Questions counsellors ask.

Some directories let you pay to sit closer to the top. Others ask for your specialisms, and because everyone ticks everything, the list stops meaning anything. We wanted a site where every counsellor is treated the same and everyone gets a turn near the top.

When someone searches, they set the parameters, usually distance from a postcode. Every counsellor who fits and is accepting new clients has an equal chance of appearing near the top. The order holds steady for twenty-four hours, then shuffles, so over time the visibility is shared out rather than bought. There is no top spot for sale. We also show online therapists.

Instead of listing thirty issues like everyone else, your listing carries three. They come out of the conversation you have with our bio builder, so they describe the work you do rather than a set of boxes you felt obliged to tick.

So when someone is looking for help with their concern, they find counsellors who genuinely work with it, not a wall of identical lists.

No. Our pages are not static and will move regularly. And because we present your top three presenting issues on every card, potential clients can scan for someone who works with their concern. You can change the concerns that you work with, but our limitation of three on the list itself prevents the ‘everyone ticks everything’ problem. Once they click through to your page, they can see more detail about what you work with.

If you are qualified and currently registered with a professional body, you are in. That is the bar. Rather than deciding for ourselves which bodies count, we go by the Professional Standards Authority and the statutory regulators. Between them they cover the registers counsellors and psychotherapists belong to.

Your page names the body you are registered with, so anyone can check. That is rather the point: we are not asking clients to take our word for it, we are showing them where to look.

Still training, or working in a related role? You are welcome here. You will not have a client-facing profile yet, but you can join the community, connect with other practitioners, and use the site.

Yes, and it stays free. A basic listing is yours, and some of the wider features of the platform will carry a cost, but you are welcome to simply have your free listing and nothing else.

We are still working out our pricing, and we will publish it in full before we ask anyone to pay for anything. What we can tell you now is that the basic listing stays free, and that our intention for everything above it is to give you considerably more for your money than the options currently available. We would rather take the time to price it properly than announce a number we have to revise.

A free listing takes about thirty minutes. A fuller listing takes around two hours, because there is more of you in it.

No buying a domain, no wrestling with a website for weeks, no large bill to get online.

Your website is one small site competing alone against everything else on the internet. That is a hard fight, and most counsellor websites quietly lose it. Your CPIndex page does not fight alone. It sits inside a network where every page strengthens every other one. The main directory sites hold their power because they were the trailblazers, but they have had to do little to retain that position for many years; they have held it on the strength of subscriber numbers.

We have spent the last year researching the ins and outs of search engine optimisation, and have come up with a plan to increase your visibility through our platform. We believe that we have created a better product that will outperform the traditional directories, other directories on the market and potentially be more visible than your own website.

You can keep both if you want to, but adding a CPIndex page will only strengthen your marketing strategy.

No. There is no exclusivity.

CPIndex is so much more than a directory; in fact, we feel the listing is an additional benefit, not the main one. Our mission is to fill the gaps that therapists and coaches face in this field.

A fair question, and we will not pretend to guarantee you clients. Nobody honestly can. We would also like to gently remind you that this is a new offering and that, whilst we are confident in what we offer, the more therapists who join us, the more we increase our visibility to clients.

By creating a basic profile, free of charge, you enable us to build and strengthen this platform, benefitting all of us. That said, at the basic level you will not benefit from all the other functions the platform has to offer.

We have analysed what stops directories from performing well, and we feel it is partially due to unfair promotion of listings and the way they match clients with therapists. Biographies can appear very similar, and it becomes difficult for clients to differentiate. We think we have solved this problem through our innovative bio builder, and we hope you will be impressed by how easy it is to create a beautifully written yet unique profile.

Other directories only focus on the listing. As practising therapists ourselves, we have thought about what we need and created a platform to deliver it. CPIndex is more than just finding clients — you can also find your peers, supervisors, signposting, training, counselling rooms, and more.

Another benefit is that the grind of creating a webpage is taken care of, with an intuitive interface you will master in minutes.

Yes. Supervisors are listed, so you can find clinical supervision in the same place as everything else, and your supervision card will eventually be shown on a separate page for professionals only. That page will carry resources for practitioners, including a list of local and online supervisors.

We are aware that other small start-ups have tried to compete with the larger directories and have found it challenging, and that this has increased scepticism about new projects. In this respect we simply ask that you trust us: we have invested a great deal of time and energy into analysing this market, and we think we have found solutions.

CPIndex has a different remit. Other directories make money by charging you for a listing; most offer a listing, while others sell their own training or CPD, and a few add books or offer a magazine.

CPIndex aims to solve issues that therapists face every day. Take one of them: we have to look everywhere to find what we need. At CPIndex we aim to consolidate what already exists into one place. When we need to search for rooms to practise in, or places to run groups or courses, we aim to carry those listings. When we are looking for a course to take, locally or nationally, we aim to carry the listings of what is available.

We also recognise that therapists are imaginative and creative individuals who are highly qualified and experienced. At CPIndex we feel that therapists have nowhere to express that creativity, and that it limits us. Have you ever wanted to create that pack of cards for client work, but found you would have to promote it on other platforms and wait to be found by your market? Just think what you could develop psychotherapeutically when you have a space to share it directly with the people it is for.

We are different, and so much more than a listing.

That is the intention. Most counsellors pay for a domain, pay for a website, pay for a listing, then pay again to advertise, and none of it sits together. Insurance, scheduling, accountancy, payment services: today you search for them, trawl industry magazines, or hope somebody mentions one. We want to gather that into a single space. We have created a platform that does not ask you to spend money without offering you a great product in return.

As therapists we are trained professionals, yet there are very few places to offer what we create directly to our peers, organisations or clients. The Marketplace is planned as somewhere you can sell books and things you no longer need, build that two-day CPD and offer it to therapists near you, or run a six-week workshop.

We want counsellors to be creative and to reach the audience they need, and for that audience to come to CPIndex to find them.

That is the plan. Finding CPD has always been a chore. Offerings are scattered, nothing sits in one place, and you have to work through all of it. It is also a market monopolised by large organisations, because we do not have a medium in which we can compete. By creating a platform that gives us a place to compete, this circular economy will benefit all of us.

We intend to bring what is available in your area and beyond into one space.

Yes, in time. We are planning a forum, and a gathering of the places counsellors already meet, so that what your peers know is easier to reach. You would stay in control of it: your listing will let you switch engagement with other counsellors on or off whenever you like.

We are not based in America, or anywhere else. We are a British company.

We are just a couple of practising therapists in Bournemouth who felt that what the market has to offer could be improved, and decided to do something about it. We will be ethical in our dealings with you, and that means we will never use your listing inappropriately. We will endeavour to keep your needs in mind as we build this platform. We feel strongly about supporting other therapists, and we have strong values.

We are you.