Get found by the clients you are trained to help.
Standard local SEO advice starts with asking clients for reviews. Your ethics code bars soliciting testimonials from current clients. Therapist SEO works differently, and the practices that know it rank on the strength of their pages instead.
5.0 on Google from 12 reviewsFree scan of your Google listing. No sign-up to see the result.
The real problem
Why doesn’t normal local SEO work for therapists?
Generic SEO advice asks you to do the one thing your ethics code rules out.
For a plumber or a dentist, reviews are one of the biggest levers on Google. For a therapist, soliciting testimonials from current clients is an ethics problem, and a public review can reveal that someone is in therapy. So the lever everyone else pulls is mostly off the table.
That shifts the weight onto what you control: a Google Business Profile that is complete and accurate, and a site with a real page for each specialty and population you work with. Someone searching for an anxiety therapist or couples counseling in Spanish is looking for a specific fit, and the page that describes that fit is the one they call.
Privacy matters on the site too. A contact form that asks why someone is reaching out is collecting sensitive information, and marketing pixels on those pages can send it to ad platforms. We keep forms minimal and keep tracking off the pages where it does not belong.
Where clients come from
Directory profile or your own site
A directory profile alone
- You sit in a list beside every therapist nearby
- A monthly fee to stay listed
- One short bio for every specialty you offer
- The page and its ranking belong to the directory
Your own site, alongside the directory
- A page for each specialty and population you serve
- Your approach in your own words, at the length it needs
- Forms built to collect as little as possible
- The pages and the ranking stay yours
- review requests to clients, by design
- 0
- per specialty you want more of
- 1 page
- forms and no ad pixels on sensitive pages
- Minimal
What does SEO for therapists include?
Built around what your profession allows, not a generic checklist.
01
Google Business Profile
The right category, your specialties, insurance and telehealth details, so you show in the map pack for therapy near the searcher.
02
Specialty pages
Anxiety, trauma, couples, teens, grief. One page per specialty you want more clients in, written for the person deciding whether to reach out.
03
Fit before the first call
Your approach, fees, insurance and what a first session looks like. The client who knows what to expect is the one who books.
04
Privacy-safe contact
Short forms that do not ask for clinical details, and no advertising pixels on the pages where people describe why they are reaching out.
05
Spanish when your clients need it
For bilingual clinicians, real Spanish pages. Finding a therapist who speaks your language is its own search.
06
Measurement in consultations
Calls and consultation requests, not traffic charts. Rankings are shown only as a diagnostic.
Care and appointment businesses we have built for
No therapy practice yet. These are the same build for businesses where trust decides the booking, including a booking assistant tied to a real calendar.
Mama Bloom Walks Moms connecting through walks and wellness in Salinas. Events, tickets and answers moved out of direct messages and onto a site that handles them. 
Revive Beauty Bar Medical aesthetics in Salinas, rebuilt off WordPress as 226 pages in English and Spanish, with a bilingual AI concierge that knows every treatment and opens the right one in the booking cart. 
Jose Argueta, Teacher's Retirement Solutions A life insurance agent with a booking assistant wired into his real calendar. It offers times that exist, takes the booking in conversation, and files it to the CRM. Specific to therapy
Rules that change how a practice does SEO
Why the usual playbook does not fit, from the codes and regulators themselves.
- 01
No soliciting testimonials from clients
The APA, AAMFT and ACA codes all bar soliciting testimonials from current clients, and the ACA code extends it to former clients. So we never build a review ask into a practice.
Source: 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, C.3.b Testimonials - 02
Contact forms can be health information
HHS says that when tracking technology on a provider’s site captures what someone types or selects when making an appointment, such as the reason for seeking care, the HIPAA Rules apply. A federal court vacated part of that guidance in June 2024, so check with your compliance advisor. We keep forms short and pixels off those pages either way.
Source: HHS: Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities - 03
Mental health is a YMYL topic
Google’s rater guidelines name topics that could harm mental and emotional health as "Your Money or Your Life". Pages that show your license and training are the ones that meet that bar.
Source: Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines (Sept 11, 2025) - 04
Directories cost a monthly fee
Psychology Today’s listing is a fixed monthly fee. It is worth having beside your own site; it just should not be the only place you can be found.
Source: Psychology Today: Join
+3 Sources
- APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists, Standard 5.05 apa.org "Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence."
- 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, C.3.b Testimonials counseling.org "Counselors who use testimonials do not solicit them from current clients, former clients, or any other persons who may be vulnerable to undue influence."
- AAMFT Code of Ethics, Standard 9.2 aamft.org "Marriage and family therapists do not solicit testimonials or endorsements from current clients or from other persons who are vulnerable to undue influence."
- HHS: Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities hhs.gov "On June 20, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order declaring unlawful and vacating a portion of this guidance document"
- Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines (Sept 11, 2025) static.googleusercontent.com "YMYL Health or Safety: Topics that could harm mental, physical, and emotional health, or any form of safety such as physical safety or safety online."
- Psychology Today: Join join.psychologytoday.com "Enjoy full benefits for $29.95/month."
Sources last checked November 2, 2026.
What does it cost?
$650 one time to set up your Google Business Profile properly, then $550 a month for managed Google SEO. Month to month, no long contract. A new or rebuilt website is priced separately.
Start here, once
Google Business Profile Optimization
- Categories, services and service area set right
- Photos, review link and QR code
- Listings cleaned up at the source
- Compliance check before Google does one
- Geo-grid tracking set up
Then every month
Managed Google SEO
- Keyword-led content, published every month
- Google Business Profile posts and management
- Review monitoring, kept on top of
- Rank tracking, so you watch the climb
- A monthly report in English or Spanish
Every package, with the numbers, is on the pricing page. See all pricing
How does therapist SEO work with us?
Fixed scope, clear order, and nothing that puts a client’s privacy at risk.
- 1
Scan what you have
Your Google profile, how you rank by specialty, your directory listings and your site. You keep the findings either way.
- 2
Complete the profile
With reviews limited, a complete and accurate profile carries more of the weight. It gets fixed first.
- 3
Build the specialty pages
Starting with the populations you most want to work with, in your voice and at your pace for review.
- 4
Make contact private
Short forms, no sensitive questions, no ad pixels where they do not belong.
- 5
Measure in consultations
Calls and consultation requests. If a page is not bringing the right clients, we change it.
5.0on Google from 12 reviews
Frequently asked
Making your practice the one Google shows when someone nearby searches for a therapist, a counselor or help with a specific concern. For a private practice it is mostly a complete Google Business Profile and real pages for each specialty you offer.
Ethics codes restrict soliciting testimonials from current clients, so we do not build a review ask into your practice. Your SEO is built so it does not depend on reviews.
Many therapists keep both. A directory brings people who are browsing a list; your own site brings people searching for your specialty and lets you explain your approach fully. Your site is the one you own.
It depends on what it collects and where it sends it. We build forms that ask only for a name and a way to reach you, and we keep advertising pixels off those pages. For anything clinical, use your practice management system’s secure intake.
Profile improvements can show in the map pack within a few weeks. Specialty pages usually take three to six months to rank, and they keep bringing the right clients once they do.
Yes. Our local work is Monterey County, but the profile and site work is done remotely, and telehealth practices can rank statewide pages for the states where they are licensed.
Find out what a new client sees when they search for you.
Free look at your Google listing and how you rank for your specialties, with no review campaign required.
- Spanish written, not translated
- 5-day starter turnaround
- Founder-built in Salinas
- Every number sourced
- Sub-2-second loads
- Owned by you, hosted by us
- Built around your booked job
- One playbook, every city
- Spanish written, not translated
- 5-day starter turnaround
- Founder-built in Salinas
- Every number sourced
- Sub-2-second loads
- Owned by you, hosted by us
- Built around your booked job
- One playbook, every city