What should a therapist website include?

A therapist website needs to do one thing well: give a potential client enough confidence to take the next step and get in touch. Every element of the site should serve that goal. Pages and features that do not contribute to it are, at best, noise.

This post covers the pages every therapy website needs, what should be on each of them, and the specific elements that have the greatest impact on whether a visitor books or leaves.

The pages every therapy website needs

Five pages cover the essential requirements for most solo therapy practices.

A home page. This is where most visitors arrive first, and it is where most of them decide whether to stay or leave. The home page needs to communicate immediately who you are, who you work with, and what the next step is. A visitor should not have to scroll or dig to find your booking link or contact form.

An about page. This is consistently one of the most-visited pages on any therapist website. Clients want to understand who they will be sitting with before they pick up the phone. A good about page is not a CV: it is a human introduction to you as a practitioner, your approach, and what it is like to work with you.

A services page. This describes what you offer: the modalities you use, the client groups you work with, the presenting issues you work with. It should be written in plain English rather than clinical language. A potential client searching for help with anxiety should be able to understand within a few seconds whether your services are relevant to them.

A fees page. There is a genuine debate in the therapy world about whether to publish fees. The case for transparency is strong and covered in detail in a separate post. In brief: showing fees reduces wasted enquiries, pre-qualifies clients, and builds trust. A fees page does not have to be the centrepiece of your site; it can be a simple, accessible page that answers the question before a client has to ask.

A contact or booking page. This is where a client takes the step of getting in touch. It should include a contact form at minimum, a phone number or email address if you prefer direct contact, and ideally a direct link to your booking calendar if you use online booking.

A privacy policy in the footer is a legal requirement under GDPR, not optional. See the separate post on this for the full detail.

What to put on your about page

The about page is where therapy websites often go wrong in one of two directions: either it is too formal and reads like a professional biography, or it is too vague and tells the reader nothing specific about the therapist.

The most effective about pages do a few things well. They include a clear, professional photograph. This is the single highest-impact element on a therapy website in terms of trust: research on professional service websites consistently shows that a genuine photo of the practitioner dramatically increases conversion. It does not need to be a studio photograph; it needs to be clear, professional, and warm.

They describe your approach in concrete terms, not just modality names. Saying "I am a person-centred therapist" is less useful to a potential client than "I work in a way that prioritises your pace, and I believe you are the expert on your own life." Both things can be true; the second one is more useful to someone who does not already know what person-centred therapy means.

They give some sense of your professional background without turning into a list of qualifications. Your accrediting body membership is worth mentioning. Your most relevant training is worth mentioning. The year you qualified and a broad sense of your experience is helpful. But the about page is not primarily a credentials document: it is an invitation.

Including a brief, honest note about your personal motivation for becoming a therapist can be powerful, though this is a matter of personal preference and clinical judgement about disclosure.

Whether to show your fees publicly

Yes, you should show your fees. The extended argument for this is covered in a separate post, but the short version is this: clients who book knowing the cost are more committed, enquiries from clients who cannot afford your rate waste everyone's time, and price transparency is one of the signals clients use to assess whether a practice is professional and trustworthy.

Displaying fees does not mean making them the focal point of the page. A simple, clear statement such as "Sessions are €90 for 50 minutes" on a dedicated fees page, or as a section on your services page, is all that is required.

If you offer a concession rate, note it clearly: the number of slots available, the criteria for accessing them, and how to enquire. This manages expectations and avoids every potential client asking whether a discount is available.

How online booking changes your conversion rate

A visitor who arrives on your website outside your working hours, finds a contact form, and has to wait to hear back from you may not still be in the same motivated state when you respond. The window between a person deciding they want to seek help and actually following through on it is narrow. Anything that reduces friction in that window directly improves your conversion rate.

Online booking closes that window. A visitor who can see your availability and book a first session in under three minutes is far more likely to do so than one who fills in a form and waits. The difference in conversion rate between a site with online booking and one without is significant.

Tools like Cal.com allow you to set your available hours, add intake questions, collect payment at the point of booking, and embed the booking calendar directly into your website. The experience for the client is clean and reassuring: they book, they receive a confirmation, they receive a reminder. The friction between intention and action is reduced to almost nothing.

The booking link should be visible without scrolling on your home page. Not buried in the navigation menu, not at the bottom of the about page: above the fold on the home page, ideally in more than one place.

What clients look for before they book

Clients searching for a therapist are typically in a vulnerable state. They are looking for reassurance before they commit to getting in touch. The elements of a website that provide that reassurance are, in rough order of importance: a genuine photo of the therapist, a clear and human-sounding description of who the therapist works with, evidence of professional credentialing (accrediting body membership is sufficient), and transparent fees.

Secondary factors that build confidence include positive reviews (if displayed on the site), a professional and clean design, fast page load times (a slow site signals neglect), and clear contact options. A site that is difficult to navigate, slow to load, or visually chaotic loses visitors before they have assessed your clinical suitability at all.

Your website is the first impression a potential client has of you as a professional. In many cases it is the deciding factor between them booking with you or booking with a therapist whose website felt easier, warmer, or more trustworthy. This is worth investing in correctly.

If you would like a therapy website that covers all of these elements, built specifically for private practice, the Karv Web Studio therapist package is designed exactly for this.