What if your lead generation could happen on auto-pilot? What if you could take a step back from social media and allow your clients to find you when they need you? With SEO, that’s exactly what happens.
SEO is an organic marketing strategy that relies on techniques and strategies to drive qualified, aligned clients to your website. It’s something that all businesses can implement — including yours!
If your goal is to focus more on your client care and less on client acquisition, SEO is for you. In this guide, I’ll share why therapists need an SEO strategy, common SEO mistakes to avoid, tips to help you reach more clients, the power of the right keywords, and a simplified content strategy to get you started.
Here’s everything you need to grow your practice using SEO!
What to Expect From SEO as a Therapist
All businesses need an SEO strategy, but the primary goal of SEO for therapists is to attract more aligned leads to their websites. It’s not solely about generating more traffic but also increasing the conversion rate of people who DO find you through search engines like Google.
But SEO won’t only generate more traffic and leads, it’s also great for building brand awareness and trust. For example, a recent survey showed that about 74% of consumers feel that positive Google reviews help them trust a business more.
Still, it’s important to note that SEO takes time to work, anywhere from 3-12 months depending on your current SEO health and how your practice currently shows up on Google — if it does at all.
SEO helps improve your visibility online. When potential clients search “counseling services near me” or “therapist near me,” SEO is what allows your practice to appear at the top of those results.
5 Ways to Increase Your Clientele as a Therapist Using SEO
Now that we’ve covered what SEO can do for your practice, let’s break down how to do it. Start by focusing on just a few aspects of SEO — it can become very overwhelming if you try to do too much too fast.
Here are four tips to get started:
#1. Choosing the Right Keywords for Therapists
Lucky for you, you can be really specific with your keywords because you potentially have multiple areas of specialization. The more specific you can be, the better traffic you’ll earn. You’re telling Google and the users who you serve.
There are millions of combinations, and each therapist is unique. Consider how you can describe what you do and who you serve. I recommend using SEO tools to research and analyze your keywords. Tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest provide data on search volume, competition, and related keywords.
When picking keywords, therapists should use mostly long-tail keywords with a couple of short-tail keywords mixed in. Long-tail keywords have less competition and are easier to rank for, but short-tail keywords have more people searching for those terms.
Here are a few examples of long-tail keywords you can consider using:
- Marriage counseling services in (city)
- Grief counseling for parents who lost a child
- Eating disorder counseling for teens
- Career counseling for women in (city)
- Anxiety counseling (city)
- Counseling for depression in (city)
Did you notice how specific those keywords are? There’s no chance someone would accidentally end up on your website. They know exactly what they’re looking for and are confident you can help them.
#2. Local SEO for Therapists
As a therapist, it’s important to take advantage of local SEO and the best way to do this is to incorporate local keywords (keywords specific to your location/state/city). You can add these in your copy, images, and metadata.
But the use of local keywords isn’t the only way to improve your local SEO, you can also improve it by setting up and optimizing your Google My Business account. They often appear as the right-hand sidebar in a search, as you can see below:
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Your Google My Business listing is technically a Google directory listing, meaning it includes all your business information such as contact information, business description, customer reviews, photos, maps for local offices, and social media profiles.
This makes it easy for someone to learn about your practice and contact you. It’s also great for learning more about the clients you’re currently serving. GMB provides insights into how clients find your business, where they’re located, and what actions they take.
#3. Website Performance
Did you know how your website is built can impact your SEO? Or the way your audience navigates and experiences your website can affect it too? This is where improving your technical SEO — or website performance — can really make a difference.
Your website should always be easy to navigate for your audience and Google. This means having a website designed for easy conversions and built using SEO best practices related to things like page loading speed, text structure (H1, H2s, paragraphs, etc.), fixing broken links, and submitting your sitemap.
#4. Website Content
A strong content strategy is crucial for your therapy practice. A lot of people do extensive research to find the right therapist for them. If you can answer their questions and provide value before they even reach out to you, you’re establishing yourself as an expert in your industry and someone they can trust.
You’ll be the first therapist that comes to mind when they’re ready to make an appointment if you can prove you’re qualified to help them. It might feel weird creating blog content when you first get started, but here are a few good topics or ideas to explore:
- Explanation of different counseling approaches
- Tips to manage mental health disorders (depression, anxiety, stress, PTSD, etc.)
- Guidance on navigating relationships
- Understanding mental health disorders
- Parenting tips
- Coping with grief and loss
- Practicing mindfulness
- Navigating life transitions
- Confidence tips
- What therapy is like
Still, your content isn’t limited to your blog posts, it also includes the copy on your web pages. Your web copy and other aspects of your on-page can impact your SEO performance. Any page with copy or content on it should consist of at least 300 words, be aligned with your keywords, and speak directly to your clients.
#5. Build Backlinks!
Backlinks are links from other websites that direct traffic to your website. They’re super important to improve your SEO ranking. It’s showing Google other people think your website is valuable.
Backlinks are typically underutilized by therapists because they tend to go hand in hand with PR. Still, there are plenty of ways to start building high-quality backlinks without a huge time commitment, like joining directories.
You can also build backlinks by:
- Create high-quality, shareable content that other people will want to link to.
- Guest post on reputable websites in the mental health field and include a link back to your website in your author bio or within the content (you can find a directory of guest posting opportunities here).
- Participate in online forums, discussions, and social media groups related to counseling and mental health, and share your expertise while including links to your website when appropriate.
If you want to know how many backlinks you currently have, you can use an SEO tool like Mangools, Moz, or Semrush, or by checking directly in your Google Search Console.
How to Know If Your SEO is Working for Your Counseling Practice
While SEO does take time to show significant results, you should be able to start seeing small changes in your Google Search Console in just a few months — sometimes even days. Checking in on how your SEO efforts are paying off is important to make sure your strategy is the right one.
Once you get comfortable reading your analytics, you can start making more adjustments to your strategy, finding more content and keyword ideas, and making more informed decisions about how your practice shows up online.
If you want to skip the guesswork and have a strategy that works for you, book an SEO health check or audit to see (and fix) any underlying issues that may be impacting your performance and utilize a strategy designed for you.
About Âme Creatives
I’m Kelli, an SEO Strategist & Showit Web Designer — I’m on a mission to help female entrepreneurs (like you) have a purpose-driven, strategically optimized website that helps you be SEEN, HEARD, and PAID. It’s about more than just pretty websites, keywords, and first-page status; it’s about giving your brand the spotlight it deserves by bringing in your ideal audience organically. Ready to take the next step? Send me a message!
