On most therapy websites, the about page is where the practitioner lists their training. On the therapy websites that fill their calendars, it is where a nervous stranger stops feeling like a stranger. Those are two completely different pages, and the difference is worth more than any redesign.
We build websites for therapists and see the same pattern in every analytics report: after the homepage, the about page is the most-visited page on the site, and it is the last page people look at before they contact you. It carries more weight than any other page you will write. Here is how to write it.
Why does the about page decide whether someone books?
Because therapy is not a product comparison. Nobody chooses a therapist by feature list. They are asking one question the whole way down your page: can I say the hard thing to this person without being judged?
A list of qualifications does not answer that. It answers a different question, one the client did not ask. Credentials matter for reassurance, but they reassure the rational part of a decision that is being made emotionally. That is why the order of your page matters as much as its content.
What should a therapist about page include, in what order?
1. Open with them, not with you
The first sentence of an about page should describe the reader’s experience, not your career. “You have been holding it together for a long time, and lately that is getting harder.” Someone who recognises themselves in that sentence will read every word that follows. Someone who reads “I qualified in 2011 as an integrative psychotherapist” will scroll, skim and leave.
2. Then say who you are, plainly
Give your name, what you do, who you work with, and where. One short paragraph. Resist the urge to be poetic here; clarity reads as confidence, and it is also what search engines and AI assistants extract when deciding whether to recommend you.
3. Then a piece of your own story, carefully chosen
Not everything, and not therapy for you on the page. One honest piece that explains why this work, told in a way that leaves you the professional in the room. “I came to this work through my own long detour with burnout” is enough. Clients do not need your history; they need evidence that you understand the terrain.
4. Then how you actually work
What a session is like. How long, how often, in person or online, what happens in the first one. This is the section most therapists skip and the one anxious clients read twice. Removing the unknown removes a real barrier to booking.
5. Credentials last
Training, registrations, supervision, memberships. Complete but compact, near the bottom. By the time someone reaches it they have already decided emotionally; this is the section that lets them justify the decision.
6. One small next step
Not “book a course of therapy”. Something small: a free 15-minute call, a message, a question. The gap between reading and booking is where most practices lose people, and a smaller step across that gap converts far better than a bigger one.
How long should it be, and who should it sound like?
Between four hundred and seven hundred words, and it should sound like you on a good day rather than like your intake form. That range is not a rule from anywhere; it is what fits before a reader stops. Under four hundred and you have a bio, which reassures nobody. Over seven hundred and you are writing an autobiography, and the person reading it is anxious, on a phone, deciding whether to send a message.
The first-person question settles itself once you read both out loud. “Marieke is a licensed therapist who specialises in trauma” is how a colleague describes you. “I work with people who are carrying something they have not been able to put down” is how you would say it to the person in front of you. The second one is harder to write and does the work. Third person reads as distance, and distance is the thing your visitor is already feeling.
One structural habit is worth stealing: write the page, then delete the first paragraph. Almost every about page opens with a warm-up that says nothing (“Welcome to my practice. I am glad you found your way here.”), and the real opening is underneath it. The paragraph that starts with the reader’s situation rather than your welcome is nearly always the second one you wrote.
Two mistakes that cost bookings
Writing in the third person. “Sarah is an experienced counsellor who…” reads like a conference bio. Your website is a conversation between two people, one of whom is scared. Write “I”.
If you are not sure which of the two your own page is making, our free website check reads the machine-readable half and tells you what a stranger, and a search engine, can actually pick up from it.
Listing every modality you know. A wall of acronyms signals competence to colleagues and confusion to clients. Name the two or three that genuinely shape your work, in plain language, and explain what each one means for the person in the chair.
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| “Welcome to my practice” | “Therapy for people who are functioning on the outside and exhausted on the inside” |
| “Sarah is a qualified…” | “I am Sarah. I work with…” |
| “Integrative, EMDR, IFS, CBT, ACT” | “Mostly I work with EMDR and parts work, which in practice means…” |
| “Contact me to discuss your needs” | “Send me a message, or book a free 15-minute call” |
| Rates on request | “Sessions are €95, 50 minutes, weekly to start” |
Can your about page be found in search, not just read?
A well-written about page does double duty. When someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation, the assistant reads pages like yours and looks for exactly what a good about page contains: who you are, who you help, how you work, where, and what it costs, all in plain readable text. Vague poetic copy gives it nothing to quote, so it recommends the practitioner who wrote clearly. We go deeper on this in how to get your practice found in ChatGPT.
The same applies to the photo. One warm, real photograph of you, well lit, looking at the camera. Not a beach, not a candle, not a stock image of hands. We showed what that looks like in practice in what actually makes therapy clients book.
The practical version is three sentences you probably already believe but have not written down anywhere a machine can read. Somewhere in your first two paragraphs, in plain text and not inside a graphic, your page should contain your profession, your town, and the thing you actually treat. “I am a psychologist in Utrecht and I work mostly with people recovering from burnout” does all three at once and reads like a human sentence, which is the whole trick.
Why it matters here specifically: the about page is often the page that ranks for your name, and increasingly the page an assistant quotes when someone asks who works in a town. If it opens with “Welcome to my practice” the machine has nothing to repeat except your welcome. If it opens with the sentence above, it has a description of a practitioner, a place, and a specialism.
Do not turn this into keyword stuffing. Once is enough, in the language you would use with a client. The failure mode we see is the opposite of overdoing it: pages so careful not to sound salesy that they never say what the person does or where they do it.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a therapist about page be?
Long enough to answer “can I trust this person”, usually 400 to 700 words. Shorter than that and it reads as guarded; much longer and people skim. Structure matters more than length: if the first two sentences land, people read the rest.
How much of my own story should I share?
One carefully chosen piece that explains why you do this work, told from the far side of it. Enough that the reader senses you understand; not so much that they start worrying about you. If you are unsure whether a detail belongs, it probably does not.
Should my about page mention my rates?
Rates belong on your offer or contact page, but the about page should not dodge the subject. A single line pointing to them (“sessions are €95, see rates”) prevents the sense that the price is a secret, which is the impression that costs bookings.
Do I need a professional photographer?
It helps, but a good phone photo in soft daylight beats a bad studio portrait and beats no photo enormously. What matters is that you look like the person a client would meet: same room, same warmth, looking at the camera.
In closing
Your about page is the most emotional page on your website and usually the most neglected. Turn it around: open with the reader, tell one true thing about why you do this, explain what a session is like, put the credentials at the bottom, and end with a step so small it feels easy.
Want a second opinion on how your current page lands? Run your site through our free Website Check, or see how we build websites for therapy practices.
