SEO for therapists and counsellors · Canada and the USA
SEO means getting your practice to show up when people search. We put therapists at the top of Google Maps, Google search and AI answers for the searches people make when they’re ready to book: couples therapy, anxiety, trauma, and plain “therapist near me”. Solo practice or a team of ten.
GuaranteePage one in 60 days, or we work free.
30 minutes on Google Meet. For practices doing $20k a month or more.
Shoreside Therapies
Client result: six searches it didn’t show up for on 10 March 2026, all ranking by 30 March. “marriage counseling near me” went to #1. The × means not ranking.
A practice we rank
Shoreside Therapies is a therapy practice in Glendale, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee. On March 10 it didn’t show up on Google for “marriage counseling near me”. On March 30 it was first.
Shoreside Therapies · Glendale, WI
Google searchPositions in Google’s normal results, as our ranking tool recorded them on March 10 and March 30, 2026.
Read the Shoreside case studySame practice
Google Maps
Someone who types this knows exactly who they want to talk to. Shoreside is the first name they see.
The tracking tool
These are straight from Ahrefs, the tool that tracks where a website sits on Google for each search. We cut each one down to the search, the position and the change, so you can read it on a phone.
What it is
SEO for therapists is the work that puts your practice near the top of Google, Google Maps and AI answers when someone looks for help, without paying for each click. It covers your website pages, your Google Business Profile, your reviews and the other sites that mention you.
What people type
“Therapist near me” is the big one. But plenty of people type the problem or the kind of therapy they want, and a different practice wins each of those.
Every month in the USA
368,000
searches for “therapist near me”. On a phone, the first screen shows only a handful of names.
The first screen on a phone
Source: Google Ads monthly search estimates for the USA, pulled October 2026.
Searches a month, USA
Add a town or a specialty to any of these and it becomes a new search with its own top three. That’s why every kind of therapy you want more clients for gets its own page.
Counselor near me
60,500
90,500
Searches a month in the quietest and the busiest month of the last year. People reach out in waves. Your page has to be ranking before the wave, not after it.
Couples therapy near me
40,500
60,500
Same swing for couples. When more people go looking, the practices already at the top are the ones they find.
All figures: Google Ads monthly search estimates for the USA, pulled October 2026.
Your title
People don’t all search for “therapist”. They use the title they know, the problem they have, or the kind of therapy they want. Your pages should use the words that match your licence and your clients.
Therapist
“therapist near me”
The everyday word, used whatever your licence says.
Counselor or counsellor
“counselor near me”
Common for licensed professional counselors. In Canada, spelled counsellor.
Psychologist
“psychologist near me”
Only if you hold the licence. People searching it often want testing or assessment too.
Marriage and family therapist
“marriage counseling near me”
People search the problem: marriage, couples, family. That’s how Shoreside won its #1.
Psychotherapist
“psychotherapists near me”
Used more in Canada and by people who already know the word.
Clinical social worker
“therapist for anxiety”
Few people search the title. Rank for the kinds of help you give instead.
Example searches for each title. Search numbers for the biggest ones are further up this page.
Where to start
A practice can’t win every search at once, so the order matters. Start with the searches closest to the people you already help best, then widen out.
How people choose a therapist
Reaching out to a therapist is a big step. People take it alone, usually after hours, and they choose the practice that makes them feel understood before the first call.
They type “therapist near me” or “female therapist near me” and look at the map. A few names, a few stars, a few photos. Won by: a Google Maps listing near the top, for the practice and for each therapist in it.
They know what’s wrong, or what kind of help they want. “Anxiety therapist.” “Couples therapy” and their town. They open a few pages and read. Won by: a page for that kind of therapy that says who you help, what a first session is like, your fees, and whether you see people online.
A doctor, a friend or a directory gave them your name. They search it before they reach out, or ask ChatGPT who’s good nearby. Won by: your name owning the first page about you, and showing up in AI answers.
What we do
We work on the three places people look: Google Maps, the normal Google results and AI answers in ChatGPT and Google. Start with Google Maps or the normal Google results, or run both. AI answers come with every plan. We weight the work to the clients you most want to see.
The free listing that puts you on the map, with your hours, photos and reviews. We set it up for how your practice actually works: the right categories, every service from couples work to trauma, online sessions if you offer them. In a group practice, each therapist who sees clients there can often have a listing too, so one practice can show up as more than one name on the map. Reviews are one thing Google weighs, and in therapy they’re a judgement call, so your plan never rests on them. Google also weighs how well your listing and pages match the search and how often trusted sites mention you. We work on all of it.
One group practice, on the map
Your Practice
Counselling service
Dr. A. Rivera
Psychologist
J. Chen, LMFT
Family counselor
An illustration. Names are examples.
A services page with one line per specialty has little to show for any single search. So each one gets a page of its own, written in the words people actually type, for the person who needs it.
What one specialty page holds
Couples therapy in [town]
Your clients don’t all live on your street, and if you see people online they may be across the state or province. A page for each town or area you want clients from, so you show up when someone types their own town.
Nobody tells a stranger their story on a hunch. We put your licence, your training, your approach and your fees where people look for them, keep your practice name, address and phone the same on every directory, and get you mentioned on sites people already trust.
People now ask ChatGPT and Google’s AI who to see. We work on getting your practice named in those answers for your area and your specialties, and show you where you’re named.
“Who’s a good couples therapist near me with evening appointments?”
A few well regarded practices in your area: Your Practice …
Google’s rules for therapy practices
Two of Google’s rules for therapy. Both point to the free map.
A listing for the practice. And one for each therapist.
A group of five can be six names a client might find. We set every one up to Google’s rules as written today.
Source: Google Business Profile Help, “Guidelines for representing your business on Google”, read October 2026.
Mental health ads can’t follow people around.
Google treats counselling for things like anxiety and depression as sensitive. Those ads can’t be aimed at:
The free map listings and results under the ads have none of these limits. That’s where we put you.
Source: Google Ads Help, “Health in personalized advertising”, read October 2026.
Ads stop when the budget does. A top map ranking doesn’t.
Directories
Directories are worth keeping. But a directory profile puts you on a page next to every other therapist in town, and the client compares you there. Your own page on Google sends them to you and nobody else.
Directory profile
Your page on Google
Where the client lands
A list of therapists, yours among them
Your page, about your practice only
Who it belongs to
The directory
You
What it costs you
A listing fee, for as long as you’re listed
The work to rank it, then it keeps working
What it does for Google
One mention of your practice on a trusted site
The page Google shows for your searches
Reviews and privacy
Carefully, because two sets of rules apply. Counseling ethics limit asking clients for testimonials, and US health privacy law limits what you can say in a reply. Your rankings don’t need to rest on reviews, so we never build a plan that does.
Ethics
“Counselors who use testimonials do not solicit them from current clients, former clients, or any other persons who may be vulnerable to undue influence.”
American Counseling Association, 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, standard C.3.b. Other professions have their own codes: check yours.
Privacy
A reply to a review can break privacy law.
The US Department of Health and Human Services has reached an agreement with a New Jersey health care provider that disclosed patient information in its replies to negative online reviews.
Source: hhs.gov, HIPAA resolution agreements.
Your website
Beyond one page for each kind of therapy, these are the pages people look for before they reach out. Each one answers a search and a worry.
Insurance and fees
“therapist that takes aetna”
One page per insurer you’re in network with, plus your self-pay fee, sliding scale and superbills, in plain numbers.
Online therapy
“online therapist [state]”
Which states or provinces you’re licensed to see people in, and how a video session works.
Each therapist
“[name] therapist”
A page per clinician: photo, who they help, how they work, credentials. People search the name before they reach out.
Each office
“therapist [neighborhood]”
Address, parking, transit, accessibility, a photo of the door. One per location.
Your first session
“what to expect first therapy session”
What happens, how long, what to bring. It takes the fear out of the first step.
Getting started
“[practice name] contact”
How to reach you, how fast you reply, and online booking if you offer it. Short form, few fields.
Example searches for each page. Square brackets mean your own insurer, state, name or area.
What to write
Besides a page for each kind of help, a practice can answer the questions people search before they are ready to pick anyone. Each guide is a search to win, and each one ends with a link to the page for that kind of help.
Example titles. Square brackets mean your own town or state.
How to do it
If you want to start on your own, this is the order we work in. Each step is plain enough to hand to whoever runs your website.
List the searches you want to win
Every kind of help you give, with your town and the towns your clients live in. Each pair, like “couples therapy milwaukee”, is a search to win.
Fix your Google Business Profile
Right category for your licence, real address, hours, every service, online sessions if you offer them, real photos. Name, address and phone the same as your website.
Build one page per kind of help
Who it’s for in their words, how you work, what a first session is like, fees and insurance.
Add a page per therapist and per office
Real photos, credentials, who each one helps.
Make the next step easy
Fees in plain numbers, a short contact form, online booking if you use it, how soon you reply.
Get named on trusted sites
Directories, your professional association, local community groups, articles you write for local press.
Answer the questions people ask
What therapy costs, how long it takes, which kind fits which problem. These answers are what AI tools quote.
Check where you rank
Search your list from each area, or have us track it, and fix the pages that aren’t moving.
Other sites
Google trusts a practice more when other real websites in your area point to it. These mentions are called backlinks. You don’t need thousands, you need the right local ones.
What holds practices back
Three problems we see on therapy listings and websites again and again, besides the ones answered above. Each one is fixable.
“Jane Smith Anxiety Therapy Milwaukee”
“Jane Smith Counseling”, the name on your sign and website
Google’s rules say the name should be your real-world name. Adding extra information can get the profile suspended.
One profile for anxiety, one for couples, one for trauma
One profile, specialties described inside it
Google’s rules say a practitioner shouldn’t have a separate profile for each specialty. Each specialty gets a page on your website instead.
Old page addresses that now show “not found”
Every old address sent to its new page
A rebuild can wipe out years of rankings. Read our guide to redesigning without losing rankings before you start, or let us handle it with website migration SEO.
Source: Google Business Profile Help, “Guidelines for representing your business on Google”, read October 2026. Names are examples.
Prices
Our prices are on the website, and they’re the same across the US and Canada. Google Maps starts at $1,497 a month. Google rankings start at $2,697 a month. Both go up for multiple locations, multiple websites and complexity. AI answers come with every plan.
Google Maps
$1,497+
a month. Higher for multiple locations, websites and complexity.
For practices that want to be on the map for the people near each office.
Google rankings
$2,697+
a month. Higher for multiple locations, websites and complexity.
For practices that want each kind of therapy, and online sessions, on page one.
AI answers
Included
AI answers come with every plan.
Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT.
How long it takes
The map and your home town usually move first, then the other kinds of therapy and the other areas. Shoreside went from not ranking to #1 for “marriage counseling near me” in 20 days. Both of our promises are set out in full in our SEO guarantees.
01
Weeks 1 to 2
Profile fixed, searches listed, the biggest pages rewritten.
02
Weeks 3 to 8
Pages for each kind of therapy and each therapist built, first mentions on trusted sites.
03
Months 3 to 6
More kinds of therapy and more areas on page one, and the map reaching further out.
The usual order of work. Every practice starts from a different place.
AI answers
Yes. People now ask Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT which kind of therapy fits them and who offers it nearby, as well as searching the normal results. The same work that ranks your pages and your profile is what those tools read, so your SEO now pays off in more places.
Or start with our free AI Search Guide.
Before you sign
Five questions to ask any SEO company before you sign. Here are our answers.
Yes. Shoreside Therapies went from not ranking to #1 for “marriage counseling near me” between March 10 and March 30, 2026, and from #2 to #1 on Google Maps for “Therapist Near Glendale Wisconsin”. Both are above.
Two promises in writing, with dates on them. Both are set out in full in our SEO guarantees, further down this page. We confirm which searches they cover on the strategy call.
Your own account manager. Ask where you rank and you get a fast, straight answer, and the changes you ask for go live quickly.
Google Maps starts at $1,497 a month and Google rankings at $2,697 a month. The cost section above explains what moves the price, and our pricing page has the detail.
No. It’s included in every plan.
As seen in and rated on
Free reading
Everything here is free to read, with nothing to sign up for unless you want the download.
Plain English
The words you’ll hear from any SEO company, in one line each.
Search engine optimization: the work that gets your practice found on Google without paying per click.
Your free listing on Google Maps: name, address, hours, photos and reviews.
The map and the three practices under it at the top of a local search.
A page about one kind of help, like couples therapy or anxiety.
A site that lists many therapists, like Psychology Today. Useful, but shared with everyone else.
Links to your website from other websites. Real ones from trusted sites tell Google you’re known.
The US health privacy law. It limits what you can say about a client anywhere, including in review replies.
The written answers at the top of Google and in ChatGPT that name a few practices.
Across the US and Canada, online and in person. A few of the cities we work in, or see all locations:
Two promises, in writing.
Guarantee 01
20days
If you don’t see visible improvement in your key metrics within the first 20 days, we refund $200 on top of returning your payment for that period.
What we measure: your traffic, what that traffic is worth, how much authority your site and its pages carry, and how many other sites link to you, against the day we start.
Guarantee 02
60days
If your qualifying keywords aren’t on the first page of Google within 60 days, we keep working for free until they are.
What counts: at least one high-value search for your business on page one of Google.
No long-term contracts. Results keep you here. Paperwork doesn't.
Your next step
On a 30 minute call we look up what people in your area type to find a therapist, from couples therapy to anxiety, show you which practices they find today, and what it would take to put yours there.
Bring with you
We search your market live
The way your customers do, in the towns you serve.
We show who's above you, and why
On Google, on Maps and in the AI answers.
You leave with a road map
Yours to keep. If we can help, we'll invite you to work with us.
For established businesses doing at least $20,000 a month.
Questions
What therapists and practice owners ask us before they start.
Book my free strategy callKeep the referrals. But a referral still ends in a search: the person who was given your name looks you up before they reach out, and if what they find is thin, they keep looking. And the person with no referral picks from whoever shows up first.
Often, yes. Google’s rules let a public-facing practitioner have their own listing when clients can reach them at the verified location during stated hours. The practice keeps its own listing too, and each therapist’s listing carries only their name. A practice with one therapist uses one shared listing, named practice name, colon, therapist’s name. We set them up to Google’s current rules.
You can, with limits. Google treats mental health ads as sensitive, so you can’t aim them at your own client list, at lists of people who visited your website, or at lookalikes of either. The free map listings and results underneath the ads have no such limits, and they keep working between invoices.
Yes, if you want more clients for each. Each is a different search with different practices at the top, and someone choosing a therapist wants a page that speaks to their situation: who it’s for, what the first session is like, fees, online or in person. One line on a services page can’t do that.
No. Whether and how you ask is your call under your own professional rules. Reviews are one input Google weighs among many, so your plan doesn’t rest on them: how well your listing and pages match the search, how close you are to the person searching, and how well known your practice is across the web all count, and we work on all of it.
No. We don’t need any client information to do this work. Everything we change is public: your website, your Google listing and the other sites that mention your practice.
We do. We write your specialty pages, area pages and answers, and you check each one for clinical accuracy and your professional rules before it goes live. Your own words about how you work make the pages better, so we ask for them.
Access lets us make the changes ourselves, which is faster. If someone else runs your site, we hand them a clear list in plain words, page by page.
Yes. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, a custom site or a site that came with your practice software: the work is the same, only who presses the buttons changes.
It depends on whether clients can reach you there during the hours you state, which is how Google’s rules for practitioners are written. We check your setup against Google’s current rules before we touch your listing, so it’s set up in a way that lasts.
If clients are seen at both during set hours, yes: each office gets its own listing and its own page on your site. Our multi-location SEO page explains how we set that up without the two competing.
Not if it’s handled carefully. Your Google listing, your website and the directories that list you all need the new details at the same time, and old pages need to point to new ones. We plan the change before it happens.
Yes, in a group practice. People often choose the person before the practice: their training, their approach, who they see and when. A page per therapist answers that, and gives Google a page to show when someone searches that therapist’s name.
Only when each post answers a question your future clients actually search, in plain words, and links to the specialty page it belongs to. Posts written to fill a calendar rarely rank for anything.
No. The listing, the specialty pages and the area pages are built the same way for a new practice, and starting early means they’re ready as your name gets known. Broad searches in a big city take longer to win than one specialty in one town.
Both. We write the pages for how you actually work: the insurers you take, private-pay fees, sliding scale if you offer it. People search for those details, so stating them plainly helps.
You can see where each target search ranks, on Google and on the map, and every ranking is one you can search on Google yourself. Ask your account manager about any of it and get a fast, straight answer.
No. Other practices keep working on their listings, Google keeps changing what it shows, and your specialties and areas change. The first months build the listing and pages that should win. After that the work is new specialties, new areas, mentions on trusted sites and keeping what you’ve won.
You choose which specialties and areas we aim at, and we weight the work to them. If you want more couples work and less general counselling, the couples pages and searches come first.
No one honest can promise #1. We give two promises in writing, with dates on them, and both are set out in full in the “Our SEO guarantees” section on this page.
The work is for therapy and counselling practices, solo or group, doing $20,000 a month or more, in Canada or the USA. Very limited spots left for the month of October. We put a cap on clients we can take in to keep our promises.
