Page Speed for Therapist Websites

Why a Post About Website Speed?

Photo by Alex Powell from Pexels

First of all, why is an SEO gal talking about speed?  Because Google (and other search engines! I don’t discriminate against Yahoo or Bing or any others!) like speed.  They know that website viewers in the year 2019 are impatient.  We get spoiled by fast websites across the web, so when we run into a small one it’s annoying.

How many times in the past have you clicked off a website just because it took too long to load?

Don’t kid yourself…if you’ve done it, so will your counseling clients.

Website Page Speed is one of those “tech” things therapists know very little about…

So, page speed is one of those “tech” things…

So, you remember how I am NOT a tech person?  As in, I needed help to *finally* set up payment on my Starbucks app last week and the week before that I had to admit to one of my 1099s that I haven’t even had the patience to set up the app for our work e-mail yet in the 2 years that I’ve had the system up!

I learned SEO to adapt to my environment, because getting to the first page of search engines is a 21st century marketing strategy I could do from my bed sitting at my computer after my kids go to sleep.  Ironically…I’m working on this blog post sitting on my bed with my kids sleeping in the other room. This is why I love my job…it gives me the work/life balance I need. And it lets my competitive bone come out as I try to beat out the competition and get therapist websites to the top of Google! 🙂

But…Sometimes Even as a Therapist I have to Learn the Tech Stuff

There is still so much I am learning! Especially as I help therapists around the country with their SEO,

Just like in the old days of college…I find myself constantly studying and trying to learn more, just about SEO this time.

I’m trying to learn at least the tech stuff relevant to website SEO.  So…Last week I was talking to my cousin. He actually is a tech geek.  In fact, he’s a WordPress geek.  I mean this with the utmost respect. Essentially, I’m in awe of his patience and knowledge about all things tech!  I was explaining to him how I encourage practice owners to work with a competent website designer, but told him I’ve felt frustrated with knowing that a couple clients’ sites were too slow and not having data to give their website developers.

The Answer? PageSpeed Insights

Next, 2 awesome things happened.  First, my cousin made me promise to e-mail him with tech centered questions that I encounter as I’m helping therapists with their website.  Score!  I’m a social worker and know how to use my resources, so you can bet I’ll be reaching out in the future.

Second, he gave me one really quick tool that every private practice owner should be using!  Best of all…it’s free. Check out PageSpeed Insights ASAP. Seriously…it only takes a minute, so click here now! You enter your website and it pops out a score telling you how fast your website is.  Best of all? It gives you suggestions for how to improve your speed!

Working with Your Website Designer to Improve Your Score

One of these days I’m going to write much needed blog posts on why every psychotherapy private practice owner needs to hire a website developer and another on how to get the most from your website developer.  But suffice it to say that this is one of those reasons for hiring someone.  The cool “opportunities” they suggest will improve your page speed and are pretty technical.  Of course, if you’re a WordPress fan like I am, there are plugins you can use to follow up on the “opportunities” so you can very quickly improve your load speed!  In the past week I’ve improved the speed of my own site and a couple of clients’ by downloading some of those plugins.

But there are other things they list that use boring techno babble.  So, that’s where I’ve been screen shorting pages and sending the photos off to website designers.  My SEO clients are already seeing great results even in the past week from changes their website designers have made when we’ve given them these screen shots!

This could be you. This was the result of only one month of a therapist’s SEO work. We optimized & edited copy on 4 pages of their website.

Are You Ready to Focus on Your SEO?

As you can tell from this post, I’m not an expert at the technical aspects of websites.  And I don’t personally design therapist websites…I’m just not that artistic!  However, I often catch those technical things that impact SEO that a private practice owner may never notice themselves.  Thus, I’ve learned how to reach out to your website designer or how to give you as the private practice owner the information you need to explain the issue to your website developer.

But mostly, I stay in my wheelhouse as an SEO Consultant for therapists & mental health providers.  And that’s being really good at basic on-page SEO. I’m proud of the results I’ve gotten for private practice owners around the country. In fact, during a consultation call I’m happy to share some of those results with you.  If you’re interested in ranking better on Google and getting in front of more of your ideal counseling clients, I can help.  I offer SEO training for therapists where we meet over Zoom and I walk you step by step through how to improve your own site.  We also offer really effective “Done for You” monthly SEO packages.  These aren’t like other SEO packages out there.  We don’t just do a little keyword research, add a couple links and call it a day. No, we go in and do in depth work editing text on your website, adding photos, add a call to action and write a compelling meta description that will help convince people to click on your site when you do start showing up in search results.

So, reach out today and schedule a free 30 minute consultation so we can talk about how SEO can help you get more counseling clients!

As small business owners, we must constantly learn, grow & evolve. A beautiful website that ranks well on search engines can be part of that growth process.