What makes a good therapist website, so patients and AI tools find you

What does a good therapist website need to say?

Think about the person reading. They may have put off looking for help for months. They are often reading on a phone, late in the evening, comparing several therapists. They want to know quickly whether you are the right person and whether it is safe to get in touch. A good therapist website answers these questions without making them hunt:

• Who you help: the concerns you work with, the age groups you see, and whether you see individuals, couples or families.
• How you work: your approach explained in everyday words, not only as a list of acronyms.
• Who you are: your full name, your qualifications, your professional body or register, with your membership or registration number and a link to check it.
• Where and when: your address if you see people in person, whether you work online, the days and times you are usually available.
• What it costs: your session fee, the session length, any concessions and your cancellation terms.
• What happens first: how to get in touch, whether there is a free initial call, and what the first session is like.
• What you do not do: that you are not a crisis service, and how to get urgent help through NHS 111, a GP or 999 in an emergency.

None of this needs to be long. A short, specific page beats a long, general one every time.

Why do patients and AI tools need the same things?

When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini “is there a therapist in Leeds who works with anxiety in teenagers and sees people in the evening?”, the tool looks for a practice whose published information matches each part of the question. It cannot match what is not written down. A website that says “I offer a safe space to explore your feelings” and nothing more gives it nothing to work with. A website that says you are a BACP registered counsellor in Leeds who sees young people aged 14 and over for anxiety, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, gives it everything.

AI tools are also cautious with health questions. They prefer facts they can check elsewhere, such as your entry on a professional register or a directory profile that says the same thing. Our guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT explains this in more detail.

What are the most common problems on therapist websites?

These are the problems we see most often, and most are quick to fix:

• A single page that tries to cover everything, so nothing is explained properly.
• Fees missing, or only in a PDF or an image that search engines and AI tools cannot read reliably.
• Registration mentioned without the register, the number or a link.
• Approaches named but never explained, such as “integrative, person centred, CBT informed”.
• No mention of location, or of whether you work online.
• Different details on your website, your Google Business Profile and your directory profiles.
• Text that is out of date: old fees, old hours, a service you no longer offer.
• Pages that load slowly on a phone or a contact form that does not work.

Do you need a new website, or a better one?

Usually a better one. We are not a web design company and we do not build websites, so we have no reason to tell you that you need a new one. In our experience, the design is rarely why a therapist is not found. The words on the pages are.

A rebuild makes sense if you cannot edit your own site, if it does not work on phones, if the platform is no longer supported, or if every page would need rewriting anyway. Otherwise, improving the pages you have is quicker, cheaper and keeps the history your site has already built with search engines.

How do you fix a therapist website, step by step?

Work through these in order. Each step is useful on its own.

• Write down your facts once: name, title, registration, address, online or in person, hours, fees, approaches, age groups. Use this master record everywhere.
• Rewrite your home page so the first two sentences say who you are, who you help, where, and how to get in touch.
• Give each main area of work its own page if you offer several, such as anxiety, trauma or couples therapy, and say who it suits and what happens.
• Publish your fees as text, with the session length and cancellation terms.
• Add a short page about the first session, because that is often the biggest worry.
• Link your registration to the register itself, so anyone can check it in one click.
• Make your Google Business Profile and directory profiles match your website exactly.
• Add structured data that describes your practice, which a developer or your platform can help with.

Our page on therapist, counsellor and psychologist websites describes the same work as we do it for clients.

What should you leave off your website?

Some things that are common on other small business websites are best avoided in therapy. Testimonials from clients raise questions about confidentiality and consent, and can read as claims about outcomes. Promises such as “feel better in six sessions” can break advertising rules. Stock photographs of people in distress can feel exploitative. Our guide to the advertising rules explains what applies.

How can you check whether AI tools can read your site?

Try three simple tests. First, ask ChatGPT and Gemini to describe your practice by name and see whether the answer is right. Second, ask the kind of question a client would ask, with your town and your main area of work, and see whether you appear. Third, view one of your pages with images switched off: if your fees or services disappear, so they do for many crawlers. Repeat the questions every month to see whether anything changes. This is the check our AI search visibility service runs for you.

Where we fit

We improve existing websites as part of our plans. We do not build them. On Essentials, at £25 a month, we check what AI tools say about you every month and tell you what to change, in order of priority, which suits most therapists working on their own. On Growth and Partner we make the changes for you, with your approval. Counsellors may also find our counselling and psychotherapy page useful. Every plan has a 14-day free trial: you can get started here.