Project
Sharn Waldron
A psychotherapy website for a Geelong practice
Sharn Waldron is a psychotherapist and counsellor in Geelong with more than thirty years in practice, working with individuals, couples and families. She needed a website that could carry that work: calm enough to suit the subject, clear enough that a first time visitor understands what is on offer, and findable by the people in her own city who are quietly looking for a counsellor.
Project Scope
- Website design and build
- Six therapy service pages
- Being found in local Geelong searches
- Hosting, contact and privacy setup
- Ongoing updates and support
The challenge
Choosing a therapist is a slow and private decision. Almost nobody rings the first name they see. They read for a while, often late at night, and they are weighing up whether this person is qualified, whether they work with the particular thing they are going through, and what walking into a first appointment would actually feel like. A website has to answer all three before it ever gets asked.
The second problem was being found at all. Sharn's reputation brought people who already knew her name, and they arrived without trouble. The people who needed her most, the ones typing "couples counselling Geelong" into a phone, were not seeing her. The site had to be built so search engines could read it properly, and worded around the language those people actually use.
What I built
Most website projects start with a flat drawing of a page you cannot click. This one started with a real, working website instead. An AI design tool built a first version in a few days, so Sharn could open it on her phone, click around and tell me what felt right and what did not. Once we had settled the look, I rebuilt it by hand, and that is the site running today.
A calm first impression
The homepage opens on a single line, "A Safe Space to Explore Your Story", and keeps the reading easy from there. What she offers, who she works with, and how to reach her. No pop up, no wall of text, nothing asking for anything before it has given something.
Six services, six pages
Individual psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, couples counselling, family therapy, trauma recovery, and grief and loss each have a page of their own. Someone searching for one specific kind of help arrives on a page about that kind of help, rather than a list they have to work through.
Her credentials, in full
Her professional accreditations appear as the actual badges awarded by the bodies that issue them, and her full background sits on its own page. For a practice where trust is the entire proposition, showing this plainly matters more than any design flourish.
Easy to get in touch with
Every page ends with a single clear next step, and enquiries reach her by email, which she prefers for a first message, or by phone or text if that is easier. What happens in a first consultation is spelled out on the contact page, because for a lot of visitors that unknown is the actual barrier.
Across the site
Services: a page for each kind of help
Background: qualifications in full
The result
The site has been live and maintained since 2025, changing as the practice has. New professional credentials went up when she earned them, the privacy policy was refreshed, and the wording across every page was changed to match the words Geelong people actually type when they go looking.
If you run a private practice, an allied health clinic or a consulting room, and your website is not bringing you the enquiries it should, I would like to hear about it. I am based in Geelong and work with clients across Australia. See how I approach web design in Geelong and AI integration, or get in touch.
Common questions about this project
Yes, for the first design pass. An AI design tool turned the brief into a clickable website in days, so Sharn was responding to something real instead of a static mockup. The finished site was then rebuilt by hand, which is what the live site runs on today. AI made the slowest part of the project much faster. It did not replace the build.
Design began in July 2025 and the site was live and moving into ongoing maintenance by the end of August. Refinements have continued since, in small pieces, as the practice has changed.
Yes. Therapy, counselling and allied health practices share a specific problem: the visitor is making a personal decision, and the site has to establish credibility and answer practical questions without ever feeling like a sales page.
Because people search for the specific thing. Somebody looking for help after a bereavement does not type psychotherapy. A page per service means the search and the page match, which is better for the reader and better for being found.
Content changes come through me. Sharn sends over what needs updating and I make the change, usually within a day or two. It keeps her working with clients rather than wrestling with a website.
I am based in Geelong and so is Sharn's practice, so we could meet in person whenever it helped. I work with clients right across Australia, but for a business whose customers are all within a half hour drive, local knowledge counts.
