A Warm & Welcoming Website for California-Based Somatic Therapist
Jacqui Ferraiolo Therapy
Somatic Therapist
Jacqui Ferraiolo was able to open her online therapy practice’s doors with new branding and a custom-designed Squarespace website only one week after completing her master’s degree program.
Jacqui knew having a warm, welcoming online presence would be essential to the growth of her therapy practice — especially since she was launching her new practice in the middle of a pandemic. We needed to make it easy for potential clients to find her online and to connect with her virtually.
Setting the Brand Foundation
Our first step was to craft the look and feel of her online practice. As a somatic and integrative therapist, Jacqui encourages clients to strengthen their natural connection with their bodies and senses to uncover their own inner wisdom. We wanted to communicate this same sense of grounding and wholeness in her branding. We selected calming colors from nature, used round and organic typefaces, and ensured her photography was soaked in the warmth of the sun.
In designing her logo, I worked to incorporate both warmth and grounding with a touch of lightness to reflect Jacqui’s style of combining humor and experimentation with wisdom and science. The font’s heavier weight communicates safety, while the swirls (particularly in the Rs) show playfulness. The oblong colored shape behind the letters evokes the solidity of a stone, expressed in hopeful and light colors. The font palette includes fonts that reflect the same qualities as the fonts chosen for the logo.
Stock Photography
One of the biggest challenges for most wellness practices — especially those that are just getting started — is having strong photography for their websites. While Jacqui was able to hire a photographer for a stunning outdoor portrait shoot, the center where she provides in-person therapy in Oakland, California was closed due to COVID health restrictions.
So, we got creative with stock photography. To create a sense of her therapy office, we purchased some stock photos from Haute Stock, one of my favorite premium stock image libraries that offer original and professional images with personality.
For her services page, we selected photos from The Gender Spectrum Collection, the AllGo Collections on Unsplash, and Picnoi. All three collections offer free stock photography reflecting the communities Jacqui supports, including LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC people.
* This post contains an affiliate link for HauteStock. If you use this link to buy premium stock photography for your business, I may earn a small commission (at no additional cost to you).
Website
We then began work on her SEO-optimized Squarespace website. Jacqui carefully crafted the language on her site to ensure it spoke to the challenges her clients feel and how her approach differs from other therapists. I then brought together the foundational elements, including colors, fonts, logos, photography and content, to create a website that authentically expresses Jacqui’s therapeutic approach and services.
As a new therapist, we focused on the core pages and information that Jacqui’s potential clients most needed, along with a clear call to action to book a consultation call with her to explore working together. The core pages included: home page, about page, services page and contact page.
The end result is a website that is clear in purpose and intentional — allowing Jacqui to attract the clients who will most benefit from her approach and support. Within six weeks of launching her new practice and website, she had reached her goal client caseload.
Client Testimonial
“She is awesome! No, in all seriousness, Melanie works really hard to make these steps doable and not so overwhelming. She makes each step accessible and really is working to be in service of ways that I could find my own voice. Melanie worked with me step by step and offered me options and ways to access what I wanted to express.”
— Jacqui Ferraiolo
