What is the Best Website Platform for Death Doulas?

Your website is often the first place a family lands when they’re searching for support. Before they ever reach out, they’re getting a feel for who you are and whether they can trust you. The platform you build your end of life services website on matters more than most death doulas & practitioners realize.

I’ve spent over 15 years helping doulas and end-of-life professionals build their online presence, and one of the questions I hear over and over again is: where do I even start? There are so many website platforms out there, and the options can feel overwhelming, especially when technology isn’t your thing.

The good news is that you don’t need to know everything. You just need to choose a platform that works for the way you practice, the clients you serve, and the direction you’re headed. Here’s my honest take on the main options.

WordPress: Why It’s the Right Choice for Death Doulas

When it comes to building a website that will actually serve your practice long-term, WordPress is what I strongly recommend, and it’s what I build with here at Death Doula Websites.

One of the things I love most about the WordPress templates I’ve designed is that you can start small and let your site grow with you. You don’t have to have it all figured out on day one. A simple three-page site (home, services, and contact) is a completely solid place to begin. From there, you can add a blog when you’re ready, a resources page, more service pages, a mailing list, whatever makes sense as your practice develops. Nothing has to be rebuilt from scratch. The site just expands naturally alongside you. Even the design can morph and grow along with you.

WordPress also gives you full ownership of your site and content. You’re not locked into someone else’s system. And from an SEO standpoint, it’s the strongest platform available for showing up in local searches, which is often how families find you in the first place.

The honest trade-off is that WordPress takes a little more to set up than a drag-and-drop builder. You’ll need hosting, and there are more moving parts. I’m taking care of all that for you! But once it’s up and running, it’s genuinely manageable, and the long-term payoff in flexibility and visibility is well worth it. My clients get a full set of video tutorials and I’m always here as a resource and support when needed!

Best for: Death doulas who want a site that can grow with them, care about being found on Google, and want full ownership of their online presence.

Squarespace: A Solid Alternative

If the technical side of WordPress feels like too much right now, Squarespace is worth considering.

It’s an all-in-one platform where hosting, design, and maintenance are bundled together, so there’s less to manage. The templates are clean and well-designed, and it’s designed for people doing DIY. That said, I do find the learning curve is greater than most people anticipate. It also has built-in e-commerce, which can be handy if you sell digital products like planning guides or recorded workshops.

The limitations are real, though. Squarespace’s SEO tools don’t match WordPress, so you may find it harder to rank in local searches over time. And if you ever want to move your site to a different platform, migration isn’t easy.

Finally, you’re building your website inside their system, which works fine until you start bumping into the edges of what you want it to do for you. The templates look lovely, but translating your business into their templates can be challenging.

Best for: End of life practitioners who want a polished site up quickly and prefer a simpler, more contained setup, and are okay with some trade-offs in flexibility and search visibility down the road.

Wix: Why I Don’t Recommend It

Wix is everywhere (the ads are hard to miss) but I’d steer most death doulas away from it.

The SEO limitations are my biggest concern. Despite some improvements over the years, Wix still struggles to compete with WordPress when it comes to search visibility. For practitioners who want to be found by local families, that’s a significant drawback.

There’s also a design quality issue. The drag-and-drop editor is easy to use, but it can produce cluttered, inconsistent results, and the more you try to customize, the harder it gets to keep things looking clean and intentional. That matters when you’re trying to convey calm and professionalism.

And like Squarespace, Wix makes it very difficult to leave once you’ve built there. Your content doesn’t export easily, which means you’re essentially starting over if you ever want to move.

For work as meaningful as yours, I think you deserve a platform that genuinely supports you, not one you’ll outgrow or feel stuck in.

So, How Do You Choose?

Here are three questions worth sitting with:

1. Do you want to be found in local searches? If yes, WordPress is the clear answer. If you plan to blog, even more so.
2. How do you feel about a small learning curve? If technology feels stressful, Squarespace gets you live with less friction, just go in knowing the trade-offs.
3. Are you thinking long-term? WordPress is the platform that grows with you most naturally.

There’s no wrong answer here, and no website is perfect. But for most death doulas I work with, WordPress gives them the best foundation, one they won’t outgrow, and one that keeps working for them as their practice evolves.

Your website is often the first conversation you have with a potential client. It’s worth building it on something solid that can grow with you.

Have questions about which option is right for you? Request a free call and we can talk it through.

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