Specialty and Service Pages; How to Clear up The Confusion for Your Therapist Website
If you are wondering what pages you might want to include on your therapist website you’re not alone. This decision often stumps many therapists and because of this confusion, I see many websites with too many or too few pages.
This can lead to your prospective clients feeling lost or unable to find the information that they need.
Design isn’t Everything
In these instances, it becomes obvious that website design isn’t all there is to a great website. The words, the organization, and the ability to tell Google what the website is about are all important pieces. The structure i.e. what pages to include and where, is a decision that can feel really overwhelming. Knowing the purpose of and difference between specialty and service pages can make a big difference.
Your therapist website serves two purposes helping prospective clients understand if you are the right therapist for them, and telling them who you work with and how is a big part of that.
Understanding the difference between a specialty and a service page helps you to do that. Many therapists struggle with this distinction when they are writing the copy for their website. They often get the two confused or focus too heavily on one while neglecting the other.
Remember Your Ideal Clients
When making the decisions about what pages to include on your site it’s important to remember who you are writing to. You are writing to your ideal clients and they might not need all the details of how you help them but just that you can help them. It really depends on who your ideal clients are.
No matter which pages and structure you decide on, the important thing is that you are sharing with your clients the information that they need to decide whether or not you are the therapist for them. The structure of your website just determines how that information is presented on your therapist website.
This blog is going to help you learn the difference between specialty and service pages so that you can determine what pages you need on your therapist website.
Understanding Specialty and Service Pages: What's the Difference?
Understanding the purposes of each type of page will help you make the decisions you need to make so that the structure of your website copy has all of the information that your ideal clients need.
Your specialty page or pages help your ideal clients know that they are your specialty. They show your ideal client that you understand what they are going through and that through that understanding you will be able to help them. This type of page builds trust and confidence with your clients because through your writing they feel seen and heard.
An example of this is if you specialize in depression, your specialty page would talk about the way that your particular clients struggle with depression, what they experience, and how they experience these challenges. You also dip into how you treat these challenges.
Service pages, focus on the “how” of the work that you do. These pages focus on the specific modalities that you use to help your clients with whatever they are suffering from. This might be approaches like individual therapy, couples, or group therapy. It might also be specific modalities like CBT or EMDR.
Service pages focus on the practical aspect of treatment- what happens in sessions, how long they last, and the frequency at which they occur. Service pages are the more detailed versions of “Here’s how I can help”.
The difference between the two types of pages lies in their focus: specialty pages focus on what the client is going through emotionally, whereas service pages focus on the solutions that you provide to what they are going through.
A good example of this is that you might have a specialty page about trauma that shows the client that you know what they are going through. You might also have an EMDR service page that explains how this specific treatment works and what your clients can expect.
Many therapist’s confuse these two types of pages. While they are related they serve different purposes. Specialty pages help your client know you understand them and recognize that you have experience with their specific challenges. The service pages show them exactly how you help.
It’s important that your client can find both on your website. They see that you understand them and the concrete ways of how you are going to help them.
Specialty Pages Help You Build Connection
When it comes to connecting with potential clients your specialty pages target each individual population that you work with.
When your potential client finds themselves on your specialty page and recognizes themselves in your copy, they often have the feeling of “finally someone understands what I’m going through”. And “This is the right therapist for me” because they feel truly seen.
For a client who might be hesitant about therapy, these feelings make a huge difference.
Specialty pages also positively impact your SEO (Search Engine Optimization or ability to be found by Google). By targeting specific struggles and diagnoses in your specialty pages you’re naturally including keywords that your ideal client is searching for.
By talking directly to the experience that brings your client to therapy you are showing off your expertise without being boastful and talking about yourself. You're building trust in a way that also builds a connection with the client.
This is more effective than just posting your qualifications.
Service Pages Help Prospective Therapy Clients Understand What You Do
Service pages are just as important but serve a very different purpose. They provide specific information that helps clients understand what to expect in therapy with you.
Your service pages help your clients understand how you work so there are no surprises. This can be very helpful for clients who have never seen a therapist before or might be feeling anxious. They help set clear expectations and answer common questions about what you do.
Both pages work together with the rest of your website to help your prospective clients understand who you are and what you do. So that those clients can decide if you are the right fit for them.
Common Struggles and How to Overcome Them
Figuring out how to write the copy for these pages can be a lot so let’s look at some of the places that therapists get hung up in writing. Even when you understand the differences between these pages they can still be hard to write consistently.
Therapist Specialty Page Obstacles
Even if your niche is something common like depression you still work best with a certain type of depressed person. Often when therapists write specialty pages they try to cover every possible expression of the problem not just the ones that they see and specialize in.
This waters down who you actually work with and makes it harder for your ideal clients to identify you. Focus on speaking directly to the clients that you do your best work with. You don’t need to speak to everyone, because in reality when you do that you are speaking to no one.
In this same vein don’t worry about getting too specific. When you speak directly to the people you do your best work with you attract those clients. But you also attract clients who are adjacent to them or clients who appreciate your level of understanding for your particular niche.
Remember you do want to repel the clients that you don’t work well with. Looking at our original example you probably don’t work well with every depressed individual.
Roadblocks in Writing your Therapy Service Pages
With service pages, often therapists get too stuck in the details. Remember you are most likely speaking to clients who don’t have master’s degree in psychology. So you need to write these pages the way that you explain what you do in your consultation with clients who have no experience with you.
You also don’t want to overwhelm your prospective client with everything that you do. Your specialty pages should be the modalities that you specialize in or the ones that make you stand apart from other therapists within your specialty.
It can also be hard to maintain an authentic tone on your services pages. Try to write these the way you would talk in session. This is the best way to maintain your tone and voice.
What Pages do I Need on My Therapist Website?
Some therapists choose to add the information that would be on their service page onto their specialty page. They do this in a special section. This can be a valid decision but there are a couple of things that you should keep in mind when you are weighing your options around which pages to have and why.
Your specialty pages are your main client-attracting pages. They help your clients know who you work with and learn if you are the right fit for them.
You are not going to hurt your site by having both pages. It will only give you the ability to rank for more keywords and give your clients more clear and specific information.
At the same time, it is important that you don’t repeat the same content across different pages as this will discount your SEO efforts. You can say the same thing in different words on different parts of your site but don’t copy and paste the same sections or even sentences across your site as this hurts your SEO.
When Should a Specialty Page be Included on my website?
If you do a therapy modality that is highly sought after on its own or is different than your typical talk therapy it would be important to have a service page. You want a page for therapy modalities that your clients are looking for online. A good example of this is EMDR.
You also want a service page to explain types of therapy that clients might not be familiar with.
Remember on your service page you need to explain this in a way that a client with no psychology background will understand.
How to Make it All Fit Together on Your Website
Here are a couple of ways to make sure that your website with both specialty and service pages flows well;
Keep your clients path through your website in mind. Consider where they start and how they move through your page on the way to a consultation.
Remember who your ideal client is and keep that consistent throughout your site.
Make sure your site is easy to navigate and that it is easy to tell the difference between your specialty and service pages.
Create clear links between specialties and their related service pages.
Maintain an authentic tone and voice throughout your site.
Making the Right Choices for Your Therapist Website
So once you understand the difference between a specialty and service page for your therapy website it can still be quite a decision to decide which pages to have. As we talked about it this decisions depends on your practice, ideal clients, and who you are.
You definitely can write these pages yourself but many therapists find that making all of these decisions and writing the copy takes time away from the part of their job that they actually enjoy-doing therapy.
Or they are so busy in their professional and personal lives that they know they can’t give these pages the time they deserve.
If this is you I would love to help. As a therapist marketing strategist and copywriter, I can help you determine what works best for your practice and create content that connects with your ideal clients.
I’ll handle all the details- from deciding on the right page structure to writing the copy that represents your practice as genuinely as possible. In your tone and your voice. So you can focus on being a therapist and I’ll get your website done for you.
Schedule a consultation today.