My name is Alastair Duhs. I am a counsellor and psychotherapist and have been in private practice for over 15 years. I have been a member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) since 2000.

Before training as a counsellor I worked as a patent attorney for several years. I also graduated from Auckland University many years ago with a Masters Degree in Quantum Physics. I have a strong background in both mathematics and physics.

Why Website Design?

As a counsellor in private practice since 2000 I primarily relied on word of mouth to attract new clients.

However as more therapists set up in private practice, I realized that a beautiful and affordable website was essential to my ongoing success as a therapist in private practice. I also wanted my website:

• to be flexible enough so that I could easily change it when I wanted to,
• to clearly convey my strengths as a therapist,
• to rank highly in Google,
• to be designed for use on mobile phones, and
• to appeal to new clients who were seeking counselling or therapy in my area.

In addition I did not want my website to cost me thousands of dollars to set up or maintain.

After speaking to several website design companies, I realized it was hard to achieve all of these things. The companies I talked to had not worked with many counsellors or therapists and found it hard to suggest clear themes or designs that would help me. They also estimated that it would cost between $1,500 and $3,000 to design and set up my website. This costs seemed excessive to me (and still does!).

As as result of these conversations I decided to create my own website. In the year or so it took to do this effectively, my physics and mathematics background certainly came in handy! Now, after several years of intensive learning I am happy to offer to other therapists and health professionals what I found hard to find myself-a way of creating beautiful and affordable websites that attract clients (and rank highly in Google), but that do not cost the earth.