There’s nothing wrong with most counselling websites.

They’re thoughtful. Careful. Full of good intentions.

And yet… people still leave.

In this episode, I’m talking about something I see all the time, websites that are trying to say too much. Not because you’ve got it wrong, but because you care, and you want to get it right.

I share what’s really going on when someone lands on your homepage, why adding more can actually make it harder for someone to choose you, and what to shift so the right clients can actually recognise themselves.

If you’ve ever looked at your website and thought, ‘this sounds fine… but something’s not quite working’, this will help you see why.

Overview

We’re getting into:

• Why ‘more helpful’ can quietly turn into confusing
• What potential clients are actually looking for when they land on your website
• The subtle ways self-doubt shows up in your wording
• Why people leave, even when you are the right counsellor for them
• The small shift that helps someone think, ‘this sounds like me’

Links & next steps

If this episode has you looking at your homepage a bit differently, this is exactly what I help with in my Write Your Homepage sessions.

It’s a focused 90-minute session where we take what you’ve already written and shape it so the right people can actually see themselves in it, and feel ready to reach out.

There’s currently an introductory price available until 11th April.

👉 Take a look and see if it feels like the right next step

If you’re not quite ready for that, you can explore more free support here:

👉 Start Here

Speaker: There's something I see a lot of on counseling websites, and it's not that they're wrong and it's not even that they're badly written, but it does make it harder for someone want to stay on your website and actually. Get in touch, which of course is what we want. Now, the tricky part is when it's your own website, you don't always see it.

Welcome to the Grow Your Private Practice Show. I'm Jane Travis, and I'm here to help you to get found by more of the right clients with simple, doable marketing, especially using blogging. Each week, I'll share practical tips to help you grow your practice with more focus and confidence. So let's dive in.

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back and if it's your first time here. Hello. How's your day been going so far? Okay, so have you ever landed on a website and just felt a bit confused? Not really because there's anything wrong with it.

Not because it wasn't helpful, but because it's just a bit. Busy. Do you know what I mean? Like there's too much to read, there's a lot to take in. There's a lot to figure out. And after a minute or two you might find yourself thinking, Ugh, I haven't got time for this right now. I'll come back to this later.

But the problem with that is, of course you don't. You don't come back later. And this is something I see a lot with counseling websites because it's not that there's anything specifically wrong with them. They often look great. They often sound great. They're just trying to say too much, and I know about this from both sides because my very first counseling website looked exactly like that now, honestly, it was full.

It was a really full website. It had all sorts of explanations and reassurances. It had all the things that I thought I should say as a professional counselor. And I hadn't really worked on my people pleasing tendencies as much back then. So of course I was trying to please everyone, you know. I wanted to help people to understand what counseling was so that they made the right choice for them.

I didn't want to leave anything out because I wanted to make sure that they made the right choice for them, and I wanted to sound professional because I. I wanted to sound professional and I wanted to be helpful. Of course I did. But look, if I'm honest, there was also a part of me that wanted to justify my fees.

I hadn't done my work on my money mindset back then and. Yeah, talking about fees and charging made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. Do you ever feel like that? I, I still do, even though I've done tons of work on my money mindset, it's something that can easily trip me up. And I can remember back then writing something that was almost apologizing for charging, you know, not necessarily in a big obvious kind of a way, but in that slightly careful tone of.

I know this costs money and I'm really sorry about that. Here's why. And then. After that, I would add lots of links and I mean lots of links. So I'd share things like helpful resources, articles, links to charities that offered free counseling, links to directories. Uh, because I thought, well, if I give people more, it's gonna help them to decide because I was nice.

I was a very, very nice person. But what I was actually doing is. A, I was confusing people. There was too much information they'd landed on my website and it was like bombarding them with too many things to think about. And B, also, and I didn't realize this at the time, by having so many links on there, by trying to be so helpful in that way, I was giving them lots of ways.

To leave my website, and if people leave your website very often, they don't come back again, which is a bit of a bummer really, because we work hard to get people on our website, so we really don't want to be doing that. Now, looking back at it now, it just seems really, really clear. You know, it wasn't that the website was bad, it was just very cluttered.

It was just. It was just really unclear, you know? And it wasn't focusing on the person that was reading it really, it was focusing on me getting it right. It wasn't focusing on them, recognizing themselves. So if any of this sounds familiar. You are really not alone because I've been there. Oh, yes. Now, let's just zoom out for a second, because when somebody lands on your website, they're not arriving ready to analyze everything.

They're not there to compare qualifications in a neat, logical way. They're arriving because something in their life doesn't feel okay for them. They're feeling upset or lost or confused or lonely or whatever it is, and they might not even have the words for that yet. So they're just looking for something that makes things feel, I dunno, a little bit, a little bit clearer maybe Something that helps them to think that this might be the thing that I need.

This might be the thing that's going to help me. And this is the bit where websites can start to drift into saying too much usually without you even realizing it. So it can look like this. So it can look like long paragraphs that really take an effort to read or it can look like lists of all the different things that you help with, or it could look like explaining your approach in lots of different ways.

Or it might try to cover, cover every possible situation that there could be. And I get it. Totally get it. You know, it makes sense. You know, you care. You want to help people. You want to do your job well as a counselor and be authentic and be congruent. And you know, it's not like you want to just get anybody in and then you know, oh, here's somebody for counseling.

I'll grab them. I want to work with them. That's not what it's about. So you end up adding more because you wanna help them more. And by doing that, you kind of accidentally overwhelm them. And if you are listening to this thinking, oh, Jane, you know what? I think I might have done this. Well, look, you're not alone in that either, because none of this comes from not knowing enough.

It often comes from exactly the opposite. You know, you know a lot, you know, you are very knowledgeable and you really care about your work. I don't know a counselor that doesn't, that isn't really passionate about what they do. And you want people to feel safe choosing you, but again, underneath all that, there's a possibility that there might be a little bit of self doubt.

You know, that question that sits there going is what I've got here enough, and that often comes from our old pal. Imposter syndrome. And when that's there, it is very, very easy to try and compensate. So instead of just stopping and pausing and really thinking what you want to say, you add more explanations, you add more detail, you add more reassurance, possibly even more ways of saying the same thing, you know, just in case there's something that you've missed out.

You might notice that it shows up in small ways. Things like, and these are things that we've seen, we've all seen this before. So things like, I offer a safe, supportive space. We've seen this a million times. It's all over the directories. It's all over websites. So how can you say that in a different way?

Or it might be something like, you know, the A to Z of counseling, like I work with anxiety, depression, stress, et cetera, et cetera. And there's more and more. Or you might even say something like, sessions are, you know, however much they are, but I understand that this can feel like a lot. And then you talk to them about how you can be flexible and talk yourself out of, you know, getting the full amount that you charge.

Or you might even say something like, if I'm not the right fit. Here are some other resources and you list some other resources and they go off and look at these other resources. Never come back to your website and that feels really generous, but we have to think about the fact that they landed on your website for a reason.

Assuming that you are not the right fit is not gonna help them. Let them check you out properly. Let them get to see you know exactly what it is that you do offer. And you know, on their own, none of these things are wrong. You know, they're thoughtful and they're well-meaning, but when they all sit together, they can kind of blur into something that's a bit harder to take in.

So instead of helping someone to feel more certain in their choice, they can, it can leave them feeling insecure about what they're actually looking at. And this is important. Because it also affects how you come across whether you are overexplaining or whether you're softening things too much. It can sound like you're not quite sure of yourself even when you are, and if you don't sound sure of yourself, it makes it so much harder for someone else to feel sure about choosing you as their counselor.

Because when everything sounds important, nothing quite stands out. So what happens when somebody lands on your website and it's a bit busy is people skim. You know, they'll skim on your website, not read it and think, oh, crack, that's a bit busy. And they don't take it in and they feel a bit unsure and then they leave.

So this is nothing about you not being the right person. It's not about the fact that they didn't need your help. It's about the fact that they just couldn't find themselves within all of that information. So there wasn't a moment there when something just clicked and they thought, yes, this sounds like me.

And the shift here isn't really about starting again. You know, it's not about going back to your website and starting everything again. You don't have to do that, but it is about thinking about your website differently. So instead of trying to say everything, you try to say one thing clearly, and instead of explaining everything that you do, focus on how someone might be feeling when they arrive.

And instead of covering every possibility, give them something that they can recognize themselves in. Now, you might know this, there's a quote from Coco Chanel that I often think about, and that quote is, before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off. I love that quote, and I think that that applies for the website that you have as well.

Like I say, not because what you've written is wrong, but because taking something away can make what's left far easier to see. 'cause when someone feels recognized, they don't need more information, they just need to know they're in the right place. And this is exactly what I see when I look at counselor's homepage. Now they're thoughtful, they're carefully written, and they're full of good intentions, but they're often trying to do too much at once. And the frustrating part is. This isn't usually a big fix. Small changes in how things are worded can completely change how someone experiences your website.

So if you've been listening to this thinking, it might be my website, don't just leave it there because this is one of those things that it's really hard to see clearly on your own, and that's why I've created. Write your homepage sessions. So this is a brand new offer. I've only just launched it, and this is designed to take your homepage as it is now and shape it so that when somebody lands on it, they actually recognize themselves and feel able to reach out, which is obviously what we want.

'cause when your homepage is doing its job, everything else becomes easier. It's doing the hard work. People don't just read what you've written. They see themselves in those words, they feel understood and then they'll get in touch. And because this is a new service, there's an a special introductory price that's available until the 11th of April.

So get a wiggle on 'cause it's, it's nearly there. So if you've been listening to this and thinking, I think this might be what's happening on my website. Look, don't just leave it there. Go and check out the details in the show notes and see what's possible when your homepage really reflects what it is that you do.

Okay. So thank you so much for listening. I always appreciate you being here. You'll find lots of links in the show notes to both free and paid resources that will help you, and that means that you can take the next step in a way that works for you. And if you want to hear more episodes like this, be sure that you're following the podcast.

So the next one lands straight in your ears. Okay. That's it from me today. Have a fabulous rest of the day, and I hope to see you again soon. Take care. Bye-bye.