reaches them.
“I cannot make any claims”
None of this requires one. Fees, availability, confidentiality and what a first session involves are all factual, and they are what the decision actually turns on.
Asked often
Before you ask.
What should the site say about cost?
The per-session fee, with insurance and self-pay separated, and any sliding-scale arrangement stated plainly. Not knowing the cost is one of the most common reasons somebody never makes contact.
Should I say whether I have availability?
Yes, including when you do not. Somebody who has finally decided and then hears nothing for three weeks usually does not try again, and an honest "no space until March" is kinder than silence.
How should the enquiry form work?
Short, with no clinical detail requested, and a stated reply time. A web form is not the place to ask somebody to explain what is wrong, and asking makes contact harder rather than easier.
Start it.
4 parts, and the trade is already answered when you arrive from here. Nothing is charged and nothing starts until you say so.
Build a brief for mental health practice