Your high-quality services, your commitment to care, your reputation in the industry—all of these play a major role in your treatment program’s success. So it makes sense to highlight these qualities on your website. You want potential clients to understand your treatment philosophy and approach. Accreditations, publications, or testimonials can help to establish your facility’s credibility. But, your website also has to appeal to people on a deeper level.
Addiction treatment isn’t just like any other business—it’s profoundly personal and emotional. Individuals seeking treatment for themselves or loved ones are often distressed. Some are battling addiction and feeling depressed, angry, or lost. Family members and loved ones can also be emotionally fragile, as well as confused about what to do. It’s crucial to connect with clients on an emotional level, person to person.
As more people than ever seek addiction treatment resources online, your website is the first point of contact. It’s your first opportunity to establish this personal connection. But how? Though the internet may seem impersonal, there are several tried-and-true approaches for building trust online. Through our experience in the field, the Stodzy team has conducted important research and small case studies that shed some light on this question. What gives people emotional comfort when choosing a treatment facility?
Photos of your Treatment Facility
Put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and their loved ones. You’re looking for a treatment facility, browsing through countless websites, and feeling overwhelmed. There are so many treatment facilities out there, and many of them sound nice, but how can you know which is the right one? What will treatment be like for you or your loved one at one of these facilities? One of the best ways to give potential clients some insight is to provide photos of your treatment facility.
Photos help people to actually visualize the treatment experience you provide, which can make them feel more comfortable about it. When we measure click funnels, we’ve found that people visiting treatment centers’ websites look at pictures almost immediately. We’ve also gotten a lot of positive response from drone footage, giving a bird’s-eye view of the facility. Use photos to show potential clients the grounds, the counseling areas, and where they’ll be living if it’s a residential facility. You might also consider giving video tours, to make your facility more concrete and real in their minds.
Those images are an opportunity to showcase your program’s amenities, special services, and even its personality. Images and video also make your treatment center more memorable. Hearing or reading information, people only remember about 10% of that a few days later. But, if there are relevant images paired with the information, people can retain up to 65% of that info days later. When treatment becomes less foreign and mysterious, potential clients have fewer doubts and are more likely to become actual clients.
Staff Pictures & Bios
In general, pictures build trust and credibility online. While stock photos may be useful in your blog posts or other content online, studies have shown that real photos engage website visitors online more (and can up your conversion rate). People come to your treatment facility’s website looking for information. Short of coming to visit your facility in person, real images are the best way for them to gain a sense of what treatment is like at your facility. Potential clients will not only want to know about the facility itself, but also the people who will be providing care: your staff.
A major fear underlying the process of finding treatment—especially among loved ones—is that people are entering the care of total strangers. Will they be safe? Is the staff kind and competent? Your website is the place to ease those concerns and build a connection with potential clients. Provide photos of your staff members, their role at your facility, and short blurbs about their background and credentials. Go beyond this and show images of your staff in action. Photos of the everyday happenings at your facility are an effective way to convey the atmosphere you offer. Let potential clients get to know your staff virtually, so they can feel more comfortable about committing to your program.
Remember, people come to your website looking for information. More than half (52%) of people online want to be able to go to a website and find some sort of “about us” section. This is especially true in the treatment industry. Though almost all website visitors consider about info and team bios important, it’s the element that’s most often missing from company’s websites. Use photos to tell a story about the treatment experience at your facility and the passionate people working there. Especially when seeking out treatment services, people want to deal with real people. They want to be sure they’re putting themselves or their loved ones in good, caring hands.
Your Service Pages
With images of your facility and staff in mind, potential clients are more comfortable. Your treatment facility is no longer a mysterious, questionable place. They can begin to imagine themselves or their loved ones in your care. The final and most important selling point is the services section on your website. People are trying to wrap their heads around what treatment is like at your facility, and it’s essential to give them insight into what actually happens during treatment. Almost 90% of visitors to a website want to see information about a company’s services on the homepage, and 47% will check out the service pages before even looking at any other sections of a site.
What can clients expect from day to day at your facility? Which therapies and formats do you offer? Do you offer any special therapies or activities? Get into the specifics of your treatment program. Flush out the treatment experience in the minds of your potential clients so it becomes more real. If you offer weekend recreation trips, unique trauma therapy, yoga, or even a pool, these details can be convincing factors that attract people to your facility.
Best of all, your service pages are where your most valuable keywords live. To draw relevant traffic to your site, you need to become more visible online. This is where SEO comes in, and your service pages are generally considered the “cornerstone” pages for effective SEO. Build your site around your service pages. Make them easily accessible, and optimized with searchable keywords. If someone searches for “drug rehab services in Kentucky” or “equine therapy rehab,” the specific services and keywords on your site help it to rank higher in the search results. That relevant traffic is more likely to find your page, and there’s a good chance that will convert into a client.
Provide Comfort, Convert New Clients
In addiction treatment, the balance between business and genuine human connection can be hard to find. You need business strategies to keep your treatment facility afloat. But, a large part of your business is caring for people and helping them to heal. The best way to increase your business is to keep this care at the center of your strategy.
You provide quality services to clients at your facility, but you can also demonstrate that care to potential clients. Consider their emotional needs. Help them visualize treatment at your facility and ease their minds. Make the process of finding treatment a bit less overwhelming. Design your website with these ideas in mind and you’ll create a level of emotional comfort that can lead to more clients.
