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NOTES FROM THE EDITOR

The best way to build your website...

is by planning it first.

It's obvious, I know. But you'll be surprised at how uncommon this is. People love diving into the most exciting part, the design.

And it doesn't matter if you design your website by yourself or outsource it to someone else. The common mistake is to start first and figure out what goes where later.

There are several problems with this approach. First, it makes the communication with your designer more cumbersome and potentially frustrating. The person whom you hire to build your website will still need to figure out how you want to use it, who you want to attract and what you want to say.

Similarly, if you're building your website on your own without a proper plan, you'll end up with an ineffective website that doesn't attract traffic and doesn't bring in new clients. Admittedly, not a great use of your time.

So how do you solve it?

By planning out your content and creating a template for your website. By template I mean a rough diagram and a sitemap that shows the order and the hierarchy of your website's elements.

The purpose of your website is not your mere presence online. It's not only to showcase your brand and expertise. Your website is your main digital marketing asset. Its purpose is to bring people in from the web and into your office.

Here are the most important factors to consider when building your website:

• Site Navigation - The structure and order of your pages. You'll need to determine the hierarchy of your pages, which pages are the most important ones and which ones are secondary.
• Usability - Is your website easy to use? Can people use it on their mobile devices? Your website's should feel intuitive to your visitor so they can stay longer and book an appointment with you.
• Content - Your website's content is both written and visual. It needs to be thought through and created with your target audience in mind.
• Calls To Action - These are your buttons. Buttons are there to urge people to take action (contact, book an appointment, etc.). It's up to you to determine which action you want people to take and on what page.

To help you plan out an effective website for your practice, I've put together a guide for creating your website template with a visual diagram and examples.

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And now to the news!

NOTEWORTHY

Mental Healthcare in Primary Care

After examining more than 350 million primary care visits, researchers found that mental health concerns are the second most important reason for complaints.

This research data comes from the study of the Norwegian population between 2006 and 2019. However, this data offers an insight into how much mental health figures into the routine primary care exams.

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BUSINESS AND PRIVATE PRACTICE

Building a Group Practice

This week, my friend Gordon Brewer from the Practice of Therapy podcast released an episode about building a profitable group practice. His guest on the podcast was Julie Herres, the owner of Green Oak Accounting, an accounting company for therapists.

If you're thinking about building a group practice and trying to figure out how to make it profitable, this episode is a must for you.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

The Fragile Industry of Psychiatric Hospitals

The Medicaid rate for inpatient psychiatric care hasn't increased in 16 years. This has been crippling the mental health industry, forcing some hospitals to close their doors in critical communities in Texas.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

As I was putting this issue together, I kept thinking about access to care. In many ways, your website is a part of the big picture in the industry.

It's true that people need to be able to afford care, but they also need a way to find it. Those that can pay out of pocket for their mental health services often have trouble finding and figuring out the right provider for them.

By building your website with these people in mind, you can offer a tiny improvement to the bigger issue of access.

See you next week!

Avivit

P.S. If you want to learn more about the topic of website building, drop me a line. I'd love to know your thoughts

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