When Victoria Davis approached me about redesigning the Cataraqui Counselling Clinic website, the brief was clear: the existing site wasn’t reflecting the calibre of care the clinic provides. As one of Kingston’s established counselling practices, Cataraqui needed a digital presence that matched the warmth, professionalism, and clinical depth of their in-person experience.
Here’s how the design process unfolded.
Starting with the user, not the layout
Every website project at Marketing Well starts with a question: who is actually landing on this site, and what do they need in the first ten seconds? For Cataraqui, the answer was specific. Visitors are often arriving during a difficult moment — navigating anxiety, grief, trauma, or relationship strain — and they need to feel reassured before they need to be informed.
That shaped every design decision that followed. The hero section leads with clear local context (“Counselling Services in Kingston”), an empathetic tagline, and a single primary action: book a free 15-minute consult. No friction. No decision fatigue.
A brand palette built around calm
My last blog post talked about the importance of colours and fonts in web design. With this website, I worked with a soft green and warm cream palette anchored by a deeper forest accent — colours that feel grounded and natural without leaning sterile or clinical. The typography pairs an editorial serif for headings with a clean sans-serif for body copy, giving the site a thoughtful, considered feel that mirrors the work itself.
Photography was selected to feel honest rather than stocky: natural light, soft interiors, real human moments. I avoided the typical “concerned person staring out a window” therapy imagery in favour of warmer, more inviting visuals.
Structuring for clarity and SEO
Behind the scenes, the site was structured to do double duty: to serve users emotionally and to serve search engines strategically. Services, approaches, and therapies each got dedicated, well-optimized pages targeting the search terms people in Kingston are actually using — counselling in Kingston, trauma therapy, EMDR, couples counselling, and so on.
Each page was built with a consistent rhythm: empathetic opening, what to expect, who it helps, and a clear next step. Internal linking ties the architecture together so both visitors and Google can navigate the clinic’s full scope of care.
Built on WordPress for long-term flexibility
I chose WordPress so Victoria could update content, add team members, and publish blog posts without needing to come back to me for every change. The site is fast, mobile-first, and built to scale as the clinic grows.
The result
A site that finally matches the quality of care Cataraqui has been providing in Kingston for years — and a foundation for the SEO and marketing work that follows.
If you’re a therapy practice owner looking at your current website and feeling like it’s holding you back, we’d love to talk. [Book a discovery call →]
