Discover how OT Potential created a powerful occupational therapist directory. Explore their journey and key takeaways in this case study!
Approximate read time: 6 minutes
Over six million people visit an occupational therapist each year in the United States.
But finding the right therapist? That’s a challenge. For both patients and providers, the process of making the right connection is often frustrating and inefficient.
And that's exactly what OT Potential Founder Sarah Lyon recognized and set out to change.
OT Potential is an online directory dedicated to empowering OT professionals with resources and connecting patients with occupational therapists easily. With 530+ active OTs on the directory and over 80,000 website visits yearly, the impact is obvious.
The one word to say about Formidable Forms is it's customizable.
Launching the directory took time, strategy, and the right tools. They needed a flexible, powerful solution to grow alongside their vision and power every part of it.
And that's where Formidable Forms came in.
Watch the Full Interview Here ⬇️
The Challenge: Turning a Vision Into Reality
OT Potential's mission was to create a comprehensive, easy-to-use directory to help therapists and patients find the right match without the awful user experience and ad-heavy approach most people think of when they think of directories.
"We've all been on a terrible directory before, where you try to search for somebody, and they don't come up. Or, there's ads all over the place or whatever it is. We're like, it just can't be that. It needs to be an actual, usable directory that is, in a lot of ways, fun to use," said Mitchell Lyon, the Director of Operations at OT Potential.
But turning that vision into reality came with challenges.
For the directory to succeed, they needed it to be:
✔ User-friendly – Therapists had to easily create and manage their profiles, while patients needed a simple way to search and filter results.
✔ Scalable – As the directory grew, it had to handle increasing listings without slowing down or becoming difficult to manage.
✔ Flexible – The system needed to allow for custom fields, filters, and search functions tailored to occupational therapy.
"We had a really long list of things that needed to be."
For one tool to handle all of the complex directory functionality while being user-friendly and without much custom development is a tough ask.
And that's when they discovered Formidable Forms.
The Solution: A Smarter Way to Build a Directory
To bring their vision to life, OT Potential solved a few problems using just Formidable Forms.
Create Custom Therapist Profiles
"We've developed kind of a multi-step process that people go through when they're creating their profile," Lyon said.
With Formidable Forms, User Registration is a breeze, and you can customize the form to gather the exact information you need. You can drag and drop any form fields in the form builder, giving you many customization options for the information.
This included adding fields to collect the therapists' specialties, locations, and experience for OT Potential.
"Y'know, it saves it as we go, which is a feature that we were also looking for. Then the different pages were made for when you're setting up your profile for the first time."
Mitchell also credits Formidable's Save and Continue feature. This feature helps busy therapists avoid worrying about completing their profiles in one session. They can always return and pick up their progress.
Several of things we were trying to do with the plugins we used or services we used, just, didn't execute well enough. We can do it with Formidable and meet all the objectives we're looking for.
Behind the scenes, the User Registration feature ensures everything is connected smoothly so business owners don't stress about keeping track of registrations.
Build an Advanced Search and Filter System
"The filters were a requirement that we said were going to be very important when it comes to a usable directory," he said, citing the filters at the top of their webpage.
These filters help patients to filter by country, state, and focus areas, among other options.
Using the form entries collected through their Formidable form, they could then break this data up and sort it by different information (location, specialization, etc.)., so they built on the feature even more.
Using Formidable's search and filter features in its Directory plugin as a base, they could power everything they needed using one plugin. Then, with Formidable's customizability, they could change features and styling to match their website's needs.
"Several of things we were trying to do with the plugins we used or services we used, just, didn't execute well enough. We can do it with Formidable and meet all the objectives we're looking for."
So, instead of searching through pages of occupational therapists, patients needed a way to quickly narrow their search in a few clicks and find a professional in their area or expertise.
"Whether I am somebody looking for an occupational therapist, or maybe it's an OT professional looking for other professionals to connect with in those states. And so there's all kinds of settings that occupational therapists work within, and we let people select their focus areas."
Whether it's ADHD, Autism, or Parkinson's, the Formidable-powered filters allow patients and professionals to narrow down the list of occupational therapists.
Boost Directory SEO
"We said a directory is also no good if pages don't appear in search results if people are searching for therapists."
For OT Potential, it wasn't just about having a directory that people could easily search through. After all, that's no good if people aren't finding the directory. And that's where an SEO-friendly directory plugin is important.
Formidable's Directory plugin did exactly that. In minutes, it created SEO-friendly pages for each therapist ranked in Google. That way, they could reach the people they wanted to help and connect them with therapists.
"There's so many cases that we've heard back from people cause they might search for an occupational therapist specializing in Parkinson's in Detroit. And they do that Google Search and, boom, this person comes up in the top few results of Google. And that's so powerful."
The Impact: Connecting Therapists and Patients with Ease
Formidable Forms enabled OT Potential to build a powerful directory in minutes and help change the lives of therapists and patients.
The results speak for themselves:
✔ 530+ Active Therapists – Occupational therapists can now easily create and manage their profiles, giving patients a reliable resource for finding qualified professionals.
✔ 80,000+ Website Visits Per Year – The directory attracts thousands of visitors, helping more people connect with the right therapist.
✔ Seamless User Experience – Patients can quickly search, filter, and find the right OT without frustration, while therapists enjoy a hassle-free onboarding process.
These results wouldn't have been possible without the effort of those at OT Potential. But they point out how difficult it would've been without Formidable Forms. And that's immeasurable for them and the patients who have used their website for help.
"To see that the directory is there when somebody is searching and they could be in a really tough spot. Here's somebody you didn't even know was right next door to you; by using Formidable, they've found this practitioner who helped change their life or helped save their life, depending on the scenario."
Who is Formidable Right For?
"Certainly if you're looking to build a directory, we've found great success with it."
From the pre-built directory templates to the drag and drop form editor to front-end entry editing, Formidable Forms is the only solution that can handle every aspect of a directory (and more).
And that's not us saying it. That's Mitchell himself.
And OT Potential is just one example of the incredible things you can build with Formidable Forms. So, be sure to check out our complete list of case studies for the full "potential" of your own site 😉.
Ready to Build Something Amazing?
OT Potential’s success proves that the right tools can turn big ideas into reality. Using Formidable Forms, they created a powerful user directory that continues to connect therapists and patients easily.
Whether you're building a directory, membership site, or any custom application, Formidable Forms allows you to bring your vision to life without needing custom development.
Ready to build something amazing? Get started with Formidable Forms today and see what you can create.
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