06/01/2026
A lot of newly qualified practitioners get very hung up on their website far too early, and I understand why.
The internet makes it sound like that’s the first proper step, as if you’re not real until you’ve got a polished site sitting there looking professional. But in reality, in the first year, especially, a website is rarely the thing that makes the biggest difference.
Most people at that stage are still figuring out what they actually do in practice. Not what they studied, or what they thought they would specialise in, but who they enjoy working with, what kinds of problems they are good at solving, and what drains the life out of them. That only becomes clear through working with real clients. Until that happens, everything is provisional, whether people admit it or not.
When you rush into building a full website early on, you often end up building it around a version of yourself that hasn’t settled yet. Then a few months down the line, it feels wrong. Too narrow, too vague, or just not you anymore. That doesn’t mean you did it badly. It just means you moved on, which is exactly what should be happening at that stage.
There’s also this idea that a website will somehow bring clients on its own. In most cases, it doesn’t.
Unless you know what you’re doing with SEO, which most people quite rightly don’t want to be learning in their first year, a website is basically a shop up a side street. It exists, but nobody stumbles across it by accident.
What actually helps early on is people knowing who you are. Sharing your thoughts, your experiences, what you are noticing in your work, how you think about things, and yes, bits of your life too.
Clients usually come because they recognise something in you, not because your website was beautifully structured. They’ve read something you wrote, listened to how you explain things, or watched how you show up consistently over time. The trust is built long before anyone clicks through to a site.
That’s why, early on, it often makes more sense to focus on working with clients, gaining experience, and building a following in a way that feels natural to you. Once that’s in place, the website has something solid to reflect, instead of trying to create certainty that doesn’t exist yet.
When you do decide to put something online, it doesn’t need to be a full blown website.
A simple, low-cost option that explains who you are, what you do right now, and how to contact you is often more than enough. Something flexible that can change as you do, rather than something that locks you into decisions you’re not ready to make.
This is also where getting help can be useful. Not necessarily to build everything at once, but to take some of the pressure off. Having someone help you think through your business name, your branding, how you talk about your work, and what actually needs to exist online at this stage can save a lot of energy. It lets you focus on one thing at a time instead of trying to do everything yourself while second-guessing every decision.
I do build websites, but that’s not the starting point for everyone.
I also help with the early thinking that comes before them, including simple, affordable online setups that do the job without costing the earth or boxing you in too soon.
If you want support getting set up in a way that fits where you actually are, rather than where the internet says you should be, that’s the kind of work I do.
Websites aren’t foundations. They’re containers. They work best once you have something real to put inside them.
Drop me a DM or go to my website if you'd like to work with me
