5 Reasons You Need to Update Your Healing or Therapist Website

A website is the hub of your business presence and therefore investing time, effort and financial resources into it on a regular basis will help ensure that you are attracting as much business as possible. If you haven’t updated or re-designed your website in a while, below are 5 reasons why you should.

1. Your website is not getting the results you want.

Perhaps you are frustrated that your website copy isn’t attracting enough clients or you’ve discovered that important pages of your site are not being visited. Or, maybe you want more people to sign up for your programs or classes. Whatever the case, tweaking your site in order to get better results is something that will pay off in the long run.

I recently had my website redesigned. Since  part of my marketing strategy is to increase my newsletter subscribers. As a result, on my new site I have made my subscribe box larger and have added a 2nd bonus as an incentive for signing up. I will be testing this over the next while and tweaking it in order to get the best conversion rate possible. (F those of you who don’t know what a conversion rate is, it’s the  is the percentage of people who visit my website and subscribe to my newsletter).

2. Your website visitors want fresh content.

Regardless of when you had your website designed, it should always be tweaked, added to, and updated on an ongoing basis to keep your website visitors interested. Many clients won’t hire you on their first visit to your website. Therefore, you need to give them a reason to come back. Having irrelevant or out-dated content can make you and your services look out of touch and uninspiring. It will pay off to add new information regularly to motivate your audience to return.

While I consistently add new articles to my website or blog, I’ve also been working on modifying some of my main web pages to better attract the exact clients I want to work with. While these are not major changes, they are ones that will help me better serve my ideal clients.

3. What is “in”, relevant and effective in terms of web design and web usability changes over time.

The main reason I wanted my website re-designed was because the design was outdated (not to mention my photo!). Trends in web design and “web usability’ (how people interact with websites) that influence website effectiveness do change.

Do you want your website to look current and be effective, or would you prefer it be seen as out-dated and to perform poorly?  Need I say more?

4.  Everything about marketing on the web is in constant evolution.

Unfortunately, therapists and healers tend to be “late adopters” in terms of marketing and technology. When I first started my business 12 years ago, most therapists didn’t have a website (many didn’t even have one 5 years ago, and a lot still don’t have one today). Those that put websites up early on, even if they weren’t very interesting from a client’s perspective, got ahead of the curve and many are now reaping the benefits because of it.

The web and technology are constantly evolving and you will stay on top of “the game” if you pay attention to what is happening. For example, social media has really taken off in the last few years as an effective marketing tool. As you can see on my website, I have incorporated social media icons to encourage people to follow me on my Twitter, Linked In and Facebook pages as I have been increasingly using these tools in my business.

As another example, video on websites has become very popular. In fact, some research has shown that it can increase business up to 30% or more.

5. As a therapist or healer, your services may change and the value you provide may evolve as you grow as a professional and as a business owner.

As you and your business mature, you may want to revisit the overall “message” on your website to better reflect the value you provide. I’ve recently begun to update my services page on my new website and will be tweaking some of the other pages to better illustrate my services and the value I offer as these have changed over time.

Keeping your website up to date both in content and design will give the impression that you care about what your potential clients want and are able to provide it. If it feels overwhelming or cost prohibitive to take on a complete re-design, take small steps as time and resources allow. My approach was to get my new design up first and make modifications to the content as time is available.

Whatever changes you make to your website, ensure they are strategic and not simply based on what you think will work best. This means doing your research and investing in professional expertise when needed.

For more updates on marketing and how to make your website work for you, be sure to join me on my Facebook page.