Three Simple Fixes To Improve Your Wilderness Therapy Website
Building a website can be surprisingly easy these days. Sites like Wix and Weebly provide free templates so you can create a site without hiring someone else. Building a user-friendly website is a different story. While free website templates are great tools for people just starting their wilderness therapy business, the bigger you grow, the more problems can arise. Here are three simple fixes to improve your wilderness therapy website you can tackle yourself.
Why Does My Website Need To Be User-Friendly?
Have you ever walked into a grocery store and saw eggs in the candy aisle or cleaning supplies next to the meat department? If you had, you probably wouldn’t go back to that store. When you walk into the grocery store you want to be able to find everything you need as quickly as possible. This is advantageous for the grocery store because you’ll keep coming back.
This is exactly why websites need to be user-friendly. If wilderness therapy clients can’t find what kind of programs you offer, how to apply, or even what you’re trying to sell, they’ll Google a different site. Development, design, and content all play a role in a user-friendly website.
Your website might not need a full overhaul but it is worth checking to see if your site is working optimally. No need to pick up the phone and call us just yet though. These three simple fixes are something you can do on your own.
If potential wilderness therapy clients can’t find what kind of programs you offer, how to apply, or even what you’re promoting, they’ll Google a competitor.
1) Can Potential Clients Easily Find The Application?
So you’ve spent hours and thousands of dollars creating a beautiful website. The images and content chosen for each page have meaning and tell a story. However, once a user decides they want to apply, it takes them 15 minutes to find the application. This is assuming they took the time to find it. Making the application process simple begins with making it easy to find.
The Fix: Add a button on your menu bar that says, “Admissions.” Include a dropdown with options to, “Apply Now” and “Admission Details.” Another option is to include a button on your homepage, “Apply Now!” And don’t just place it anywhere on your homepage. Make sure it’s easily viewable to users so pin it on a header image or right below it.
2) Is The Content Easily Readable?
Before I started, Sage Lion Media, I dreaded the process of job hunting. I’d find a job posting for a company but when I went to their website, they used so many corporate buzzwords and marketing jargon I had no idea who they were or what they did. Creating fancy copy for websites, newsletters, and emails is great. But to quote Mark Twain, “Don’t use a $5 word when a 50 cent word will do.”
Outdoor therapy clients can get lost in embellished copy but also too much text. It is important for wilderness therapy companies to provide detailed information about their services, clinical experience, and philosophy but it needs to be scannable for users on your website.
The Fix: The content on your website should be understandable and scannable for all users. Send your website to friends and family and ask them if it makes sense. Do they understand your mission and purpose? Then, ask them if they needed to find out where your clinical therapists got their undergrad from, how quickly they can find it.
If it takes them a while to sift through their bios, break up the paragraphs. Include headers and subheaders. Bold or italicize keywords in the text. Apply this to other pages on the site so users can quickly find the information they need.
3) Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Building a website that can be viewed on a computer and phone is incredibly important. If potential clients can’t browse your website waiting in line at the bank or over their lunch break, they’ll find another wilderness therapy company. Not only do you want people to be able to look at your website while on the go, according to Similar Web, mobile devices drive 56% traffic to websites. This means that even when people aren’t waiting in line or running errands, they are using their phones to surf the web instead of their desktop.
The easiest way to check if your wilderness therapy site is mobile-friendly is to enter the website URL on your phone and see. If you have to pinch the screen to make the whole page viewable, the site is not mobile-friendly. You can also use Google’s free tool to check.
The Fix: Ok this one can be easy if you’re set up properly. WordPress offers several themes that are mobile-friendly/responsive. Just select one of the themes and voila! Your website is now mobile-friendly. To add custom themes and tailor it to your company’s vision, takes a little more work. Our outdoor web design philosophy has helped convert hundreds of websites to a mobile-friendly site.
Creating The Perfect Website
Using the resources to improve your wilderness therapy website is a worthwhile investment. It takes time. And it takes trial and error. Your inbound wilderness therapy marketing plan should constantly be evolving based on data as well as usual growing pains. The content on your website today should not be the same content on your website in five years. The calls to actions (CTA) on the site should be updated to your company’s needs. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to a wilderness therapy website but reviewing these three simple fixes is a good start.
If you’d like to learn how Sage Lion Media can help you get started with a growth-driven design website, download our Ebook.
