Wondering where to start when it comes to building a website for your dietitian private practice? In this blog post, we review why you need a dietitian private practice website, which tech platforms we recommend and why, which pages to include on your website and how to create eye-catching content on your home page!
*This blog post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase through one of these links, we get a commission.
Why you need a dietitian private practice website
For the sake of this blog post, when we say “dietitian private practice”, we are referring to all dietitian businesses – including traditional dietitian counseling with patients/clients, dietitian consulting, dietitian freelancing, or any other form of dietitian entrepreneurship!
It’s important to make sure that you are getting clients from a variety of streams for your nutrition business. Social media can be one of those streams, but we don’t recommend putting all of your eggs in one basket for your registered dietitian private practice.
Here’s why we recommend having a website:
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- Google is still the primary avenue that people use to search for services, so you are able to tap into a much larger potential audience
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- Your website is like your “home”, it allows people to get to know you and your brand
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- Social media companies own your audience, if your account gets accidentally disabled by IG themselves (which has happened to a few of us!) or if you get hacked (which has also happened to members of our DSC Business Community), you want to make sure you can access your audience another way
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- You can monetize your blog and start bringing in some long-term passive income, for more information on how to make money blogging, check out this course
Which tech platforms we recommend and why
It’s important to consider a few things when deciding which website platform to use. Here’s some questions to consider:
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- What are your ultimate goals and dietitian business plans? (PS. Check out our FREE dietitian business plan workbook here)
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- Are you looking for something that is quick and easy to update, or something you can sink your teeth into?
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- What do you need it for? Are you just looking for a platform to manage your dietitian private practice website OR are you looking to make money blogging in the future OR are you trying to build an online course?
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- Are you tech-savvy?
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- Are you willing to outsource or do you want to just DIY it?
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- What kind of a budget do you have?
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- Do you want to make ad revenue off your blog in the future or not? (caveat: blog revenue isn’t just as easy as posting a blog and making money, it takes consistency, time and SEO work. For more info on how to make money blogging, click here.)
Pros and cons of different tech platforms
Wix or Squarespace – great for beginners!
Pros: These are called ‘drag-and-drop’ website platforms because they are super easy to use! This is a great place to get started when it comes to websites for dietitians as they can be easily created and updated by you. Plus, they are affordable.
We offer a DIY Wix Website Workshop within our DSC Nutrition + Business Membership which will walk you through all of the steps to set up and optimize a Wix website, including which pages to include and what to put on each one, how to add a blog, how to start collecting email subscribers and SEO foundations!
Cons: There is definitely some debate here, but there’s a general theory that Google prefers WordPress websites from an SEO perspective. So if you are really serious about monetizing a blog in the future through ad revenue, then WordPress.org is probably your best bet.
Worpress.org – great for future bloggers!
Pros: THE most customizable and powerful dietitian website building tool and what most websites on the internet are built on. Allows you to make ad revenue off of your blog in the future. For more information on how to make money blogging, click here.
Cons: Can be a lot more tedious and challenging. Often, this is the reason why we don’t recommend this to our DSC Nutrition + Business Members who are just getting started because you can spend WAY too much time trying to figure it out (trust me, we’ve been there).
Show.it – also great for future bloggers!
Pros: This is a great hybrid between drag-and-drop platforms and WordPress.org. It essentially allows you to create a WordPress site using more of a drag-and-drop template. This option is becoming more popular with private practice dietitians and is great if you are tech-savvy and are willing to spend a bit more time and energy.
Cons: Still not as intuitive or user friendly as Wix or WordPress, so still requires some tech savviness.
Teachable or Thinkific – great for online courses and memberships!
Pros: Teachable or Thinkific are both great options if you are creating an online course or membership site for your dietitian business, and they are more affordable than Kajabi (listed below).
Cons: Neither Teachable nor Thinkific have as many features as Kajabi (for example, they don’t include email marketing capability, so you will have to purchase a separate email marketing platform).
Kajabi – also great for online courses and memberships!
Pros: An all-in-one online course + website platform. So essentially, Kajabi has everything you need to run your online dietitian business in one place – website, online course builder, community, email marketing, sales pages, everything! DSC is currently built on Kajabi.
Cons: More expensive than Teachable or Thinkific.
What pages do you want to have on your dietitian website?
We recommend starting with the following:
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- Home page
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- About page
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- Services page (or Product if you don’t offer services)
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- Blog page
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- Contact page
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- Testimonials page
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- Freebie/lead magnet page
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- Portfolio page (if you are a dietitian consulting or freelancing, to learn more about freelancing, check out this episode of the Dietitian Success Podcast)
Website copy (ie. what do you write on each page?)
In our DIY Wix Website Course through the Dietitian Success Center Nutrition + Business Membership, we provide you with an outline of the content to include on each of your website pages.
To get you started, here’s what you should include on your Home Page:
1. Capture your audience’s attention with your dietitian private practice mission statement so that they know EXACTLY what you do when they land on your page. This usually begins with “I help…”
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- Examples:
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- I help parents simplify and de-stress mealtimes with picky eating nutrition counselling
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- I create engaging, delicious recipes for small to medium food brands
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- Ditch the diet approach and build food freedom with 1:1 nutrition support
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- I work with busy professionals looking to optimize their gut health and say goodbye to uncomfortable IBS symptoms for good.
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- Examples:
2. Provide a BRIEF overview of what you provide. This is not where you include specific details about your dietitian programs/services (you do this on the services page), but gives people a high level understanding of what you offer.
3. Speak to your ideal client’s pain points. You may phrase this as:
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- My services are perfect for you if…
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- Are you struggling with ___, ____ and ____?
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- Hey, I’m _____ and I work with _____ to achieve ____, ____ and _____
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- Raise your hand if you struggle with these three things: ____, _____, _____
4. Briefly introduce yourself and why you can help them (1 to 2 sentences).
- Ex. Hi, I’m Emily and I’m a Registered Dietitian with years of experience helping families just like you navigate mealtime challenges with picky eaters.
5. Include 2-3 testimonials at the bottom of the page
Ready to start building your Wix Website from the ground-up? With our DIY Wix Website Workshop, you get:
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- Step-by-step video instructions to set up your Wix website from the ground up
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- A website copy workbook, so you can create a website that SELLS
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- A crash course on SEO
And best of all, it’s included in our DSC Nutrition + Business Membership. Get access to this course and everything else you need to start and grow your dietitian business for an affordable monthly or annual membership.
Dietitian Success Center provides high quality, evidence based professional development for dietitians and dietetic students in Canada, the United States and worldwide. Our mission is to make it easier for dietitians and dietetic students to build expertise. We do this through evidence based online nutrition courses for dietitians, a community to network and ask questions and ready-to-use dietitian client handouts. Plus – we give you the tools to start and grow your dietitian private practice!
