In this complete guide to domain names for therapists, I’ll be answering all of your key questions about what to do with your domain name, where to get one, and why you need one in the first place.

As I’ll explain below, even if you have no intention of building a therapist website, owning your own domain name is still a good idea as it gives you greater control over your online presence and makes it easier for clients to find you online.

Still, if you’re new to all this, I understand how confusing domain names can be. That’s why I put this guide together, outlining everything you need to know about owning a domain for your therapy practice.

Domain Names for Therapists: Everything You Need to Know 

Before we really dive into things, allow me to answer the most important question first:

What is a Domain Name?

What is a Domain Name?

In the most basic sense, a domain name is a name that you type into a web browser to access any given website. 

You probably think of it as a web address or possibly a URL (a URL is slightly different I don’t need to bore you with that now). 

TherapistMarketingTips.com is the domain name for this website just as Gov.Uk is the domain name for the British government website and Wikipedia.org is the domain name for everyone’s favourite online encyclopedia. 

This may be a little geekier than you need to know right now, but domains are divided into two parts:

1. Second-Level Domain

The second-level domain is the first part of the domain name, the part that’s unique to you and your therapy practice. 

To refer back to the previous examples, TherapistMarketingTips, Gov, and Wikipedia are all second-level domains. 

If you register MyTherapyPractice.com, MyTherapyPractice would be the second-level domain.

2. Top-Level Domain

The top-level domain (often shortened to TLD) is the second part of the domain name. It’s the part that’s not unique to your website.

Common TLDs include: 

  • .Com
  • .Co.uk
  • .Org
  • .Net.

Which Top-Level Domain Should You Use?

There’s at least 1,514 top-level domains out there, and though some are restricted to certain countries, most are available to everyone. 

If you’re curious, here’s the full list of TLDs from the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). 

That said, while you may be tempted to register a different domain for the sake of uniqueness, I recommend that the best domain names for therapists are those ending in a .com (Dot Com) extension.

There are three reasons for this: 

1. Dot Coms are Easy to Remember

Think about all the websites you visit on a regular basis. Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc.

All of them end with dot com. 

This TLD is so popular that most people will probably assume your web address ends in .com anyway and it saves the hassle of having to explain otherwise.

2. Dot Coms are Affordable

OK, so .co.uk is usually cheaper, but as long as you’re not going for what we call a premium domain (one that’s in high demand and thus likely to cost thousands), you can easily pick one up for less than twenty quid.

3. Dot Coms Have Authority 

There’s a certain sense of professionalism and authoritativeness that comes from owning a dot com web address. It shows clients you’re serious about what you do and that you really mean business.

Why Do You Need a Domain Name for Your Therapy Practice?

The main reason why domain names for therapists are so important is that they help point clients to your website.

Think of your website as being the same as the therapy room you practice from. It’s the destination that you want clients to end up at. 

When you want clients to visit you at your practice, you give them the physical address.

When you want clients to visit your website, you give them your web address so that they can navigate their way there.

Now, a web address could be anything. 

If you chose to build your website with Wix, for example, and you use their free plan, your web address would be something like mytherapypractice.wix.com which is problematic for two reasons:

1. It’s Harder to Remember

MyTherapyPractice.Wix.Com is just harder to remember than mytherapypractice.com. 

If the goal is to make sure people get to your website and not some random location on the web, make it as easy as possible to remember.

2. It Doesn’t Look Good

Using a longer, free domain name doesn’t look all that professional either.

After all, using the free plan from your website service subtly tells customers that either you’re not successful enough to be able to spend a few quid on a proper domain name, or that you are and simply don’t care enough about your practice to make that investment.

Let’s be honest: 

Neither of those are great.

Do I Need a Domain Name if I Don’t Have a Website?

As I said at the beginning, it’s still a good idea to buy a domain name for your therapy practice even if you have no intention of building a website. 

Here’s why: 

1. It Stops Your Name from Being Used by Someone Else 

Imagine you have a great name for your therapy practice. Plucking something out of thin air, let’s say you call it Liberated Minds Therapy. 

Now let’s say someone else comes along and they also come up with the same great idea.

Let’s also say that you didn’t bother to register liberatedmindstherapy.com. This means that it’s still available, so the other therapist snaps it up. 

You speak to someone about your practice and they remember the name of it (because why wouldn’t they? It’s a bloody cool and memorable name!) but they misplace your business card and so try their luck with liberatedmindstherapy.com. 

Now they’ve visited a completely different therapy practice which may mean you miss out on a client. 

Or they simply Google the name.

Again, if that other therapist has used their domain name to build a website and you haven’t, there’s every chance that the client will find that therapist before they find you.

In other words, whether you’re building a website or not, registering a domain name stops other people from being used by someone else who could well end up stealing your potential clients. 

2. You Can Use it to Direct People to Pretty Much anywhere

A domain name doesn’t have to point to a website that you build, it can be pointed pretty much anywhere. 

Let’s say that you decide not to build a website but use Facebook as your primary online presence. You can configure your domain name so that when people type it into their browser, it takes them straight to your Facebook page, or your main directory listing, or wherever you promote yourself.

The big advantage to this is that it’s easier to remember and less hassle for clients who want to find you online.  

Nobody has to type in Facebook.com/liberatedmindstherapy, they just have to type in liberatedmindstherapy.com and end up in the same place.

Nor do they have to go to the trouble of opening up Facebook, searching for Liberated Minds Therapy, and checking out whether the page they came across actually belongs to you. 

Choosing Domain Names for Therapists: What to Consider 

If you’ve read this far and you’re in agreement that buying a domain name for your therapy practice is a smart move, it pays to take the following key factors into consideration first:

1. Where to Register Your Domain

In general, you have two options for buying (known as ‘registering’) your domain name. 

There are pros and cons to each.

A. Registering With a Web Hosting Company

If you’re creating a website with WordPress or using some other platform that requires you to buy web hosting, you may find that the best option is to use a top web hosting company that also sells domain names.

There are a couple of advantages to this, especially if you consider yourself to be ‘not very technical.’

The main advantage is that it’s the easiest option. 

When you buy your domain and hosting from the same company, the two are automatically linked. This means that when you start building your website, you can get right to it and avoid any messing around with what’s known as ‘configuring’ your domain. 

The other big advantage is that many hosting companies will offer you a free domain name for one year. 

This works in the company’s advantage as its a great way to entice new customers, and it will also work to your advantage in the short-term as it will cut the cost of launching your website.

In the long-term, however, the major disadvantage is that once that first year is over, you’ll likely pay far more money to keep that domain name than you would if you registered with a third-party domain registrar.

I’ll talk about those in a moment, but first, if you decide to go down the domain-and-hosting-package route, here’s my guide to the top five best web hosts for therapists.

B. Third-Party Domain Registrar

A domain registrar is basically the company that you buy your domain from. When I talk about a third-party registrar, I’m talking about a company that’s different to the one you buy your web hosting from.

There are a couple of advantages to going down this route too.

Firstly, although you may not get a free domain for a year, the overall per-year cost for your domain registration is generally cheaper.

I’ve used web hosting companies that offer a free domain name for the first year but then charge between 17 and 25 per year to keep it after the freebie runs out. I’ve also used third-party domain registrars who only charge between 10 – 12 per year and never increase their prices.

This will generally work out cheaper if you decide to point your domain at your Facebook or other online presence, as you’ll avoid the added -and, in your case, unnecessary- expense of paying for web hosting as well. 

The other major advantage is that if you do buy your web hosting and domain name separately and you later decide to move your site to a different hosting company, it’ll be much easier to point your domain name to the new location.

On the downside, if you register your domain name separately to your web hosting, it’ll be more complicated to ensure that entering your domain name into a browser actually gets people to your website.

I say more complicated, it literally involves taking a few small bits of text known as name servers, and doing a copy-paste job from your hosting company to your domain registrar.

It sounds straightforward and, in theory, it is. However, some hosting companies make it easier to find their name servers than others. Likewise, some domain registrars really make you work to find the right place to paste those servers.

To sum up then:

If you want to save money in the long run and don’t mind dealing with a slightly more complicated set-up process, buy from a third-party domain registrar.

If you want to keep things as simple as possible and don’t mind spending a bit more in your second year of practice, get your hosting and domain together. 

2. How Much to Spend

Whether you register with your hosting company or a domain registrar, you’ll need to think about how much you’re prepared to spend. 

As a general rule, I advise setting a budget of around 20, though to be honest, you should be able to get one much cheaper.

As I mentioned earlier, you can get a .co.uk domain name for less than a .com, while more unusual TLDs are usually the most expensive.

I still recommend getting a dot com, but if you’re really pinching the pennies, a .co.uk will still do the job.

There are, however, other expenses you’ll need to consider including:

A. Domain Privacy 

When you buy a domain name, you have to register it using a physical address and contact details. These details are then accessible to anyone using a website such as Who.Is. If you’re running a private practice from home or you haven’t yet got a physical location where you can practice, you may not want to have your home address widely available on the weekend.

On a similar note, one lesson I learned the hard way is that when you include your contact details as part of your registration, you get all kinds of nuisance sales calls from web design agencies which, to be blunt, is a pain in the arse to deal with.

The best way to counter this is to opt-in for Domain Privacy when registering your domain. This costs an average of 5 per month, though some companies will charge as little as 2 and others as much as 10.

When you opt-in to domain privacy, anyone looking up your domain on Who.Is will see that all of your data is redacted for privacy, meaning no pesky sales calls and no broadcasting your home address to the Internet.

B. Email 

Some web hosting and domain registrars will offer free domain-based email accounts whereas others will charge you for that service.

A domain-based email is exactly what it sounds like: 

An email address based at your domain name, such as chris@therapypractice.com rather than based at a third-party such as chris@gmail.com.

I recommend opting in to this service for the sake of creating a professional image for your business, as well as to avoid the hassle of managing separate free email accounts.

If you don’t get free email accounts with your domain/hosting, expect to pay between 3 – 10 per month for the service. 

C. Alternate and Extra Domains 

I’ll talk more about this later, but if you want to buy extra domain names for your practice, budget for between 10 – 20 per year for each domain depending on the TLD. 

3. Your Second-Level Domain

Here’s where the fun comes in, picking what your web address is going to be. 

The most obvious route is to use the name of your business.

If you choose a name that’s fairly common (or at least not very original), then there’s a good chance that somebody else will have snapped it up. 

Of course, one obvious way to get around this is to use your own name, as in chrisskoylestherpay.com. 

4. Your Top-Level Domain

I think I’ve spent enough time hammering home my point that a dot com is the best TLD to have, closely followed by .co.uk. 

However, there may be a reason why you opt for something else. That could be because the second-level and top-level combination you want is already taken because you’re saving money by buying a cheaper domain, or because you want a more unique TLD such as .coach. 

5. Alternates and Extra Domains 

So, you’ve found the perfect domain name. YourTherapyPractice.com is still available, and you’re ready to snap it up. 

Before you do, you may want to consider whether you want any extra domains too.

For example, you may wish to buy domains with alternate TLDs, such as yourtherapypractice.co.uk or yourtherapypractice.net. 

That stops somebody else from coming up with the same name as you and registering that address. If people are trying to find you and land on a different therapist’s website than yours, that could be a client you miss out on. 

When I first launched my therapy practice, I not only purchased both the dot com and .co.uk domains, but also a few extra ones relating to my location and specialties.

For example, I registered

Myhometowntherapypractice.com

Myneigbouringtowntherapypractice.com

Stopsmokinghypnotherapy.com 

And a few others. 

Again, even if I don’t use those domains as websites, I know that there’s no chance another local therapist is going to be able to register myhometowntherapypractice.com and beat me to the punch in local search results. 

How to Register a Domain Name for Your Therapy Practice 

While the exact steps you take to register a domain name will vary from provider to provider, the good news is that it’s usually an incredibly easy process no matter who you register with.

Here, I’ll show you one typical example of how to register a domain name for your therapy practice with the third-party domain provider, Domain.com. 

1. Visit Domain.com and type your preferred domain name in the search box on the home page

2. Choose Your Domains from the list provided and click ‘continue.’ 

3. Choose any domain add-ons such as domain-based email 

4. Enter your payment and billing information. 

4. Configure your name servers

To do this, select DNS & Nameservers from the left-hand menu, then select ‘Add Name server.’

Next you’ll need to go to your hosting company and copy their name servers then paste them in the ‘Add Name Server box.

Every hosting company has different name servers. I’ve included links to where you can find the name servers for some of the most popular web hosting company.

If you change your nameservers and your domain name still isn’t pointing to your website, give it some time. Nameserver changes take up to 48 hours to ‘propagate,’ which means it may be a little while before everything works how it should. 

How to Point Your Domain Name to a Third-Party Website

If you’re not building a website but you do want to send people to your Facebook page or other online presence, you should select ‘Pointer and subdomains.’

Then, select ‘Standard URL’ and type in the full URL of the page you want your domain to point to.

When you’re done, just hit save and you’ll be good to go.

A Final Word of Advice on Domain Names for Therapists 

If you’ve read this entire guide, I hope you’ve found that while there’s a lot to think about when it comes to buying a domain name for your therapy practice, it’s really not all that complicated. 

Choose a name (your second-level domain), choose a top-level domain (.com, .co.uk etc.), pay for it, and point that domain name to your website. 

That’s all there is to it…mostly.

If I could offer you one final piece of advice on domain names, it’s this: 

Once you’ve purchased your domain name, it isn’t necessarily yours forever.

During the registration process, you’ll be asked to register your domain for a fixed period of time, usually 2 years, though you can also choose to register for just one year or several more years. 

The more years you register for in advance, the more money you’ll have to pay upfront. On the positive side, this means that you can go for a few years without having to think about renewing it.

If you only pay for one or two years, you’ll pay less upfront (great if you’re starting on a small budget), but you’ll have to pay again to renew it much sooner. 

Whichever option you take, I recommend putting a note in your calendar or some other safe and convenient location that reminds you when it’s almost time to renew your domain name.

That way, you can be sure that you renew it in plenty of time to keep it serving you, your practice, and your therapist’s marketing plan well for years to come. 

Need more help and advice on how to set up a domain name for your website? Book a consultation with me or get in touch and let me do the work for you.