Insights

What actually gets therapists found

Practical, hype-free guidance from the audits I run and the sites I build. There are no secret tricks. There are basics that most practices skip, and they're all fixable.

This is general information from my own work and reading, not legal or clinical advice. Rules differ by state and licensing board, and they change. When in doubt, check with your board or a lawyer.

1

Your Psychology Today profile

For many practices this is where most new clients come from, and it's the thing most therapists write once and never touch again.

Open with the client's experience, not your credentials

Your first two sentences do most of the work. They're what shows in the directory listing before anyone clicks, and they're what a tired, anxious person reads at eleven at night. "You're exhausted from holding everything together, and you're not sure how much longer you can" earns a click. "Licensed clinical social worker with twelve years of experience" is true and important, but it belongs in sentence four.

Specific specialties beat long lists

The directory lets you tick dozens of issues. Resist it. Choose three to five you genuinely do best and describe them in your statement. In a long results page, generalists blend together; "I work with new parents who feel like they've lost themselves" stands out to the one person it's for.

A clear, warm photo

Well lit, face visible, looking at the camera, dressed the way you'd dress for a session. People choose therapists they can picture talking to. A phone photo taken by a friend in good daylight beats an old studio headshot.

Fill in fees, insurance and availability

Say whether you're accepting new clients, whether you offer telehealth, what you charge and which plans you take. Blank fields make people assume the worst, and they'll move to the next profile rather than call to ask.

End with one clear next step

"Call or email me for a free 15-minute consultation" and a working website link. Check the link. In audits, it's broken or points at an old site more often than you'd expect.

Update it

Psychology Today doesn't publish how it orders results, so I won't claim that updating boosts your ranking. What I can say is that an out-of-date profile loses clients regardless: wrong availability means missed calls, and an old photo or fee creates an awkward first conversation. Put a reminder in your calendar every few months.

2

Google Business Profile basics

When someone searches "therapist near me", the map results at the top come from Google Business Profiles. It's free, and most practices either haven't claimed theirs or set it up once with the wrong details.

  • Claim and verify it. Search your practice name on Google Maps. If a listing exists, claim it; if not, create one. Verification is usually by postcard, phone or video.
  • Choose the most specific primary category. "Psychotherapist", "Counselor", "Mental health service" or "Marriage or relationship counselor", depending on what you actually do. Category is one of the strongest signals Google uses for local results, and a generic one like "Health consultant" works against you.
  • Keep your name, address and phone consistent everywhere. Your website, Psychology Today, your board listing and any other directory should match exactly. Use your real practice name, not a keyword-stuffed one; Google can suspend listings for that.
  • Home office? Hide the address. Google's guidelines allow a business that doesn't see customers at its address to hide the street address and list a service area instead, for example Salt Lake County. You still show up in local results, and your home stays private. Telehealth-only practices should do the same.
  • Add a few real photos. Your office, the waiting room, the building entrance, and you. Listings with photos get more clicks, and clients feel calmer walking in somewhere they've already seen.
  • Keep hours accurate and post occasionally. A short post every month or two ("Now accepting new clients for evening telehealth") keeps the listing current. It doesn't need to be clever.
  • Be careful with reviews. Google will nudge you to ask for them. For therapists, asking clients for reviews raises the same ethical problem as testimonials (see below). If someone leaves one on their own, most guidance says to respond, if at all, in a way that doesn't confirm they were a client.

3

Local SEO basics

Search engine optimisation for a small practice is not complicated, but it is slow. Expect months, not weeks. The work is mostly about making it obvious to Google, and to people, what you do and where.

One page per core specialty

A single "Services" page listing eight issues competes poorly against a practice with a dedicated page for each. Give your three to five main specialties their own page: who it's for, how you help, what to expect, and a clear next step. Three to six hundred honest words is plenty. Don't write pages for things you don't actually treat.

Put your city in titles and headings where it reads naturally

"Anxiety Therapy in Salt Lake City | Cedar Hollow Counseling" tells both Google and the reader exactly what the page is. Once in the title, once in the main heading and once or twice in the text is enough. Repeating "Salt Lake City therapist" twenty times reads as spam to everyone.

Fast, mobile-first pages

Most therapy searches happen on a phone, often late at night. Pages built with heavy page builders, uncompressed photos and a dozen plugins load slowly and rank worse. A plain, light site usually beats an elaborate one.

Contact details on every page

Your phone number as a tappable link, your email, and your city, in the footer of every page. It helps people, and it reinforces the consistency Google looks for.

What to avoid

Anyone who guarantees you a first-page ranking, sells you "backlink packages", or wants to write dozens of near-identical pages for every suburb. These tactics range from useless to harmful, and the harm can take a year to undo.

4

Ethics-aware marketing

Therapists have constraints that other small businesses don't, and most marketing advice ignores them. This is the part I care about most.

Don't solicit testimonials or reviews

Several professional codes restrict this directly. The ACA Code of Ethics tells counselors not to solicit testimonials from current clients or former clients who may be vulnerable to undue influence, and the American Psychological Association's code has a similar rule. The reasoning is the power difference in the relationship and the client's privacy. Check your own code and your state rules, and when in doubt, don't ask. Your writing, your profile and a free consultation can do the job testimonials do for other businesses. You can even say on your site why there are none; it reads as integrity.

No guarantees

"Overcome anxiety in eight sessions" is the kind of claim licensing boards treat as misleading advertising, and it isn't true anyway. Describe your approach, be honest about timelines, and let the specificity do the persuading.

HIPAA and your website

A standard website contact form or your regular email inbox usually isn't covered by a business associate agreement, which means it isn't the place for protected health information. Keep forms minimal (name, contact details, preferred reply method), say plainly "please don't include health details", and use a HIPAA-compliant scheduling or intake tool, with a signed BAA, for anything clinical. Never load client email addresses into a newsletter tool or an ad platform's audience feature.

Go easy on tracking

Federal regulators have raised concerns about tracking technologies on health care websites, and the legal picture has been contested in court. The practical advice holds either way: keep analytics minimal, prefer a privacy-friendly tool over a full ad-tech stack, and don't put advertising pixels on pages where someone might disclose something about their health.

Say exactly what you are

State the credential you hold and nothing more. If you're an associate or intern under supervision, say so and name your supervisor where your board requires it. It's the law, and it's also the behaviour clients are trusting you for. I hold myself to the same standard: I'm a counselor in training, and I say so on every page of this site.

5

Compliance must-haves

  • Good Faith Estimate notice. Under the federal No Surprises Act, providers must give uninsured and self-pay clients a written estimate of expected costs, and must post a notice of that right. Put the notice on your fees page where it's relevant, and give the estimate before the first session.
  • Crisis information. "If you are in crisis, call or text 988" in the footer, and a line on your contact page saying the form isn't monitored for emergencies. It protects clients and it protects you.
  • Accessibility. Text with enough contrast against its background (the common target is a 4.5:1 ratio for body text), alt text on images, menus that work with a keyboard, and type that's readable without zooming. It's the right thing, it reduces legal risk, and it quietly helps your search ranking too.
  • Telehealth licensure limits. You can generally only see clients who are physically located in a state where you hold a license, even if they're only travelling. Interstate compacts are changing this gradually, and they vary by profession and state. Say on your site which states you can see clients in.
  • Privacy basics. Link to your Notice of Privacy Practices, and have a short website privacy policy if you use any analytics or forms.

Free audit

What I look at in a free audit

When you request a free audit, I go through your Psychology Today profile and Google listing with this list and send you the three fixes that will make the biggest difference. Most of them you can do yourself in an hour.

  • Your first two sentences: do they speak to the client's experience, or to your résumé?
  • Specialties: are they specific enough to stand out, or a list of everything?
  • Your photo: clear, warm, recent?
  • Fees, insurance, telehealth and availability: all filled in and current?
  • Your call to action and website link: clear, and working?
  • Google Business Profile: claimed, right category, consistent details, hours and photos?
  • Your website on a phone: readable, fast, with a tappable phone number on every page?
  • The must-haves: Good Faith Estimate notice, 988 line, telehealth note?

Get my free audit

Want to see all of this put together? Browse the sample therapist website and turn on the "Why this works" notes.

Find out what's keeping clients from finding you

Get a free review of your Psychology Today profile and Google listing: 3 specific fixes you can make yourself, no strings attached.

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