Counseling & Mental Health

Therapist website design and AI intake, so you stop depending on a directory listing.

Most private practices get their clients from a directory while their own website does almost nothing. I build the site, the local SEO and the intake that get counseling practices in Orlando, Tampa and Sarasota found, and answer the person who reaches out while you're in session.

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The hardest part of their week was pressing send.

Reaching out to a therapist takes more nerve than booking almost anything else. What happens in the next few hours decides whether that person becomes a client or contacts somebody else. These are the four places private practices lose them.

The Inquiry That Waits Three Days

Somebody works up the nerve to reach out, sends the form at ten at night, and hears nothing until Thursday. By then they have contacted two other practices and started with whoever replied first. The hardest part of their week was pressing send.

Renting Your Referrals

Most of your new clients arrive through a paid directory where you sit in a list beside two hundred other clinicians. It works, so you keep paying, and meanwhile your own website brings in almost nobody. You are renting ground you could own.

A Specialty Nobody Can See

You have years of training in trauma, or couples work, or addiction, and your site says individual and couples counseling like everyone else's. The person searching for exactly what you do cannot tell you apart from the practice next door.

The Waitlist That Loses People

When you are full, the inquiries simply stop being handled. There is no list, no follow-up, and no note of who asked. A slot opens in March and you start again from nothing, while five people who wanted you found somebody else.

Quiet counseling office with two chairs by a window, the private practice setting behind therapist website design

How I Help Counseling Practices

What I handle so you can stay in session.

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AI Integration & Strategy

You're in session six hours a day. That's exactly when people reach out. The inquiry that sits until Thursday is usually gone. So I build the thing that answers in seconds. It handles what people ask first, which is fees, insurance and availability. It puts the details in front of you. And it holds a waitlist properly, so a slot opening in March reaches the five people who asked in January. More on how AI agents handle first contact without ever doing clinical work.

Answered in seconds

Not two days later

Fees and insurance handled

The questions people ask first

Waitlist that holds

And reaches out when a slot opens

Screening before the call

You see fit before you spend the hour

Never clinical, ever

It hands anything real to you

Reminders that cut no-shows

The quiet revenue leak

Fractional CTO

Private practice gets sold software one tool at a time, usually as something breaks. A practice management system here. A scheduler there. A directory subscription. A texting app. An email list nobody has touched in a year. I work out what earns its place, connect what's left, and tell you plainly when something is a subscription looking for a problem. That is what fractional CTO means for a practice that does not want an IT department.

What earns its place

And what to cancel

One place clients land

Site, intake and scheduling aligned

Cost per new client

Per source, directory included

Built to HIPAA requirements

Policy stays yours

Analytics and pixels audited

Where practices get caught

Senior help, part-time

No full-time salary

Web Design & Custom Software

Somebody choosing a therapist decides whether they can trust you before they read a word about your training. So the site has to do three things. Say what you actually treat, and how you work. Answer fees and insurance plainly instead of hiding them. And offer a contact path that doesn't feel like filing a complaint. See what goes into web design and custom software for a private practice.

Real specialty pages

Not a list of modalities

Fees answered plainly

The question nobody wants to ask

A contact path that feels safe

Low friction, low exposure

Built for local search

Your area, your niche

Group practice ready

Clinician profiles that scale

Custom tools when needed

Intake, screeners, portals

You are paying rent on somebody else's directory.

The listing works, which is the trap. It brings in clients, so the bill gets paid every month, and the site you own stays quietly useless.

You compete on their terms, not yours

On a directory you are a tile in a grid, sorted by filters you do not control, beside two hundred clinicians who all look broadly similar.

The filters

Set by somebody else

The ranking

Which you cannot influence

The layout

Identical for everyone on it

The relationship

Theirs, not yours

Your own site is the only place where the specialty you spent years training in is the first thing somebody reads.

Speed decides more than fit does

People rarely contact one therapist. They contact three, and start with whoever replied first, which is often not the best match for them.

Minutes

Still deciding, still open

A few hours

Comparing you against two others

A day

Probably already booked

Thursday

Gone, and you never knew

Answering fast changes who you end up working with, and it is the cheapest thing on this page to fix.

Being full is not the same as being done

A closed caseload is where most practices stop paying attention, and it is exactly where the compounding happens.

Reach them in March

The day a slot actually opens

Hand them to a colleague

Who has room this week

Bring them on later

When you add a clinician

Or lose them

Which is what usually happens

Every inquiry captured while you are full is somebody you can still help. Most practices simply lose them.

Calm therapy room with afternoon light and greenery, representing unhurried private practice intake

An inbox that answers while you're in session.

Get found for what you actually treat, answer while it still matters, and stop losing the people who reach out when you are full. What that looks like:

Seconds

To First Reply

An inquiry is acknowledged before they contact anyone else

Every

Specialty You Treat

A real page for the work, not a list of modalities

Held

Not Lost

A waitlist that reaches people when a slot opens

Zero

Clinical Work

It never advises, diagnoses, or pretends to be you

Full caseload. Empty waitlist. Who takes the next opening?

Four things to ask anyone.

Worth settling before we talk. Ask them of anyone you're considering, me included.

I don't use templates.

Designed from scratch, coded by hand. Every decision has a reason behind it. That part is non-negotiable.

I don't outsource.

The work happens here, at my desk. That's a limit as much as a promise, and it's why I turn down more than I take on.

You'll always get me.

Not an account manager. Not a different one next quarter. I build it, and I'm the one who picks up two years later.

You own all of it.

Domain, code, ad accounts, analytics. In your name from day one, and it stays that way if you ever leave.

How I work with counseling practices.

Worth settling before you spend an hour on a call. Where I genuinely help a private practice, and where a different kind of specialist is the better call.

Where I do my best work

Your inquiries. People reach out while you are in session, and the ones who wait two days start with whoever answered first.
Your directory bill. Most of your referrals come from a paid listing, and your own site produces close to nothing.
Your specialty. You have real training in a niche and the website reads like every other practice in town.
Your waitlist. When you are full, inquiries disappear rather than being captured and followed up when a slot opens.
Your admin. Screening, scheduling and paperwork are eating the hours between sessions, or your evenings.

Where I'm the wrong call

Your clinical work. Anything that needs a license: assessment, diagnosis, treatment decisions, supervision. That is yours and it always will be.
Your practice software. You need SimplePractice or TherapyNotes configured, administered and supported day to day. I build around those and feed them, I don't run them.
Your compliance. You need somebody to own HIPAA policy, staff training and audits. I build to those requirements, I don't act as your compliance officer.
Your billing. Claims, credentialing and panel applications need somebody working inside them. That is a real specialty and it isn't mine.
Your budget. Price is the deciding factor. Somebody will always come in under me, and that is a fair way to buy.

Things therapists want nailed down.

How much does a therapist website cost?

It depends on what the site has to carry. A fast, mobile-first site with real specialty pages, a proper contact path and local SEO is one range. Add automated inquiry response, a waitlist that actually holds people, and intake wired into the system you already use, and it is another. You get the whole scope quoted before anyone commits.

Is a contact form on a therapy website HIPAA compliant?

A plain form on a plain host is usually not, and most practices have one anyway. The safer pattern is narrow. Collect only what you need to make contact. Keep clinical detail out of the form entirely. Hand anything sensitive to a system built to hold it. I'll also check what your analytics and ad pixels are quietly recording, which is where practices tend to get caught. Policy, training and audits stay with you.

Do you work with SimplePractice or TherapyNotes?

I build around them. If your practice management system runs scheduling, notes and billing, I connect the website and intake so a new client lands where you already work. What I don't do is administer or support those platforms, or make clinical decisions inside them.

Can I stop paying for a directory listing?

Not immediately, and I would not advise trying. Those listings work, which is why they cost what they do. The realistic goal is to stop being wholly dependent on one: build your own site into a second source of clients, measure what each one brings in, and then decide. Some practices keep both forever and are right to.

AI answering my clients feels wrong. Where do you draw the line?

Same place you would. It never does clinical work, never gives advice, and never pretends to be a person. What it does is acknowledge an inquiry in seconds, answer the practical questions people actually ask first about fees, insurance and availability, and get the details in front of you. It is competing with an unanswered voicemail, not with you.

I'm a solo practitioner. Is this overkill?

Sometimes, and I'll say so. A solo practice with a full caseload and a healthy referral stream may need a decent site and nothing else. It's worth doing more in four cases. You're filling a new niche. You're launching a group practice. You're moving off insurance panels. Or you're losing inquiries you can actually name.

Who do you work best with?

Practice owners who are losing inquiries to slow response, who depend on one directory for most of their referrals, or whose specialty is invisible on their own website. Group practices adding clinicians and outgrowing a site built for one person. I'm the wrong call if you need clinical supervision, your practice management system administered, billing and credentialing handled, or someone to own HIPAA policy and training. I build to those requirements and around those systems, I don't run them.

Brands and businesses I've built for