There is one page on your therapist website where talking about yourself is sure to bring more clients your way...your About page.
Your homepage and services pages should primarily focus on what your potential client is experiencing, what they are looking for, and what they hope will be different. Your About page has a different job. This is where they get to meet the person behind the practice and that matters more than you might think.
Choosing a therapist is a high-stakes emotional decision. You are asking someone to trust you with the parts of their life they may not even tell their closest friends. Before they book, they want to know who they are trusting.
So please stop writing your About page like a résumé.
I know I say this all the time, but no one cares where you went to school. Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic. Your degree, license, certifications, and specialized training absolutely matter. They establish that you are qualified to do the work. But they are not what makes someone think, “I want to talk to this person.”
Your Story Is Part Of Your Authority.
Think about what happens when someone is looking for a therapist who understands something very specific.
If you are a mom looking for therapy because motherhood has completely overwhelmed you, would knowing that your therapist is also a mom make you feel a little more understood?
If you are living with a chronic illness and looking for someone who understands the mental and emotional weight that comes with it, would you feel differently knowing your therapist has lived through chronic illness herself?
Of course you would.
That does not mean you need to disclose every personal detail of your life. It means that relevant lived experience can create connection and reinforce authority in a way another certification sometimes cannot.
So What Actually Belongs On Your About Page?
Start with something that tells me who you are as a person instead of immediately giving me your professional title.
Please do not open with, “Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m a licensed clinical social worker.” That is a résumé opening, and there is nothing memorable about it. Give people a reason to keep reading.
Maybe your opening is funny: “I became a therapist because my friends got tired of getting free therapy over coffee.”
Maybe it is personal: “I never expected the hardest season of my own life to completely change the way I understood grief.”
Or maybe it immediately connects your story to the people you serve: “I know what it is like to be the mom who spends the entire day taking care of everyone else and realizes at 10 p.m. that she has not taken care of herself at all.”
Those openings work because they give the potential client something to connect with. With an actual person behind the credentials, the barrier to vulnerability lessens.
From there, share why you became a therapist. What pulled you toward this work? Was there an experience that changed how you saw people? Did you always know this was what you wanted to do, or did you discover it later in life?
This is where your personal experience becomes strategic. Do not simply tell me that you became a therapist because you have always loved helping people. Tell me why your story makes you particularly passionate about helping your audience.
You should also share what you believe about therapy.
What do you believe people need when they walk into your office? What do you believe about change, relationships, parenting, trauma, grief, anxiety, or whatever you specialize in?
This does not need to become a long philosophical explanation of your therapeutic approach. Think about the belief that sits underneath the way you do your work.
For example, a therapist who works with overwhelmed moms might say:
“I believe motherhood should not require you to lose yourself in the process. You can love your children deeply and still need space to figure out who you are outside of being their mom.”
A therapist who works with couples might say:
“I believe most couples do not need someone to tell them who is right. They need help understanding the pattern they keep getting stuck in so they can stop fighting the same fight and start feeling like partners again.” Those statements tell me much more than “I use a client-centered, strengths-based approach.”
They give your potential client a glimpse into how you see the people who walk through your door. They also give a potential client a chance to think, “Yes. That is exactly what I believe, too.”
And that is what you want.
Your Approach Should Sound Like You, Too.
You can absolutely talk about EMDR, CBT, Brainspotting, ACT, Gottman, trauma-informed care, or whatever training you have.
Just do not make someone Google what any of it means.
Instead, explain what your approach actually means for the person sitting across from you. For example, instead of saying, “I utilize a trauma-informed, integrative approach incorporating CBT and EMDR,” you might explain that you help clients understand why their mind and body still react to what happened so they can feel more in control of their lives instead of constantly reacting to the past.
Same expertise. Completely different connection.
And this is also where I want you to let your personality show.
Which brings me to your photo: Please put a real picture of yourself on your About page.
Therapy is an emotional investment. People want to be able to picture the person they are going to sit across from and tell their deepest, most personal stuff to. Let them see you.
Your About Page Needs A Call To Action.
Think about the experience you are creating: someone reads your story, connects with your personality, realizes that your approach resonates with them, and thinks, “I think this might be my therapist.” That is exactly when you want to make it easy for them to do something about it.
Invite them to schedule a consultation. Tell them how to get started. Point them toward your contact page. Whatever the next step is for your practice, make it obvious.
And please make the CTA about more than “Contact Me.”
Give them a reason to take that next step.
“Ready to see if we’re a good fit? Schedule a consultation.”
“If what you’ve read sounds like the kind of support you’ve been looking for, let’s talk.”
“You don’t have to figure out the next step alone. Schedule a consultation to get started.”
You have already done the hard work of helping the right person see themselves in your story. Now give them a clear invitation to work with you.
Remember: Your credentials answer, “Are you qualified?”
Your story, personality, values, and experience help answer, “Can I trust you?”
So open your About page today and read it as if you were a potential client who had never met you.
If you removed your degree, license, certifications, and job title, would you still get a sense of who you are, why you care about this work, and why you might understand the person reading it?
If the answer is no, you probably have some rewriting to do.
And if you would rather not figure it all out yourself, that is exactly what my Website Visibility Tune-Up is designed for. You will get an expert perspective on your website copy, messaging, SEO, visibility, and conversion opportunities so you can stop guessing, make it easier for the right people to see themselves in your words, and position yourself as the expert who understands what they are going through and can help them move forward.
You do not need to throw out your entire website. You need to know what is actually worth changing.
