A few years ago, I teamed up with website consultant Sophie Wood to launch Pocket Site, a stylish, fast and secure website builder designed for busy therapists. In this post, Sophie will share some of her knowledge and help you create a website for your private practice.
Why is Your Website Important?
Websites are essential for businesses to establish credibility and build trust with your clients. Your online presence can have a massive impact on the success of your private practice, your ability to attract clients and how much money you make.
An effective website is important for several reasons:
- Credibility: Having a professional website can help establish credibility for your business. In today’s digital age, a website is often the first point of contact between a business and potential customers.
- Reach: A website can help you reach a wider audience, both locally and globally, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- Cost-effectiveness: Compared to traditional forms of advertising, a website is a cost-effective way to reach a large number of people.
- Increased accessibility: A website makes it easy for customers to find information about your products or services and your contact information and business hours.
- Improved customer service: A website can provide customers with access to information, resources, and support, which can help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Data collection and analysis: A website can collect valuable data about your customers and their behaviour, which can help inform your business decisions and improve your marketing strategies.
Overall, having a website for your business can help you establish and maintain a strong online presence, reach new customers, and ultimately drive growth and success for your business.
How Much Should I Invest?
A good way to determine how much you should spend on your website is to figure out how much income you need it to generate. Imagine it’s your shop front. Do you want to be on the high street, or can your business survive on a side street where it’s cheaper and there’s less traffic?
It’s OK to start small, especially if you’re running your private practice on a part-time basis. Equally, if you’re happy relying on referrals, your website won’t need to work as hard. Unless you’re very tech-savvy, I don’t recommend the DIY approach. You may not need an expensive bespoke website when you’re just starting out, but you need something that works well and looks good.
Good Design & Great Functionality
Good design is about so much more than simply looking pretty. Just because a website looks nice doesn’t mean it works well and will be instantly successful. Sometimes it can mean the opposite, especially if the most important element has been forgotten – your customers. Although you must choose a professional and trustworthy design, your website also needs to be functional and easy to use.
Optimising your website so it works correctly on mobile devices is also important. This is known as making a website ‘responsive. This means the website responds to the screen sizes of different devices, automatically resizing content. Around half of the average small business website visitors use a smartphone or mobile device. For therapy practices, this can be even higher. A website that hasn’t been optimised for mobile devices will deliver a poor experience and visitors aren’t going to stay on your website if it’s hard to use.
Which Platform Should I Use?
To help you decide which website builder is best for your private practice, I’ve compared some of the most popular platforms – WordPress, Pocket Site, Wix and Squarespace.
WordPress
Arguably the most popular website builder and blogging platform out there, WordPress is behind an impressive number of pages on the internet, powering over 40% of the web! This is the platform I use when a client needs a bespoke website for their Therapy practice.
Feel – professional, secure, customizable, high-ranking, versatile, scalable, and user-friendly.
Pros
– WordPress gives you full control over your website and you can structure the content to your needs.
– The vast collection of WordPress plugins allows you to create the functionality you need.
-WordPress is highly scalable, meaning it can grow and change with your therapy business. As your needs change, you can add new features and functionality to your website without having to start from scratch
– When it comes to SEO (search engine optimisation), WordPress websites have a good chance of ranking higher than others. With its SEO-friendly themes and dedicated SEO tools, you can increase your visibility and reach more potential clients.
– As a healthcare practitioner, you deal with important patient data that needs to be accessed easily. WordPress stores data efficiently and allows you to download it anytime with just one click.
– As your practice grows, your website needs to grow too. Platforms powered by WordPress scale well and you can easily keep adding content and features.
Cons
– Even though the WordPress dashboard is meant to be user-friendly, some users find it takes time to master. There can be a steep learning curve: While WordPress is user-friendly, it can still be challenging for those who are not familiar with website building or coding, it may take time to master the platform.
-Requires regular updates: WordPress and its themes and plugins require regular updates to maintain security and functionality. If updates are not made regularly, it can put your website at risk of security breaches or compatibility issues
– With WordPress, you are responsible for your hosting needs. However, installing WordPress on hosting platforms like Bluehost or Dreamhost is an easy process that should only take a few minutes.
Costs
WordPress is free and open-source. You will need to purchase hosting, which can start from £3-4 per month. Free and paid themes and plugins are available. Bespoke design costs vary depending on your specific needs, but I charge £500 – £3000.
Overall, WordPress is a highly customizable, scalable, and flexible platform that is ideal for therapy businesses of all sizes and is a good choice for those who want more control over the design and functionality of their website.
Pocket Site
PocketSites is a website builder specifically designed for therapists and mental health professionals. There are several benefits to using PocketSites for building a website, including.
Feel: personal, bespoke, user-friendly, health care centred and secure.
Pros
– It’s easy to customise every aspect of the website. You can select a pre-built template and there’s a starter site included as standard.
-Easy to use: PocketSites is user-friendly and doesn’t require any coding or design skills to create a professional-looking website.
-Customisable templates: PocketSites offers a range of customizable templates to help you create a website that accurately reflects your brand and services.
-Secure and HIPAA-compliant: Security is a top priority for PocketSites, and all websites created with the platform are HIPAA-compliant. This means that patient data is protected and kept confidential.
-Built-in SEO: PocketSites includes built-in SEO features as standard, helping your website to rank higher in search engine results and making it easier for potential clients to find you online.
-Affordable pricing: PocketSites offers affordable pricing options, making it accessible for therapists and mental health professionals of all budgets.
– Pocket Site comes with a built-in image library which gives you access to 1000s of images.
– GDPR ready to go with Privacy and Cookie policy built-in.
– There’s no need to worry about keeping your site up-to-date, safe and secure, as it’s all done for you.
– Step-by-step training videos to get you going quickly and personalised support from me if you find yourself struggling.
Cons
– More costly per month than most, but this includes excellent support and your site is hosted on one of the fastest, most secure and reliable hosting environments around – WP Engine.
– To get the most out of the platform, you need to spend time on it, so it’s not for everyone.
Costs
There’s no set-up charge unless you are looking for Sophie to design your website for you, which costs £550, then your pocketsite is just a flat £30 per month. There’s no contract and you can terminate at any time. You can have a 30 min free consultation before you commit to making sure it’s the right platform for you. And a design service is also available if you need a helping hand to get going.
In summary, PocketSites offers a user-friendly, customizable, secure, and affordable solution for therapists looking to build a professional website.
Wix
With drag-and-drop customisation and a dedicated customer support team, Wix has gained popularity as a great website builder for beginners.
Feel-friendly interface, easy, customisable, user-friendly, and suitable for beginners.
Pros
– Joining the Wix platform and getting started is simple and easy from the start.
– After choosing your theme, the Wix editor gives you total freedom. You can drag and drop sections of text and media. You can resize, align, and reorder them quickly. There are also multiple Wix plugins to choose from to add new features to your platform.
– The Wix editor shows you how your website looks on different devices and lets you customise PC, mobile, and tablet versions. You can also realign and customise different elements to fit smaller screens.
– Due to its clean structure and ease, the Wix website builder is great for portfolios and personal pages.
Cons
– Total freedom sounds great, but if you aren’t inclined towards web design or you’re short on time, the website might end up with poor visuals.
– Wix websites don’t scale well and, depending on the amount of content and features you add, the pages will load slower.
– Once you choose a theme and publish your therapy website, you cannot change it. This means any future rebrand or redesign will have to be done within the limits of the respective theme.
– There’s no personalised support.
-Performance issues: Depending on the size and complexity of your website, you may experience slow loading times or other performance issues, which can negatively impact the user experience.
-Limited payment options: Wix has limited payment options compared to other website builders or e-commerce platforms, which can be a drawback if you plan to sell products or services through your website.
– If you build your website on Wix, you will be dependent on the Wix platform and limited in terms of what you can do with your website outside of the Wix ecosystem
– Even though they offer their own SEO tools, websites published with Wix seem harder to optimise. Wix has limited SEO capabilities, which can make it difficult for your website to rank well in search engine results
Costs
Wix has a free plan available you can use to try out the platform, along with multiple premium plans. The lower price tiers are perfect for a personal or portfolio website, but for a professional business website, you will need a business or eCommerce plan that starts from £8.50/month and can go up to £18 /month paid annually. Overall, Wix is a flexible and affordable website builder that offers a wide range of features and capabilities, making it a good choice for a starter website that need an online presence.
Squarespace
Known for a variety of great-looking themes, Squarespace is often used by designers and creative professionals to build visually appealing websites.
Feel: creative, professional, ready-made, good-looking, secure, standardised.
Pros
– Squarespace website builder is known for its creative themes and beautiful layouts.
– With Squarespace, you get everything you need by choosing the right template for your website. The Squarespace features are integrated with their layouts, which makes it friendly for beginners or people who don’t want to spend much time on design.
– Squarespace offers a set of features specifically designed for eCommerce so the user can add subscription pages, shopping carts, or catalogue sections. It also provides scheduling tools for booking appointments.
– Squarespace has a great customer service team and since they keep everything in-house, they will take care of any issues or inquiries.
Cons
– Since Squarespace works with templates, there is only so much you can customise when it comes to design. Squarespace websites can end up looking alike, which means you might lose brand recognition.
– When it comes to SEO, Squarespace can be difficult to optimise. The templates do not perform as well as other websites, their internal SEO tools can be hard to learn, and it doesn’t allow for third-party plugins that could help with a higher ranking.
– Even though they offer a great selection of possibilities, the features you can add to a Squarespace website are limited.
– Since Squarespace works with predetermined templates, it can be challenging to expand your website.
Costs
Squarespace offers four pricing options. For a personal plan, the price starts at £10/month when paid annually (or £14 on a monthly basis), and it goes up to £30/month annually for an advanced eCommerce platform.
In Conclusion…
Your private practice needs a website that looks professional and functions well. WordPress is an excellent choice for any business website, but for healthcare professionals, we obviously recommend Pocket Site. You’ll be able to create a website that suits your needs and Pocket Site will keep it running smoothly.
If you think Pocket Site might be right for you, get in touch today. We’ll arrange a video walk-through, or you can sign up with no obligation and take it for a spin, covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. Visit the Pocket Site website.