Having a high-quality website is one of the most essential elements of building a successful business, especially in the health and wellness field. 

Why is that? People work with practitioners they trust, and a professional website gives you real credibility. It’s potentially one of your most effective advertising tools, and the following 5 tips will help you engender trust—gently nudging prospects toward becoming clients.

Here's what I’ve learned in the years I’ve spent creating websites for small businesses and individual service providers, including many in the health and wellness field. 

Tip #1: Highlight Your Unique Selling Points

Have you ever noticed how so many Pilates instructors, yoga teachers, coaches, and healers say roughly the same things on their websites? They say very little about themselves or their unique approach to wellness, jumping straight to their services.

I get it, it’s not always easy to talk about yourself, but stop and think about everyone who has guided you on your journey toward self-actualization. I’ll bet the most impactful ones stand out because they let their unique approach and personality shine through.

That’s why the first thing you should do, before you write a single line of copy for your website, is stop and think about what you bring to the table. If you’re not sure, ask friends, colleagues, and anyone you’ve guided in their wellness journey (whether paid or unpaid).

The beauty of this approach is that it not only makes you stand out in the market, but it also attracts your ideal clients. We’ll explore that concept more in Tip #5, so keep reading!

Tip #2: Make Your Website Content Scannable

Here’s the harsh truth about your website—nobody is going to read it from start to finish like they do with a good book. That’s not how anyone approaches a website.

When people visit a website, they do the following:

1. Scroll through the page

2. Scan for things that stand out 

3. Read the parts that jump out and speak to them

That’s why you need to make your content scannable, with bullet points that help people find the information they need. In fact, that’s why this blog post has 5 tips and includes headers, bullet points, and other cues that make it easy to scan.

You might go back and read the whole thing if you get value from the small segments you read, but you’ll only do that after you’ve scrolled and scanned.

Tip #3: Design with User Experience (UX) in Mind

User Experience (UX) is vital to creating a website that stands out and attracts quality clients. Simply put, UX is about making a website simple to use, painless to navigate, and easy to find key information.

Some essential elements of website UX are:

• Well-designed visual hierarchies, where headers are big and bold, the information is well organized, and everything falls into place.
  

• Every Call-to-Action is easy to find and appears in different places. In other words, those buttons you want them to click, such as “Get Started,” “Contact Me,” or “Free Consultation,” must stand out.
  

• Your website works perfectly on both desktop and mobile devices. This is essential because Google tells us that more than half of all website traffic comes from smartphones and tablets these days. Your website has to work on all devices and browsers to convey professionalism and win clients. 

Tip #4: Keep Your Branding Consistent

Every business has a brand, and yours is no different. Some brands are fun and quirky, others are more serious. Whatever style they adopt, strong brands convey the same look, feel, and messaging across all their marketing efforts.

From a visual standpoint, that means using the same color schemes and design style everywhere. If your logo is deep red and black with a hint of ocean blue, for example, you don’t want light pastels to dominate your website. And if you use light-hearted humor in your blog, you want to carry that style through wherever it makes sense.

Tip #5: Speak to Your Target Audience (Psychographics vs. Demographics)

One of the worst things you can do, in any business, is to try to be all things to all people. For example, if your practice has a spiritual bent, don’t be afraid to talk about that on your website—even if it turns some people off.

Does that mean you have to slice up your audience by gender, age, race, and other criteria? Absolutely not!

That’s a demographic approach to defining a target audience, and it’s not nearly as valuable as a psychographic approach in most cases. 

Psychographics are all about personality traits, interests, values, and lifestyle choices, so unless you’re serving a specific demographic (such as women’s health or fitness for people over 40), it’s usually best to focus primarily on psychographics.

In the end, a 50-year-old, female attorney and a 25-year-old, male English teacher might have more in common with each other than they do with people who match their age and gender. And if they share your values, worldview, and approach to personal growth, you can reach these two ideal clients using the same language and branding.

In the end, your goal is to find amazing clients who are a joy to work with. A well-designed, well-written website—one that emphasizes your unique selling points and speaks to your ideal clients—is the first step toward building a thriving business.

Explore more websites for yoga, pilates, and wellness in our portfolio.