SEO for Therapists: Guide to Better Keyword Rankings

Time to read: 8 minutes

It’s Time to Lend a Caring Hand to Your Therapist SEO Approach

We know that as a therapist, you are skilled in showing empathy, expertise, and genuine care for your patients. 84% of people looking for healthcare go online to look for providers, so if search engines don’t know you exist, neither do your future clients. That’s where an effective healthcare SEO strategy comes in.

As a therapist, your SEO strategies should be centered around generating traffic from potential patients to your local profiles and website and having curated, helpful content on your website that can entice these visitors to inquire about your therapy services.

But many therapists might create a website and a Psychology Today profile and call it a day. This, sadly, is not enough to help your practice grow. Luckily for you, our therapist SEO agency is here to help guide you on what tactics will actually move the needle for your practice.

SEO Strategies for Therapists to Help Grow Your Practice

With that said, if you are exploring marketing your practice online, here are some strategic approaches to search engine optimization you should be mindful of.

Insightful Keyword Targeting & Helpful Content

If you don’t know, keywords are a core pillar of SEO, as they help search engines understand what your page is about and rank your web pages accordingly based on what a user is searching for. And for people using conversational AI, these platforms also scan the web to gather information to help the user: two birds, one stone. There are two types of keywords you should be targeting: high-intent service terms and top-of-funnel long-tail terms. Let’s go over the two:

Service-Related Therapist Terms

For example, if you are a behavioral therapist, keywords you would specifically target on your key pages would be a healthy mix of terms, some with local intent, such as:

• Behavioral therapist in [city]
• Behavioral therapy services
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• cognitive behavioral therapists near me
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
• Behavioral therapist who accepts [insurance]
• Virtual DPT providers

Long-Tail Therapy Queries

Long-tail terms are longer, more detailed search queries that often have lower search volume due to being ultra-specific, but they target people who are in the beginning stages of their mental health journey.

These aren’t terms you’d likely want to target on your main pages (homepage, service pages, location pages), but rather on your blog. Not to mention, very informative and detailed articles can also help you get more backlinks to your site if you can get your content to rank.

Some examples of blog content therapists can write would be:

• When do you know you need to see a psychiatrist?
• # Differences between cognitive and dialectical therapy
• Small ways to help your mental health every day
• Having an anxiety attack? # Methods to self-regulate
• # Places to go in [city] to clear your mind

Not only is the copy on your website important for search engines, but it can also make or break a potential patient from reaching out. Google rewards websites that make content that is made for humans. So take time to step back and review your content from a patient’s point of view and ask yourself questions such as:

• Does the content provide a good description of the topic?
• Is the area you serve easily identified in your copy?
• Do you show proof of trust, such as certifications, awards, and testimonials?
• Is helpful information, such as insurance, well-linked in your copy?
• Do the headings or page titles summarize the content?
• Is the content written by someone who has proof of expertise and experience in the subject?
• Does your copy provide value in comparison to other pages in search results?
• Do users have an easy reading experience, such as minimal white space and a good mix of text, graphics, and calls-to-action?

Local SEO Factors Therapists Need to Keep in Mind

If you’re a therapist who offers in-person sessions, doing localized SEO strategies is vital to connecting with customers in your immediate area. And when people search for mental health services near them, you’d want your business to show up, right?

Something you should be tracking closely is your practice’s positioning in the local 3-pack on Google, which is a type of result that shows for queries that Google believes have local intent behind them. You’ve likely seen it before when you’re searching yourself; it looks like this:

#1 Way to Get in the Local Pack: Have a Great Google Business Profile

To show up in the local pack, you will need a Google Business Profile, and the best part is that they are free to create!

To create one, you will need a legitimate address in your local area to verify your profile. However, you can use your private address to make a profile, but just be sure to check the option to hide your address. These are what are called service area businesses (SABs), and instead of a pin marker on maps, Google will show a red-outlined service area that you designate.

Note: Google uses proximity heavily when it comes to ranking. Your exact location, even when you hide your address, is taken into account. So please keep in mind it can be tougher to rank outside of a 5-mile radius, especially if there is a lot of competition in your area!

Choosing Your Main GBP Category

The main category you select is one of the top factors for ranking. You can add up to 10 categories, but only one can serve as your main choice. If you are unsure which main category correlates with your niche therapy offering, do some competitor research by manually looking at what other practices Google chooses to show for the keywords you’re targeting.

Here are the relevant category options therapists should consider adding, if applicable:

The Importance of Google Business Profiles

“As a therapist, your GBP acts like an extension of your website and, in some cases, you have to think of the profile like it really is its own website. We fully optimize the GBP the way you would your site, add posts on a regular basis, create Q+As, respond to reviews, and consistently update it with photos and videos. For many people in local search environments, they’ll call you without ever even going to your website, so make sure to give them a reason to reach out.” – Steve DiMatteo, Senior SEO Strategist

Therapists Can’t Ignore Building Authority with Links, Either

Your website and Google Business Profile can be optimized to the moon and back, but it can mean nothing if you have no other proof of trustworthiness and authority in the eyes of search engines.

This is where link building comes in. This is a popular SEO tactic that involves getting your website linked from relevant websites. Back in the day, anyone could go buy 100s of links and call it a day. Now, it’s not as simple, but not all is lost. Here are some link-building approaches therapists should consider:

• Leverage healthcare directories – Be sure you are listed on national and local directories that showcase therapists, like Healthgrades, TherapyDen, Zencare, and Psychology Today, to gain backlinks and improve visibility for potential clients. You should also ensure you are listed on hyper-local directories that users might go to, like Yelp. Not only can these help with links, but mentions of these websites are also often observed by AI platforms and can help your chances of getting recommended.
• Offer expert insights – Participate in interviews, provide quotes for articles, or contribute to local news features to showcase your expertise. You can also reach out to mental health blogs or websites to share your expertise and earn links. However, if you’d rather have opportunities sent right to your inbox, we recommend signing up for SOS, HARO, and Qwoted, which are all really great, free digital PR platforms.
• Create valuable content – As we mentioned earlier, if you write great content and it ranks well, you yourself can become a reputable source that other publications link to. This is an organic link building strategy that can do wonders for you because it can do the heavy lifting of asking for links for you. Publish mental health tips, guides, or resources that others will naturally want to link to.

Keep Expanding Your Mind on Local SEO Strategies

If you want to keep learning about different types of SEO, methods to try, and things you can do to make your website its best, we’ve hand-selected a few other articles to help:

• Understanding Proximity in Local Search
• How ABA Therapists Can Dominate Your Local Market
• Does Reporting Google Maps Spam Really Work?
• Local SEO: Key Facts and Statistics to Know

And better yet, if you are in need of SEO services for your health practice, we’d love to help.

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