Someone finds your practice on Instagram and, before reaching out, opens your website and taps "About us". They read: "We are a team committed to excellence and to the overall wellbeing of our patients." Next to it, a photo of three smiling doctors they've already seen on another site. No name, no address, nothing they could check. They close the page with the same doubt they arrived with, and message the next practice on the list.
That text isn't false. The problem is that anyone could have written it, including someone who doesn't exist. People who open your About page aren't looking for your mission. They're trying to confirm they won't get scammed. And the only way to confirm that is with facts they can check somewhere other than your website.
They have reason to check: in 2025, Americans filed 3 million fraud reports with the Federal Trade Commission and reported losing $15.9 billion (FTC, Mar 25, 2026). That goes for any business people trust with their money, their home or their health before they see the result: a medical practice, an auto shop, a contractor or a law firm.
What people are really looking for there
Nielsen Norman Group, a firm that studies how people use websites, watched more than 70 people on 100 sites: users now expect more transparency from companies, and people open the About page to answer concrete questions, such as where you are, your history and how to reach you (Nielsen Norman Group, May 26, 2019).
A Stanford lab that studied what makes a website credible with more than 4,500 people had already summed it up in two guidelines: show that there's a real organization behind your site, and that honest people run it (Stanford Web Credibility guidelines, 2002).
A mission and a vision answer none of those questions. Five kinds of proof do.
Five proofs a stranger can check
1. Your registered business name
Use the exact legal name you registered with your state, and put it in the footer and on the About page. Anyone can look it up in the state's online business search. When the name on your website, your invoices and that public record match, it's a quiet sign that you're real.
2. Your years, with a date
"Over ten years of experience" can't be checked. "We opened in this same office in March 2014" can: it's a date and a place, and people can compare it with your Google Business Profile and your oldest reviews. If your business is new, say so, and lean on your people's experience instead: "Our lead dentist spent eight years at a hospital before opening this practice."
3. Your delivered work
A list of jobs with a date, an area and the problem you solved convinces more than any paragraph about your quality. How to document them, one page per job and with the client's permission, is in a portfolio of delivered work.
In a medical practice, be careful with before and after photos. They're health information, and if your practice is covered by HIPAA, using them in marketing requires the patient's signed authorization (45 CFR 164.508). What you can share without asking anyone is which treatments you offer and how long you've been doing them.
4. Your licenses
If your trade requires a license, show it, with the number. In medicine, patients can look up a doctor's licenses and disciplinary history for free on DocInfo.org, run by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB, Aug 19, 2015). Write each provider's name exactly as it appears on their license, with their specialty, so a patient who searches finds them. For a contractor, it's the state license number; for a lawyer, the bar number.
5. Your team, with names and faces
Full name, role and a real photo of everyone the client will deal with. In a practice, at the very least, the providers and whoever answers messages. In another study, using eyetracking (equipment that follows where people look on a screen), users skipped stock photos of generic people and stopped on photos of real people who work at the company (Nielsen Norman Group, Oct 31, 2010).
Why stock photos hurt you in a local market
Stock photos are the ones from image libraries: the receptionist with a headset, the team with crossed arms. In a local market, besides not convincing anyone, they give you away:
- They repeat. The same smiling doctor shows up on another practice's site and in an insurance ad. Your client only has to have seen her once.
- They can be traced. With Google Lens, anyone can see from their phone where else a photo appears. If they find out your "team" is a set of hired models, they doubt everything else.
- They're exposed on the first visit. Whoever saw the photo walks in expecting those faces. If they don't recognize anyone, the trust they arrived with is gone.
What works is simpler: one morning of photos in daylight in your own office, of the people who actually serve clients. They don't need to look like a magazine; they need to be yours. Before uploading them, shrink their file size, as we explain in heavy photos and a slow website.
Your address and map are proof too
According to Stanford, the easiest way to show there's a real organization behind a website is to list a physical address. Do it well:
- Write it as text, complete: street address, suite, city and a landmark if it helps ("second floor, across from the park"). As text, Google can read it and the client can copy it.
- Embed the map from your own Google Business Profile. With one tap, people reach your reviews, which carry more weight than your own copy: in another Nielsen Norman Group study, people trusted outside sources more than what the company says about itself (Nielsen Norman Group, May 8, 2016).
- Keep it identical everywhere. The address on your website, on your Google profile and on your invoices, written the same way.
If you work from home or go to your clients, don't publish your home address: list the city and areas you serve, and set your Google profile up as a service area business.
The five block template
Use this order. The examples are from an imaginary practice.
- Who you are, in one sentence. What you do, for whom and where: "Family and orthodontic dentistry in Kendall, Miami, open since 2014."
- Your people. A real photo, full name, specialty, license and two lines on training and experience.
- Your proof. Registered business name, the year you opened, your published cases and a link to your Google reviews.
- Your place. Written address, the map from your profile, opening hours and two or three real photos of the office.
- How to get started. A button to message you or a form, and what happens after someone writes: who answers, how soon and what's needed for the first appointment. If that isn't clear yet, start by explaining how hiring you works.
Your mission and vision, if you want to keep them, go at the end in two lines. Hardly anyone chooses who to pay based on a vision statement.
Check yours in five minutes
Open your About page on your phone, read it the way a stranger would and count how many of these facts can be checked outside your website: a registered business name that matches your state's record, an opening date, a full name with a real photo, a license that can be looked up and a written address with the map from your Google profile.
If you have fewer than three, your page asks for trust without giving anything in return. Start with what you already have on hand: your registered name, your address and one real photo can go up today.
If you run a practice, our websites for clinics page lists what we never put on a healthcare website, starting with photos of doctors who aren't yours. And if you'd like us to look at your page, message us on WhatsApp with the link: we'll tell you what your business needs and what it costs.