One of the oft-asked questions we receive from mental health professionals and psychologists when they’re planning content for their website is:

Should we put pictures on the main pages of our counseling websites, and if so, what style of pictures should we use?

As the main point of your counselor or therapist site is to create a connection with your site visitor, you should most definitely include your image on your main page. While experts disagree as it pertains to the specific amount of time you get to form a relationship with your site visitor, emotionally, there is overwhelming concurrence that the amount of time you get is quite short! Subsequently, the exact placement of pictures on Counseling Websites is important.

If you have 2 pictures that you would like to utilize on your site, add your second image to your About Me page. The About Me page is a good location to show another aspect of yourself to your site visitor, such as your casual self. On this page, show yourself on a trail to communicate your love for the outdoors; or, show yourself with your guinea pig to illustrate that you enjoy animals. The choices for this second image are only limited by your imagination.

But, what should your main page image look like?

Don’t forget that your purpose on your home page is to not only build a connection with your site visitor, but to also ease their mind by giving them some idea of what to expect if they work with you. Your image is critical to accomplishing this mission.

The best pictures for counseling websites show you in your office, in action. The benefits of this type of image are that you can show them your office space, and also enable them to envision sitting across from you and doing the work with you. This does require that you have a friend or relative or a semi-professional photographer come to your office and take a specific kind of picture. But the rewards are that you’ll notice that more of your site visitors will phone you, because they feel that they have a better sense of who you are.

Next Steps

To see a great example of a counselor-in-action image, go to this counseling website:
counseling Denver

Then, get your own image taken and put it on your home page so that your site visitors can get comfortable with who you are, and hopefully, pick up the phone and make an appointment.

To see other examples of great Counseling Websites, go to Counseling Websites.

Many companies seem to be under the impression that when it comes to building a site, the most important thing is to simply “have a website”. Unfortunately from a business point of view there are a lot more things to ponder than just that. Everything from the colour scheme, the text font and size, the photographs and images, and the actual number of web pages on the site need to be carefully decided.

For example, businesses should choose a colour scheme that not only is clear and bright, but also is associated with their company, and perhaps, matches their logo. They should also attempt to completely separate themselves from their rivals in this area, identifying a completely new set of colours can help with this. When deciding which photographs to use, they should consider what they would like to see, and what they would find useful if they were the client. Too few photographs can result in the site being perceived as boring, but too many can confuse the client and make the site appear untidy.

After thinking about these basic stages, and establishing how the company wants their site to look, they should begin to consider the more elaborate regarding the construction and maintenance of a site. Building a nice looking site takes time and resources, and once it has been completed it should look nice and be useful. However, it can only look nice and be useful to potential customers if they are actually aware of its existence. It would be a real shame for a great deal of time and hard work to go to waste, if people do not see and then view the site.

Referring back to the original point of simply “having a website”, it can now be explained why this is not enough. When a potential client accesses a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo, if they input words that they consider to be associated with the company, they would expect to see the site featuring on the first or second page of search results. However, if the site is not well optimised, and has a rubbish Search Engine Placement, then this will not be the case and it might not even feature on the top 5 pages of results.

It is necessary that businesses consider this in their Online Marketing proposal, as a rubbish Search Engine Placement means rubbish Online Marketing. To increase the Search Engine Placement of a site, businesses can contact a Search Engine Optimization Company and ask for their services to try and mend the issue. The Search Engine Optimization Company should be familiar with this sort of problem, and experienced in mending it.

A successful Search Engine Optimization Company will be happy to display examples of work they have previously carried out, and happy to answer any questions the company may have with regards to the speed and success of results they should expect to see. If they are unable to display examples, or are hesitant to talk about their methods of Optimization, then a company would be advised to try and find another organisation to use. This should not be too much of a problem, as search engine Optimization is a growing market, but this also underpins the necessity to find a good and honest organisation before entering into a contract with them.