You finished your hours. Now you need clients.
Graduate school taught you to be a good clinician. Nobody taught you how to get found, what a practice website costs, or what you’re allowed to say about your own work. I build the online side of new practices, and I’ve done it for a practice that started with one therapist.
The part nobody prepared you for.
You spent at least eighteen months and three thousand hours under supervision. You know how to do the work. What you were never taught is the business around it, and now it’s all yours: the name, the website, the phone, the intake, the Google listing, the fees.
Most of the people I talk to at this stage are asking the same seven questions. Here are honest answers.
The questions on your mind.
Will anyone actually come?
People looking for a therapist search specifically: “trauma therapist near me who takes my insurance,” “counseling for teenagers in Burleson.” A new practice can compete for those searches, because they’re narrower than the ones big practices fight over. You won’t outrank a thirty-year-old group practice for broad terms in your first year, and you don’t need to.
How do people actually choose a therapist?
They’re often anxious, often searching late at night, and ready to close the tab at the first thing that feels wrong. They want to know what you treat, whether you’ve worked with people like them, what it costs, and what happens if they reach out. A site that answers those plainly beats a beautiful site that doesn’t.
Am I allowed to say that?
Texas rules govern what you can call yourself and what you can claim. An associate under supervision has to represent that status accurately. I’m not your attorney or your board, but I’ll flag anything on your site that looks like it could be a problem before we publish.
Can I afford this right now?
You’re probably leaving a salary and paying for a lease before your first client. So the Practice Roadmap tells you what to build now and what can wait, and the website can be spread over six months.
What if I say the wrong thing online?
The main risk is the contact form: a standard form emails whatever someone types. I use a form from a provider that signs a business associate agreement, with a line asking people not to include health information.
Will I look small next to the established practices?
You’ll look new, because you are. What you can do is be more specific. A group practice has to speak to everyone; you can say exactly who you help and how you work. For the person searching, that reads as a better fit.
How do I know who to trust to build this?
Ask who owns the website when it’s finished (it should be you). Ask what happens if you stop paying them (your site should stay online). Ask what they’d do first, and see whether they ask about your practice before they answer.
Start with a free audit or checklist.
If you already have something up, I’ll record a short video walking through what’s working and what I’d fix first. If you don’t have a site yet, get the free new-practice checklist: the pages you need first, what can wait, and what to set up before you open.