How to create a website that sells your practice with Melissa Kelly

Melissa has gone from being a licenced therapist in the US, to designing websites for other therapists. She's really passionate about helping us to create the kind of websites that draw people to us, and help us spread our messages.

The highlights

• Melissa gives us the background on her journey of how she went from therapist to web designer 00:43
• Melissa tells us what the high level things are that we should be thinking about before we set out to plan our website 06:28
• Melissa talks about the essential pages we need to make sure we have on a therapy website, such as the Homepage 10:56
• We discuss website accessibility 14:36
• Melissa talks about how many different offers we can have on our website, and when we might need two websites 18:04
• Melissa tells us what the other essential pages are that we’ve got to have, such as the About Me and Contact Me pages 22:34
• Melissa talks about our Services pages and how to make sure they work with Google 30:17
• We talk about images for our web pages 34:23
• Melissa tells us what other pages are nice to have, such as resources 37:13
• We discuss the ‘fine print’ pages like T&Cs and Privacy Policy 41:12
• Melissa gives us two action steps to go away and do now 47:37
• Melissa tells us how people can get in touch 50:54

Links:

Where to find Melissa:

www.missyraedesigns.com

Podcasts mentioned in this episode:

How to write for your website: Copywriting for Psychologists and Therapists with Allie Linn

Other Links

https://abundancepracticebuilding.com

https://www.privatepracticestartup.com

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Either way come over to psychologybusinessschool.com we have programmes, tools, free resources, podcasts and blogs to help you take your practice to the next level.

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Melissa Kelly

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy.

Today, I am delighted to be here with Melissa Kelly. So Melissa has a really interesting professional journey, because she's gone from being a licenced therapist in the US, to designing websites for other therapists. And she's really passionate about helping us to create the kind of websites that draw people to us, and help us spread our messages. So she's a wonderful person to talk to, and I'm really excited to have her to learn from today. So welcome to the podcast, Melissa.

Hi, thanks for having me.

So it'd be lovely if you could start by just giving us a bit of background really on your journey and how you came to be where you are now?

Yeah, sure. So let's see. So I worked in mental health in the US for I want to say like, in total, 10 years, and the first like, good chunk of that was in outpatient mental health. And it was, you know, I would say, before I even kind of got started with full time private practice, I might have already been burnt out. You know, it was working, you know, these really long hours seeing kind of clients back to back to back, having to see any client that sort of walked in the door, as long as they fit in your schedule, you know, it was more and more acute clients as resources became less and less available, you know. So I think by the time I even really started private practice, I might have already been burnt out and thinking private practice might have been the answer, you know. But one thing I really found during private practice that I loved to do was working with other therapists. So I started doing some similar to kind of some of the things that you're doing Rosie, like, you know, doing some consulting with therapists around their business and mindset. And I just really loved doing that. And then, so that kind of morphed and morphed over time until that kind of became like my full time gig. I, I actually, so my son is now three, and it was around the time I went on maternity leave, I just said, you know, I don't know, if I want to go back to private practice, I think I really want to do something else. And you know, there's nothing like becoming a parent, I think, to sort of like shift all your priorities. I was sort of like, if I'm going to be taking time away from you know, my son, I'm going to be, I want to be doing something that really feels good that gives me energy. And so I, you know, kind of went full force into the private practice consulting thing. And one of the things I was offering was website design. So I, at that time, I had built a couple of websites in Squarespace, which is the, you know, that's the platform I use. And I, you know, so I was familiar enough with that. And I actually have a background in writing, you know I went to school, before I went to school to become a social worker, I went to school for creative writing, writing literature and publishing. And so I have a background in that. And I just love it. I also was a blogger, for like, a long time I had a like a blogging, I had a, like a blog about rock climbing women and rock climbing for a long time. Yeah, it was like me and two of my friends, and we had like, a million views a month. So it was like a really robust blog, I actually did a lot of copy editing in that role, because we had people that would write posts for us anyway, so I had this background, you know. And I also just have a love of colour, I also have training as a professional florist. So...

How have you fit all this in? It looks really useful as well, you guys can't see, but it seems impossible.

Thank you, thank you. Good lighting today. Um, but yeah, it's it, you know, all these things kind of came together to sort of, I don't know, all of a sudden, I built my first website for a client of mine, a therapist client. And I was like, wow, this was so fun. And it's not just the love of kind of like colour and making things pretty, what I also really liked was like, sitting down with that person and really saying, like, what do you really want out of your business? And like how can we make your website make that a reality? You know, how can we, how can your website kind of make that business that dream business come true, you know, so that's what I really, really loved. And then it was just kind of from there, you know, that, you know, all bets are off and I was sort of doing that more and more and more and I took some you know, training in coding. So I know you know how to kind of make a website on Squarespace look like it's not a Squarespace website. Now I'm in it, I'm committed.

What really strikes me about that story is that there are kind of all these threads in your background and skills that you've acquired over your life, and they've all come together. And I think so often on this podcast, when we're reflecting with people about their careers, that's what comes out. It's that stuff that might seem really random, like a rock climbing blog, compared to being a therapist, or then kind of being a business consultant, actually, we can create these businesses for ourselves, which allow us to pull together all of those skills that we've acquired over the years. And I think you already know this about me, but you know I had a bit of a background in writing as well, and that was my first degree at university. And I thought I'd never find a way of using that, and then have done, kind of carved a different way of doing it over over the years. And it's how we can serve people best.

Absolutely, yes, I think that's 100% the message, you know, to really kind of bring all those real parts of ourselves to our work, that that's actually how we are able to serve people best. And I think as a therapist, it can be really hard to know how to do that. Which is why I think what you're doing is great, because I think that's a lot of what your your show and your offerings are about is like how to really be able to be a therapist for the long haul, without burning out, by bringing yourself in in ways that feel authentic, you know, but still professional and ethical. And, yeah, yeah, it's not easy. It's not easy.

It's not easy at all. And I think you're touching on something really important when you were saying that, when you're creating the website with somebody, that's often when the vision starts to solidify, when their vision, their personal vision for their business and the people that they want to help starts to actually fall into alignment. And I think that's really often, well it should, it should be true. Often, we just build a website that looks like somebody else's, or that we think, you know, looks nice. And if we've missed out that piece where we're thinking, where the, where do I want this to take me and where do I want it to take my clients too, that's a real missed opportunity. And so I want to dive in a little bit into the different things that we need to consider when we're setting up a therapy website. Because I know a lot of people listening to this, you know, either they've kind of maybe chucked something up there, that was a bit DIY, and you know, they're looking to improve it, or a lot of people listening might not have a website yet at all. So what would be those kind of high level things that people should be thinking about before they set out to plan their website?

Yeah, so I think there's a few. The first and number one, I would say, is certainly thinking about who is your ideal client? And who, who, who are you trying to attract? And I think, for therapists, a lot of times that can be hard, because therapists can be often multi passionate, and interested in a lot of different things. And they can quickly feel sort of overwhelmed a, you know, if they offer a lot of different types of services, how do I organise my website, things like that. So there's that. So it's thinking about who, who really do want to bring into your practice. But also, you know, people can sort of say, like, I don't know, if I really have a niche, I'm not sure I just kind of, I don't know, I'm eclectic, or I sort of see everyone, but I think when we sort of sit down, really think about it, and that's kind of what I ask my clients to do, that we actually all really do have sort of these clients that we work with that really light us up that kind of make us excited to go to work every week. And those are the clients that we want to see more of, you know, I think we can get into the mindset, I know, I certainly can relate to this of any client that sort of walks through the door, if I have space, that's who I see. But I know from my own experience, that's kind of what leads to burnout. So when you are designing your website, you want to really think about not maybe necessarily the business that you have right now, but sort of the business that you want. What is the what is the practice that you would be excited to go to when you wake up on Monday morning, you know, when you look at your schedule for the week that you're saying, like, Oh, yeah, can't wait to see that person. And you know, that you... that's the way that we prevent burnout. So I mean, I think that's my number one guiding light. When I think about website design.

I absolutely love that. And you won't know this, but every few months, three times a year, I run a workshop, a free workshop about finding your specialism and I actually I call it your guiding light. I know, isn't that weird? Because, because to me, that's the analogy that fits the best because it's like, there are so many overwhelming options that you could take in your practice. Sometimes you just need that kind of guiding light or that beacon to follow to tell you yes, spend your energy here. And or no, that's a great thing to do, but it's not for you, because you can't do everything and you can't see everybody. Because I think certainly in the first few years of my practice, I did try to do that. There's so many books to read, so many courses to do, you always feel inadequate, you always feel on the backfoot. That leads to underpricing, that leads to seeing too many people. And this is where we get the burnout, isn't it? So, yeah, I really love that I love the fact that you get people thinking about that right from the beginning, as building their website, because I've seen so many websites that have been built without that guiding light, and you can really tell.

Yeah, that if we sort of are too broad in our website, design or our website copy, then we're not really speaking to anyone, when we're trying to speak to everyone, you know.

Alright, so once somebody's got their guiding light sorted, they know who they're going to be speaking to, what are the essential pages we need to make sure that we have on any therapy website?

So the first thing that comes to mind is the homepage as kind of the most important. And there's some things to consider with your homepage. I think that some people might not realise that the homepage is kind of like an overview of your whole website. And there's a little bit of a, an art to it. So it, you want it to sort of be an overview of everything on your website, because some people are going to click into your navigation, you know, tab by tab. And then other people are not going to do that, they're just going to come right to your website and scroll. So you really want to have, you want to cater to both people. So you want a website that, you can scroll down that homepage and click through into all the different offerings that you have on your whole site. So there should be a little section if you offer individual therapy and couples therapy, have a little section about both of those. If you offer supervision and you know, maybe have a little blurb about that, you want to have something that leads to your About Me page. The other thing is you want to make sure you have your contact information almost ridiculously, redundantly repeated, you know, so make sure you have a contact button in the main navigation, that's the main navigation when I say that, that means just that you know that bar at the top where your your site title is, and your different page names are, that's your your main navigation. So you want to have a contact button there, you want to have one at multiple different points on your homepage. And then you want to have it also in your footer, the footer of your website. And the other thing is you want to make sure to end with, each page actually not just the homepage, but all of your pages end with what's called a call to action. And the call to action is really just telling in very simple language, what you want that user to do. So whether that is, usually what that's going to be for a therapist is email me or give me a call to set up an appointment or set up a you know, free 15 minute consultation. And it should be written in really plain language just like that. And the other thing is, you might have a secondary call to action, and that's okay, too. So that can also be woven in, if it's like, subscribe to my blog, or my podcast or something like that. But you know, make sure you're really, when you're creating that homepage or creating these calls to action that we don't want to get like cute with those. We want to you know, when you are writing things up in your main navigation, you know, have it just be really plain language like my services, contact me, you know, things like that. I've see sometimes people writing sort of like, more clever sort of heading items, and we want to just eliminate any barriers or confusion for people trying to find the information they need on your site. So that's sort of probably for the homepage.

That makes a lot of sense. And I think definitely when I designed my first website, I fell into the trap of trying to make it clever. And actually now I know a little bit more about how Google indexes things, really, you've just got to make it as straightforward as possible for the user, but also for the bots that Google use to decide what your website's about.

Yes, exactly. Yep. 100% I think that's big. The other thing that I'm learning more and more about is also about like web accessibility. And so that is for you know, you know, here I think it's just in the US but one in four people in the US have a disability of some sort, whether it's, you know, low vision or blindness or even, you know, dyslexia or things like that, and you know, motor impairments. And so you want to make your website, you know, really user friendly that if someone's using a screen reader, or something, that everything, that headings are really clear, right. So all throughout your website, you're going to have headings, and you want to make it so that people can read it at a skim sighted users, you know, who are there and able to see the content, but also for people that might be using a screen reader, that all the headings are super clear, so they can navigate easily. So there's lots of those things to consider. Just making it simple, I think is the way to go.

Definitely, and that's such a good point about accessibility, because for a lot of us, that's one of our core values, but we might not know that much about making a website accessible. And Sam, our community manager for the Do More Than Therapy Community is dyslexic. And she looks at my pages for me, and will tell me, whether it's dyslexia friendly or not. And things like you know, white backgrounds and black text are really unhelpful to people. And often, we really like a white page and black text, so like, things like that have really opened my eyes, Sam's really helped me to start thinking about that. And another thing I learned on Instagram I believe, the other day was that you can add alt text, to your images. So that will tell the person using the screen reader, what they're, what is on the page, what the image is that you've put there. So whereas back in the bad old days, when I learned about SEO, which is probably when you were blogging, and you probably learned this stuff to people used to stuff their keywords into that. But what a horrible thing to do to somebody who's visually impaired, actually writing a clear, succinct, like image of Dr. Rosie Gilderthorp, sitting at her therapy desk, or it's so much more helpful to somebody who can't see the page themselves.

Absolutely, yes, exactly. Yeah. And these are things that, you know, not everyone's going to think of, and it's kind of a new ish, you know, realm, even the laws and guidelines are not even very clear about what the standards are for accessibility, you know, so I certainly wouldn't judge someone for kind of not even being aware that this is an issue.

No, I've only just become aware.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, me too. I actually just recently took a training about it. And I was like, wow, there's a lot I didn't know here. So. But certainly, it's just good to think about. And again, just going back to that idea of keeping it simple. And also, I think the idea of keeping it simple is a good one, if you're feeling a little, if you've been putting off writing your website forever, you know, and I, that's most of my clients, they come to me because they're sort of like, I've been having this on my to do list for a good couple of years now. And it's just not getting done. But it might make it a little bit less intimidating when you just keep in mind that it doesn't have to be super clever. You know, it just needs to be you. That's the most important thing, you know?

Yeah, definitely. And one thing related to that, that I was going to ask you, actually, and there might not be an answer to this, feel free to just be like, with no right answer. But often, like you said, a lot of us are really multi passionate, and might be offering lots of things. And you know, we mentioned a few kind of individual therapy, couples therapy, possibly supervision as well, in your view, how many offers is too many?

I think where it gets tricky is it really depends on how much they sort of overlap. So for example, I had a client where I suggested that maybe she instead of having one website, she have two, because what she did was offer a bunch of really robust programme for her community, and also clinical work and also supervision. And so having that all on one website, just made for a really confusing experience, I think. And so it was best to in that case, the community offerings were just so different than the stuff that was more in the clinical realm, you know, but I you know, as far as supervision and clinical services, I think that you are still within reason to kind of keep that all on one website. I know it would be really unwieldy for most people to have two. The thing that I would make sure of if you're going to have supervision on your website, just know that your clients or prospective clients are going to read that page. So when you write that content, just make sure it is written in a way that is respectful. I don't, I can't imagine that a therapist wouldn't do this, but I had this experience once where I was writing for, I do copywriting as well as web design, and so I was writing copy for a therapist who had both supervision and therapy services on her website. And I wrote something about, something about ideal clients and something about, you know, the stress of like going through the credentialing process and the stress of, and the way I wrote it was kind of like in a light or sort of candid way. And then as we looked at it together, again, it was sort of like, you know, a client could read that and think like, that they might have their feelings hurt by that, like, as if they were a burden or something, which was not the way I intended it, but I could, you know, I was sort of like, we have to change this language. So that would be my recommendation, as if you're going to have, you know, anything that you have on your website, just know that your clients or prospective clients are, even if it's not relevant to them, they're probably going to read it. So just keep that in mind. Is that helpful, yeah?

Yeah, really, really helpful. Because I often think about, think about that, because I talk a lot about burnout for other psychologists and therapists, and I do sometimes think I'd really hate it if, if my therapy clients thought that I was saying I didn't like working with them. So I'm always really, I try to always be really clear in my messaging that I love the work that I do, it's just that we have to do some self care and recognise our own boundaries. But but it is, yeah, it's a challenge sometimes to articulate that in a way that's suitable for both audiences. Yeah, but I also agree that with supervision, in a way, it's almost a unique sort of thing, because you've got to think about the expectations of your potential supervisees. And certainly, when I'm looking for a supervisor, I actually want to see their clinical site, I want to see how they put themselves out there. For their therapy clients, I'm really interested in that. And I'd expect there to just be a little tab that says professionals at the top or, or something similar. Whereas it could get a lot more confusing with the example you gave with the community projects versus the private therapy work. Yeah, it's really interesting to think about,

Yeah, it just can get unwieldy. And you just want to think about your user. And when they come to your website, how easy is it for them to find what they need? And what they need is really to, to contact you primarily. But how easy is it for them to find what they need? Can they find it with really like one click maybe two? So if you have a lot going on on your website, it can start to get really hard for a client to find, you know how to contact you or what you're about. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So we've talked about the homepage and a little bit about the navigation. What are the other really essential pages that we've got to have on our website?

So I would say the next most important, the most second most visited of all your web pages, and this will probably be true if you looked at your analytics, in most cases, it would be your About Me page. So that would be the other really vital page that you want to have. And that About Me page is kind of a it's, what's the word? Like maybe the word about me is a little the phrase about me is a little misleading, you know, About Me page is really still about your client. Funnily enough, I was listening back to an old episode of yours with Allie Linn, the mental health copywriting. Yeah, yeah yeah. And she spoke to this really well, so I would suggest, like if people haven't heard that episode, or go back and listen to it, but yeah, so really, that About Me page is still about your clients. And so, a lot of times, I noticed that therapists might use that page, almost like a resume, you know, so, or a CV, you know, so where they're kind of listing where they went to school, or where they trained or things like that. And generally speaking, that's not kind of what the client is looking for when they go to that page. What they want to see is, you know more about what you're about, what makes what you do different than another therapist. They might want to hear something, some version of your story, you know, whatever that might be, and that's tricky to write for therapists. I've worked with some therapists that are very comfortable sharing their own, you know, personal background and what sort of brought them to the, you know, becoming a therapist. And I've also spoken to others that are really not comfortable sharing, more than sort of just like their professional journey. And I don't know, I think the sweet spot might be somewhere kind of in between, you know, but it really should be, it should be reflective of what you're actually like as a therapist. So if you tend to be a therapist who is sort of, tends to be more reserved or more boundaried, then yeah, having your website, you know, have your whole, like personal history doesn't make sense, right? So, but that page really is about giving the, you know, clients a glimpse of who you are, what you're about. But it's also really, to still tap into what are the struggles for them, you know, so they're coming to that page because they're in some amount of pain, they're dealing with some amount of stress, difficulty, overwhelm, and they want to know if you can help, you know, so you're gonna still start that page by naming what's going on for them. And that's something that with your homepage, as well, that that's kind of where you want to lead off, you don't really want to lead off with talking about yourself. That's you, there's a space for talking about yourself, but you don't want to start there, you really want to start with talking about what are the really specific things that bring your clients to therapy. And a lot of times I asked my clients to think about like when you know, you think about some of your most favourite clients that you love to work with, think about two or three of them, and just write down what are the things that when they came in, they said were the problems they wanted to solve? You know? Because we often have, as therapists all kinds of ideas about what is going on with our clients using clinical language and jargon. But we want to think about using client language, to talk about what's going on and talk about how we can help and avoid sort of using the jargon that we might use with colleagues.

Oh, it's so important, I think, because if I think about when I've been looking for a therapist, what I need to know is A, that they have worked with people like me before, and B, that they like working with people like me. Isn't the nightmare, as somebody looking for therapy, that you would ring up and the therapist rejects you?

Yeah, sure.

Because that's what everybody is scared of. And the therapist goes, oh, no, you're too messed up for me, like I, no, I don't like that kind of thing. That's a, it's a really vulnerable position to be in, and I think, when we can get into that headspace of like, what do they need to hear from me to feel safe? To, you know, email me or to call me, however you take your referrals. I think if we're in that headspace, then it's a lot easier to write than it is when we're in this kind of oh, right. I need to reel off all of my training and all of that stuff.

Yes. Which doesn't make you feel really approachable I don't think. It's, you know, if anything, it could create some distance and so naming, you know, helping even use your About Me page or any part of your page, really to normalise your clients experience, and destigmatise that experience to make them feel like okay, this person has seen this before. Okay, what a relief, you know, and like you said that they could then feel safer to contact you. That that's that would be a great user experience, you know, versus reading your whole professional history. Yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting, because I didn't know that the About page is like the second most clicked on page. Yeah, that makes me anxious, so I'm now thinking about mine as it's good enough at all. Definitely need to go back and visit that. But yeah, it's been, that's been really helpful to think about it in that way, from the client perspective. So are there any other pages that are really essential for us?

So I really like to have a contact page, I think that having a contact page with all your contact information in one spot, is a really great idea. And also, just make sure that you're, that that's the only way that people can contact you through the website. So what I mean by that is, like, you know, if you're going to have a contact page that has a little embedded form, where people can type in, you know, their inquiry, don't also have like, an embedded form on another page, you know, so just have a button that just brings everybody to the contact page, and just have it all be kind of centralised.

I like that. I've made that mistake before, thinking about it, and then it gets really confusing in your inbox.

Yes, exactly. Yep. And keeping the language again, I think I said this, but really clear with your, your buttons and your call to action, like Contact Me. Just have that. And yeah, just have that be really clear, I think. So having all your contact information in one spot, and the best way to contact you, how long they should expect to wait you know, for a response from you, things like that. You can also have on that contact page your things like FAQs if you want, and FAQs are a really good thing to have, because they're good for SEO, they sort of help because you're writing you know, these things out that people actually you know, will type into like a search engine. You know, so like what is you know, X type of therapy, you know, da-da-da-da, right, so that's like something somebody would really search. So it's a, that could be a great thing to have on your contact page. You could also have a separate FAQ, if you want. And, yeah, I think that just having it all centralised is a good idea. So contact page. And then the other thing is your services page. So you may have multiple types of services, and they should each really have their own page. So I've seen websites where all all services, so it's like family therapy, couples group, everything was all on one spot. And that's not a great user experience. And also, it's not great for SEO. So one thing that people don't know about SEO is that, like, Google basically reads heading sizes. So anything that is written in the... it's called Heading 1, but whatever your largest, you know, heading is in your web Website Builder. So whenever they Google crawls with its little bots on the internet, and looks at your website, they take anything that's written in Heading 1 as Ooh, okay, this is what this website is about. And you really should only have one Heading 1 per page. But that can get really confusing if you have more than one. So the Heading 1 is super duper important. And if you, say you have all your services nested onto one page, and you have, it's probably only going to read the top heading, whatever that is. So if that just says Services, that's like not telling Google anything, you know, so it's really important to have a separate page for each service.

That is such a good tip. Because when I think of all the sites, and probably my own site, and when I think of all the sites that I look at so often that tab is just called services. That's what Google will think the title of the page is.

Yeah. So you can have if you want to do a drop down menu on your main navigation that says Services, that's okay, because Google won't really read that folder. But then each page should have its own, you know, family therapy, couples, therapy, group therapy, its own special content, you know.

Okay, that's really, really good to know, because I think there's a lot of people listening to this that will have that distinction. And yeah, knowing that should be a separate page for each one. That's a real take home message for me, for sure.

That's right. The other thing, too, I just want to plug is that it's important that you have at least 300 words on the page. And that's because Google will, if you actually have a page with less than 300 words, not only will it maybe not index it, it could also kind of count against you, it could harm you, you know, from SEO perspective. So 300 words sounds like a lot, but it's not actually that much once you start kind of, you know, tapping it out. And it's important, just because otherwise you, that page is not going to be read, and then you'll be you know, it's kind of a waste of a page.

Yeah, absolutely. And something that, you know, thinking about our writing backgrounds, and I was talking about on a Do More Than Therapy masterclass today, was actually, you know, you might be able to put some kind of story where you maybe talk about a composite client story, you know, the kind of transformations that people can go through to give people a bit of hope at that stage. I think often, people land on our websites really unsure about whether there's potential for them to get better, whether life can ever be better than it is right now. And I was reflecting on this with the Do More Than Therapy members, because I don't think on my website, there's very much. I know, I'm privileged enough to have been in the business for long enough to know that absolutely people can go from the darkest place into a life that feels fulfilling. And I think we need to be sharing that. And we have a lot of debate, I'm sure it's the same in the US, we have a lot of debate here about the ethics of using testimonials, and how we can share client stories ethically, and it is difficult. But I think there are ways you know, you can create anonymous composites. You can talk about personal experience, if that feels okay for you. But I think it's really important that we are doing that. And if we've got to go over 300 words, we might as well.

Exactly. It's a great way to use your 300 words. Yeah. I think too from like a design standpoint, when you're thinking about, you know, it's good idea to have images on your... each page. So Google likes images, and also that using images, alt text, as we were talking about before is another way as long as you do it tactfully and you're not cramming keywords in is another way for Google to read your, your website and get some SEO information. Images are also another way to sort of like tell a story if you think about it, right. So If you go on someone's website, and I've seen this a lot of times, and you see like, pictures of people like fighting or looking really sad, or but that's not something that you you don't want to convey that message because people are picking that up subliminally. And they will sort of be like repelled by that even though yeah, like, you might be talking about something that's really tough. Like maybe you have a section about trauma. And so you think it would make sense to put like a picture of someone looking sad here. But you want to actually have sort of like the quote unquote, like 'after'?

Yeah, you want to show the hope.

That's right, you want to show the hope, you know, so. And of course, you hit the nail on the head as far as ethics. And that's something I think about a lot. You don't want to ever promise anything, or over promise anything. But there are ways that you can convey hope, as you said, without sort of being unethical and promising results, you know.

Yeah, thank you so much for bringing up images, because I am really not very visual, I really, really struggle. And that's something that I've always had to bring somebody else in to help me with, because I can't, I can't see stories at all. I can't see what looks good versus what looks cluttered, I just can't. And actually, of course, it's really important. And you just mentioning that. There was a parenting website, I won't say which one, that I went on the other day, and they were giving really good advice, but I felt really repelled. And I just didn't want to be on there, and it was because they had pictures of smacking.

Oh, oh gosh, yeah, no.

And it was saying, like, how to avoid getting that angry, and it was really sound advice, like I really appreciated the content, but I just couldn't stay on the page, because I found those images really difficult.

Yeah, that's a great example, yeah.

But but I see why they made that mistake, because you would just think like, oh, this is a topic I'm talking about, type it into pexels, or one of unsplash or whatever what comes up. But I think it's really helpful in my mind to think right, what's the picture that's gonna convey the kind of hopeful message where we can get to?

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yep.

So useful. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. Sure.

So I know that you mentioned to me before we started recording that there are some other pages that are kind of nice to have on a website, but are not really essential. What's that?

So let's see, one, for example, could be a resources page. So a resources page is something where, say, you often recommend the same books, or you have videos to share, whether they're ones that you made, or ones you recommend, etc. So podcasts, things like that, right, that having a resources page is good for a couple of reasons. One, I mean, so many reasons. One is that it's a really great resource for your current clients, because then you can just refer them right there to those resources, rather than always having to repeat the same thing. Make it really easy for them to find what you're recommending. The second is, it's a really nice service to people who may not be ready to give you a call just yet. But that having, I actually when I was in private practice, I had a number of people that mentioned to me that the resource page was the reason why they got in touch, because of the things I recommended that they used, and they found helpful. And you mean, there's a bunch of things around that, which is that it's actually really good to give things away for free. A lot of people worry about that, like, does that mean, I'm kind of you know, cannibalising my own business or something. But that's not the way it is at all, because I think we all know that reading a self help book is not the same as a therapeutic relationship, it can be really helpful. And people will then remember like, oh yeah, that was Rosie, who gave me this resource, and maybe I should give her our call, you know. So it's for that. And then also for SEO, it can be really helpful. Because you're, you're linking to other websites that are relevant to your, you know, topic area, for example. So a resources page is a really great thing to have. And again, it can just be really simple. It doesn't need to be super complex to be really useful to your clients or potential clients.

I completely agree. And the great thing actually about a resources page, or the frequently asked questions, that you mentioned earlier, is that it then gives you an easy place to link people to. So it actually saves you loads of time. If you find that, you know, there are certain things that if somebody can't afford my fee, for example, there are certain resources that I pretty much always want to point them to that I'm like this would be useful for you in the meantime, and having those in one central location where I can just go 'check out this page there's some good resources on there that might help you through this difficult time', it's just really useful and for existing clients too. And it's the same with the frequently asked questions. I mean, how many times do you get asked like, what's the difference between CBT and EMDR? I get asked that so often, if I write one decent answer, I'm proud of that I can link to it, that sounds perfect.

That's absolutely true. I think that's right. And it'll, you know, thinking too about, you know, your website should really be working for you, you know, so it should be doing some of your work while you sleep, or while you see your other clients so that that might actually save you an email, right? So if somebody could go to your website and see if you take their insurance or see how much your fee is, or if you do a certain type of therapy, and have that question answered, then that's great, you know, then they may not contact you and that saves you a little bit of time, or they may contact you, and they may be a great fit, which is also also wonderful.

Yeah, no, I think that's, that's such a good point to make. And we often forget that our websites can do stuff for us too.

Yes. Yeah, they should, yeah yeah, they should work hard for you. That's, that's why we have them, you know.

And actually, so I was gonna start asking you about the kind of boring pages now, you know, the fine print kind of pages. But you know, although I call them boring, these, those pages where you've got terms and conditions, and privacy, and all of that stuff, like mapped out, I do actually find since I've had those nailed down, that saves me time as well. Because I can refer people back to those really easily. So I now actually have all of my Terms of Service and all of that easily linked as tabs on my website. A, so there's no surprises, so that anyone who you know, is thinking about working with me if they want to, can check out what my T's & C's are in advance. But also just so that they're always there to link to so I never have to attach documents, unless I need a signature, which has been a real time saver. And but can you talk to us a little bit about those pages and what's essential in 2021?

Sure, yeah. So it's really important to have both your terms and conditions and a privacy policy. And also with that a cookies banner. So you may notice, I'll talk a little bit about what that is. You may notice that more and more websites that you go to now when you're just kind of browsing around, have a little banner that pops up when you land on that page that says, you know, our website uses cookies, do you accept, do you not accept? And that is something that more and more websites are using to be in compliance with a, is it an EU or UK law I forget, that governs the internet essentially. Right? So it basically...

Yeah, GDPR it is EU, but we're in it as well.

Okay, yeah. Well, we're all in it. I mean, that's kind of what we've realised, cuz I remember when I first heard about us, we're like, okay, that's an EU thing, so that doesn't affect me, but actually what it means is that if you have visitors from the EU, which we probably all do, you know, that if your website is not in compliance, that you could still be fined, even if your business is not located in the EU. So this is a one of the ways to be in compliance is to have a cookies banner. And cookies are just like little pieces of information that a website might collect. And every website really collects them. Like for example, I use Squarespace to build all my websites for my clients, and Squarespace just in order to use fonts that they use on the website, they have to collect, like some little pieces of your data, because they're going to be connecting to like Google fonts, for example, you know, so it's things like that, that there's all these inner workings, we just click a button and we're just on a website. We're like, Oh, it's magic, you know, but there's actually all these things always going on behind the scenes of a website that, you know, it needs to do to function to and so cookies are just one of those things are kind of a fact of life. But um, you can if you're uncomfortable with it, if a website has a cookies banner, you can find out more about like, what exactly are they collecting, and that should be spelled out in what's called your privacy policy. And your privacy policy should spell out how you're using any information that's being collected and all the different ways that you're collecting that. So for my clients, I have like a really basic privacy policy that I give them that is all about what Squarespace collects. But I think it's really important, privacy policy is really important to have your website be compliant and 2021 and it's something that we just it's kind of a fact of life again. Yeah.

Definitely. And I'd say, certainly for anybody listening in the UK, because obviously, that's my only experience, is that, you know, you probably need some help to make it compliant.

That's right.

I had one that I'd cobbled together off the back of a couple of templates, and when I got a lawyer to look at it, she was just like, no, this is not compliant. Because I didn't understand a lot of it. And I think, you know, we're not web designers, we, a lot of us, we don't really get some of this tech stuff. And especially like listing out all the cookies, they got crazy names, and ready hard to read, and it was, it was hard. So actually, I found, I got together with a GDPR lawyer, and my web developer, and I needed input from both of those professionals to get a truly compliant policy. So off the back of that experience, I created a suite of templates for UK based, because they're based in UK law, for UK based psychologists, and therapists, and that's part of our Psychology Business School offer, and we have a class all about GDPR and how to make sure you're compliant. Because I think you're spot on, it's really important in 2021, and I just don't think it's an area we should skimp on. But I wouldn't want to scare people, you know that the they're not out there to try and give you the million pound fines, they're really not, that those are aimed at the big corporations who absolutely take the piss with data. They're not, they're not hunting for you like that. But as ethical practitioners, there is nothing in GDPR that I disagree with. Everything about it is actually it's good clinical ethical practice to make sure that you're not treating people's data in a way that they don't consent to. So for me, compliance it's not just about ticking the box, it's also about being really comfortable, that I understand what my website is doing. And that I've thought through all of my privacy policy, and that's why I think it's really useful, because if you map it out there, then you've got your flowchart, essentially, of what you are going to do for people to stay safe, and then you just follow it.

That's right, exactly. Yeah, it's helpful for you as the therapist, as well as being helped from the client or potential client. Yeah, and certainly as therapists too where we are handling, you know, people's sensitive, you know, confidential information that this is kind of, if you can just think of this as part of that, too, you know, the same way that we manage, you know, people's information in a sensitive way, this is the same, same thing.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm aware, I've taken up loads of your time. And I really appreciate, you've shared so much value, and I feel that people are going to be able to go away from this a lot more confident to build their first website, or to seek help and support with getting that website built that's maybe been on my to do list for two years. But just before we finish up, are there sort of two action steps that you would want psychologists or therapists listening to this to go away and do now? What would be their two priorities?

I think so. There's so there's so many I know you were gonna ask this question. But I think as far as this last piece that we were talking about, I think that really is important. The part about thinking about just the fine print stuff that once you get your website built, you do want to, you know, make sure that you are in compliance with these things it's worth sort of peace of mind. And as we were just talking about, it's helpful for you as a therapist. So I think whether you you know, take your course that you're offering for people in the UK, I hope that there's something similar in the US now it's making me want to look into that or do that.

There is, and there's something called the, so there's Allison Puryear has got a community called the Abundance Practice Builders, I think. And there's also The Private Practice Startup. There's two that I'm aware of, and I know, I'm not sure about Allison, I think she does, but I know The Private Practice Startup has US compliant documents. Because I get that question, because I sometimes get inquiries from the US.

Yeah, no, that's great. That's good to know. So I mean, I think if you can use that, use that help us that support, there are resources out there, don't cobble it together, don't skimp. You know, there's also if you want to create a privacy policy and terms and conditions, there's things online, like Legal Zoom we have in the US, you know, there's there's all kinds of the resources, but it's worth it. You know, it might cost you a little bit but like that's worth, that's money well spent to me, so. So I think there's that and then yeah, I think the other pieces just really thinking about when you're about to start your own website design is to think about, like who you're designing it for. So it's both for your ideal client that we talked about, and it's also you know, thinking about like what you know, what do you like, what's your personal style? I personally love like, making make a Pinterest board, you know, and like, you just go in there and like, just start adding things that you love, that like make you feel good. The colours that you like, the fonts that you like, you know, and just you will see that you actually probably have more of a design sense than you think. So I would like to just empower people, if you are just getting started with private practice for, you know, you don't have the funds to hire a designer like me that like you can do some of these things yourself, you know, and and you shouldn't feel as intimidated. Just keep it simple, you know, and you can do it. I'm cheerleading you over here.

I love the idea as well, like, make it fun. Make a Pinterest board and let yourself have a bit of imagination and play with it.

Absolutely. Yes. It should be fun. You know, it shouldn't be torture. Yeah. And if you're, if you're finding it is torture, then you can call me. And I'll help you.

Definitely, and how can people get in touch with you if they would like to work with you or find out more about you?

So I actually have a new website I think by the time this this airs, I'll have a new website that will have all my information about my web design services, and all of the DIY stuff that I'll be offering. And so that's going to be at Melissa Rae Designs. So that will be coming coming to the internet soon.

I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes. Because I think that lots of people listening to this are gonna want to click that link and find out more about you. And check out what you've done with your websites. I've got no doubt it's going to be really impressive. Thank you so much for your time today, Melissa, I really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

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Rosie Gilderthorp: Hi, it's 'future me'. Just cutting in, in order to let you know that since we recorded this episode Melissa has actually changed the domain name of her website so if you want to look up Melissa the place to find her is www.missyraedesigns.com. So I will share that with you in the show notes. I just wanted to make sure, because I know lots of you’re probably gonna want to get in touch with Melissa, that you can do that. So without further ado I will get back to 'past me' so we can wrap up the show.

Rosie Gilderthorp

Where are you at in your practice? Are you just starting out and you're still terrified about not having enough work or not being set up right? Or are you full to the rafters with clients and you're looking for a different way to make an impact on mental health without risking burnout. Either way, come over to psychologybusinessschool.com. We have programmes tools, free resources, podcasts and blogs to help you take your practice to the next level. You don't have to do it on your own.

Rosie Gilderthorp

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. If you share my passion for doing more than therapy, then make sure you come over and join my free Do More Than Therapy Facebook community, where you can work on getting your big ideas off the ground with like minded psychologists and therapists. I'd also love it if you could leave the show a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It will help more of the people who need it to find it. See you next week for more tips and inspirational stories to help you do more than therapy.