There are many, many benefits to being in private practice as a psychiatrist. Certainly, a huge benefit is that you’ll likely make more money. And, in private practice, you have the ability to take the time to get to know your patients. Additionally, there will be fewer patients who really don’t want to be there. In private practice, there is time and space for continuing education, collaboration, and, well, everything.

But you’re also a business owner now. Therefore, you have new responsibilities you haven’t had to worry about before. Among the many new tasks you’ll have as a business owner, you have to think about marketing. Because you can’t help patients if they can’t find you.

A Website is a Powerful Marketing Tool for Private Practice Psychiatrists

It’s important to meet patients where they are. And in today’s day in age, that’s often online. Because most of your patients are probably looking for help online, you need to have a presence there.

But the truth is that as a private pay psychiatrist, your website needs to do more than just show up. It needs to have the right design to attract your clients’ attention. And then, it needs the right content to help them understand the value you offer.

SEO Helps You Reach The Patients Who Need You

In private practice, you have more choice in who you take on as patients and who you refer elsewhere. You know your skillset better than anyone else. And you know the populations you not only work best with but also find joy in serving. You got into this field to help people and to make an impact on the world of mental health. And your ability to practice most effectively is impacted by the fulfillment you find in your work.

So no, it is not unethical to target populations you’d like to work with. In fact, it is most ethical to cater to a population you feel skilled to serve. Search engine optimization (SEO) allows you to target your ideal clients online, which is why SEO should be an essential part of your marketing strategy.

SEO Tips for Psychiatrists

Do Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of good SEO for most websites. But psychiatrists face a unique challenge. Most likely, you have two audiences: referral sources and potential patients. Both may be searching for different keywords. Therefore, it’s important to consider each audience when doing keyword research.

A good first step is to ask referral sources what they would search on Google when looking for a referral for a patient. Another good resource for keyword research is your existing patients. Take a look at your intake paperwork. Why are your clients coming to you for services? What are the trends among your patients’ concerns? This information can give great insight as to how your patients see themselves and their needs. In turn, indicating which keywords they would most likely search for online when looking for a psychiatrist, much like your potential clients you’ll be targeting on your website. The final keyword research opportunity is to use a keyword research tool. These can be extremely helpful, as they can help you find additional keywords you may not have even thought to track, but are frequently searched for in your area.

Popular Keywords for Psychiatrists

As a starting place, I’ll share some general keyword trends in the United States. However, know that it’s important to do your own keyword research for your specific area. As of April 1st, 2021, one of our keyword research tools, KWFinder, says the following keywords are searched for this number of times each month in the United States:

• Psychiatrist – 439,000
• Psychiatry Services – 2,200
• Psychiatric Medication – 2,500
• Medication for Depression – 8,5000
• Medication for Anxiety – 165,000

Once you’ve done your research, start to use keywords throughout your website.

Build Backlinks

Building backlinks is an essential part of a healthy SEO strategy. Backlinks refer to when someone sends a website user off of their website and onto yours using a link. When you work with other professionals in your community like therapists, primary care doctors, community nonprofits, or schools, you become a known and trusted name. Brainstorm entities and organizations that work with your ideal clients. These would be great relationships to form if they do not already exist.

Many large organizations have resource pages or directories on their websites. Here, you will find lists of businesses or professionals that a credible community organization supports. Typically, you can request to be put on a resource page or directory by emailing the organization or filling out a form. When your business gets listed on one of these pages, it shows both Google and website viewers that you are a quality resource to be trusted. However, there are many ways to build backlinks.

Create Individual Service Pages

Consider writing a service page for the specific types of psychiatry you really enjoy doing. Do you have specialized training in eating disorders? Then make sure you have a page on “Psychiatry for Eating Disorders.” Enjoy treating postpartum depression, anxiety, or OCD? It would make sense to have a service page on “Psychiatry for Moms.” Are many of your patients depressed? If so, create a “Medication for Depression” service page. We recommend that each of these pages have at least 500 words (2,000 is better if you’re up for writing that much!) of original content. Make great use of subheadings, include a direct call to action (Speak to a Psychiatrist About Your Depression in ______) and make sure to link to other pages of your site!

Blogging as a Psychiatrist

Blogging is an important part of a good SEO strategy. And there are many reasons to blog! Yes, search engine optimization is a key reason to blog because Google notices and likes consistently published fresh content. However, blogging also gives potential patients a sense of who you are, how you help people, and what being your patient would be like.

You may be thinking… “what do I write about?” Our SEO specialists recommend writing blog posts that answer typical questions your patients ask. You may also want to write blog posts talking about typical diagnoses you treat, but make it clear that a blog post can’t diagnose. Blogs can provide a wealth of information to patients about if you will be the best fit for their care.

Consider a Specific Page for Local Therapists & Primary Care Doctors

As a psychiatrist, the truth is that you have two audiences: potential referral sources and potential clients. Local therapists and primary care doctors who think their patients could benefit from your specialized knowledge about psychiatric medications will be looking for your services online. However, they are a very different audience than potential patients. These potential referral partners can handle a bit more technical jargon and will be asking specific questions. Therefore, we recommend you have a page on your site dedicated to these referral sources.

On the other hand, most of your content on your website needs to be targeted at your larger audience: potential patients. When these folks are finding your site, it’s probably not while they are at peak brain performance. Rather, it is most likely when they just had a panic attack, a breakdown, or at their wit’s end with their symptoms. They are probably scrambling to find help when they don’t know where else to turn. Likely, they’re looking for a psychiatrist during a quick lunch break or late at night when they can’t deal with insomnia any longer.

With that being said, as a psychiatrist, it’s essential that you have a page speaking directly to your hopeful professional referral sources. This page can be technical and you can speak as a professional. In regards to the rest of your website content, take into account what a “3 AM trauma brain” would be able to digest. Write for that state of mind. Your patients will appreciate it and likely find you very relatable.

Answer Common New Patient Questions

At Simplified SEO Consulting, we’ve found that FAQ pages are great for both your website viewers AND your SEO. Make a list of the questions new patients are likely to ask.  If you have someone who answers new patient inquiries for you, check in with them about those questions. Then, add a few more you get during that first session. Now, write a 1-2 paragraph response to each of those questions.

I encourage you not to base the questions you use off what questions someone else answered on their page or some stock FAQ page. Instead, think about what pages your ideal clients are asking. Remember, we care about SEO, but we also want your website to help your clients. We want them to see that you would be a great resource for them. That you get them, relate to them. These are the things that will bring them through your doors.

Are you a Private Pay Psychiatrist?

We strongly recommend private pay psychiatrists have content on their website directly addressing their status as private pay. Maybe write a series of blog posts on the top advantages of working with a psychiatrist who is private pay. It’s ok to get slightly personal about how much you value face-to-face time with clients. Or about how you want to work for clients instead of insurance companies.

It’s also important to have a fees page on your website. Now, it’s up to you if you publish your specific fees. We’ve seen many private pay psychiatrists who do. However, this page is also a great place to address your reasons for being private pay. And, you can do so in a way that highlights the benefits for clients.

Ready to get Serious About Your Website SEO?

At Simplified SEO Consulting, we specialize in helping private practice therapists get their websites ranking on Google. Not only that, we help them stay at the top of Google too. Our SEO Specialists are passionate about getting your site in front of the clients you enjoy working with because we know that a solid therapeutic relationship makes all the difference in the world of mental health. To learn more about Simplified SEO Consulting and how we can help you get ranking, follow the steps below.

1. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with us.
2. Meet with one of our SEO Specialists to learn more about our packages and process.
3. Get your website in front of your ideal patients!

SEO Services at Simplified

We offer a variety of services to help you along on your SEO journey. One of our most popular services is the Done For You SEO package. With this, you get to take a backseat while a skilled SEO Specialist takes point on your website’s SEO. On the other hand, we have DIY Online SEO Courses and a Done With You package if you’d like to become an SEO wizard yourself!

About the Author

Simplified’s founder, Jessica, and one of Simplified’s Mental Health SEO Specialists, Olivia, wrote this blog together. Both team members enjoy educating our clients about search engine optimization and how it can help private practices bring in clients that professionals are excited to work with!

What is Holistic SEO

Holistic SEO is a strategy that looks at all factors of optimization, and not just one aspect of it. The focus is based on user experience, content, and technical SEO. This is such a beneficial and necessary approach to SEO because it looks at the full picture rather than one aspect. Think about it this way, when you start a business, you may begin with an idea, but the idea itself doesn’t make the vision happen. You must address the marketing side, the website, clients, and creating client experience. You must also manage people and money. It takes a full picture to get your business thriving. In the same way, SEO focuses on the whole rather than a particular part. 

Important Factors to Consider with Holistic SEO?

As with everything, we will start from the beginning. Focus on the client. The client is the person we are looking for. They are the reason we are in the business. We want to help our clients, but how do we begin? Let’s go through and address various aspects of the holistic SEO approach. 

User Experience and SEO (UX SEO)

Here are some other important focus points for user experience. When it comes to keyword research, there are two focus points: what language is your client searching for, and what is the intent. It’s important to know your niche well and understand why people are searching for your therapy, coaching, or consultation services.

Part of writing content is making sure we are addressing the why and the reason someone would come into your practice. Content extends past service pages and blogs. Even in the Google search, we are giving people bit size pieces of what we offer. Therefore, optimizing for meta descriptions with pain points and keywords is important. A well-written meta description and title can bring people to your site. Another part of your meta description that needs to be optimized is your meta title. One way to go about doing this is to add the title, location, and zip codes, and maybe practice name if necessary. You can get great keywords into this and increase your traffic this way. An example would be:  EMDR therapy | Location and Zip | Practice Name. This varies based on what is best for your site. 

It’s also important to make sure your URL matches the page. Sometimes when creating new pages on your website, you may forget to look at what the URL states. In order to optimize for this, you must optimize the slug of your website. This may not seem important, but if your website says  (simplifiedseoconsulting/new-page) this isn’t appealing from a user experience standpoint.

In terms of on-page immediate user experience, we also want people to keep coming back to your site and see how your services can help them. One way is to create a memorable logo and make it evident that this is your brand. Then on the page, create quality content and making sure you have one H1 per page. As well as sections of text broken up into H2’s. Lastly, you will want to have a clear call to action which directs your clients to begin services. 

Keyword Research (what are they using)

User experience is all about focusing on the user. It’s kind of like how you are greeted in a restaurant or the experience your clients have in your office. First impressions are matter. This is not simply about appeasing the Google bots, but about acknowledging how your client gets from point A to point B. First, consider keyword research and searcher language. We want to know what your clients are searching for, what is most commonly searched, and the language your clients typically use.

For example, if you’re expecting clients to type in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, it’s highly unlikely, however, it’s still a good key term to rank for. It is more likely clients are searching for EMDR. Such as what is EMDR? Does it work online?

Likewise, someone is less likely to search for dealing with trauma, and more likely to talk about feeling stuck, or experiencing recurring memories that don’t go away. Just as in therapy, you don’t always say what is really going on directly, the same principle applies as you consider what your clients are searching for to get to you. So as you build out content. If you can answer these questions in blogs, service pages, or FAQ’s, Google is going to see that you have the answer and ranking you up higher when someone is searching for this query. So listen to your current clients and let that lead you toward potentially keyword searches.

Technical SEO (broken links, slow loading, scrolling, or cluttered content)

Technical SEO is a big part of on-page optimization. In order for Google to crawl a site and increase your Google rankings, there are both on and off-page optimization elements that need to be addressed. The Google bots, who are designed to check for any changes on your page are the functions we are trying to optimize for. These bots check out your site either naturally every few weeks or by indexing using Google Search Console. 

Our goal with technical SEO is to make it easier for Google to see our changes and give us credit. The better SEO factors are optimized for the more Google rankings you will see on your end. Likewise, there are some factors we need to avoid in order for Google to rank us higher because slow and cluttered websites can be penalized as well. So to all of you with old pages on your backend that are not being used or overly stuffed media galleries. This is hurting your SEO. 

Some factors of technical SEO to consider:

• The loading speed of your page and scrolling
• The structure of your site ( Builder)
• Host for your website (Domain)
• Avoid any duplicate content on the site
• Sitemaps & Indexing
• Reduce broken links (errors)
• Avoid slow loading by running audits 
• Load small to medium-sized photos
• Remove content or pages no longer used

These are some important factors we consider when optimizing your website. If you’re experiencing slow loading speeds, consider if you have downloaded big files, or if there are some areas you can declutter your website.

Original Quality Content

Writing copy is key to reaching your ideal audience. In order to connect with your clients, content needs to speak to your ideal client. A key factor in creating quality content that will help you rank better is to make sure it is relevant. This may be intuitive, but sometimes writing content to your clients can be hard. We understand this. It can be easier to generalize your content, but be warned and steer clear of this. Listen to your clients and write about what is really going on. Most importantly, tell them what you can do to help. Put your heart into the content and this will help to reach your audience. Good content design leads your clients to understand how your approach will help them best. Which ultimately leads you to more calls and conversions.

Social Media Strategy

Working with social media isn’t something we work with specifically, however, it is a great way to round out your holistic SEO approach. Here are some key takeaways about social media and SEO. If you want to read more about adding social media to your holistic marketing approach, then read our unofficial SEO guide. 

• If you plan to use social media for SEO, you must engage often. Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, these social media outlets have their own algorithm that requires you to be involved in order to consistently come up with search results and hashtags.
• Social media on its own does not supplement SEO. These are great ways to provide external links to your website by linking your website in bios and via links. It is simply another stream of traffic to your website.
• There is a certain culture that follows social media and SEO. So if you plan to engage, know your people well. 

Social media on its own isn’t meant to supplement SEO. However, it is a great way to add an additional stream to your website. Check out our SEO specialist, Alyssa, who wrote two blog posts on social media which plays into holistic SEO. 

Mobile Optimization

Have you ever been to a non-mobile-friendly website? These are frustrating! Typically we bounce off those websites because they are more of a hassle than helpful. Here are a few tips for making sure your website is mobile-friendly.

First, when creating your site choose a template that is consistent across platforms. Check to see how users can perform basic tasks. If you check on your site data and you notice there is low traffic to your niche service, or to once high traffic pages, check out how your mobile site is looking. Make sure your site allows for your client to do the basic tasks you intend. Such as look at service pages, access resources, any forms you have are able to be sent properly, and so on. 

 Here are a few helpful tools from Google that can help you become more mobile-friendly. 

• Run a mobile-friendly test to see where you can improve your site health
• You can also refer to the mobile usability report for a more detailed picture on your site

HTTPS (security)

Website security matters. Especially now with cyber crimes and confidentiality for online therapy. As therapists who may have client portals and deal with mental health, it’s important that on contact with your services, security is clear on your site. At the top of your website, there should be a lock that indicates that you have an HTTPS domain that is secure. Often if your website SSL certificate is not on a site when clients come onto your website, then you’re likely to get a security error and this will increase the bounce rate on your site. Likewise, this helps to prevent hackers from gaining personal information from you or individuals visiting your site. Therefore it’s important to purchase an SSL certificate. 

Accessibility ( easy to access)

Making a website inclusive is not always a topic technology focuses on. SEO and accessibility go hand in hand. However, as mental health professionals, it’s crucial we set examples. Here are some ways to do this:

• Provide multiple ways to contact your services. By not offering multiple avenues, you may cause someone to have to disclose information they may not be ready to disclose. Such as a disability. 
• Look at source code, screen readers can only do certain things on a website such as H1, H2, and alt text.
• Make sure widgets and plugins make sense for screen readers
• Break up and organize text for people with learning disabilities and ADHD
• Include summaries of texts on newsletters for neurodiverse individuals

What not to do

There are some things that don’t help holistic SEO just as traditional technical SEO. First, do not keyword stuff in the meta description, alt text, or within the copy. Some ways this is seen is by adding alt text or keywords to copy and then adding in white text that hides it. Likewise, make sure you are adding relevant keywords to your pages. Next, don’t buy backlinks. Google will penalize you and you will see negative effects in your SEO, making it more difficult to rebuild. Lastly do not page swap. This is when you get a page ranking very well, then switch out content for a page not ranking as well. This is considered unethical on Google. 

Benefits and Close Thoughts

To sum up Holistic SEO, by looking at the whole picture and figuring out what to do to make sure your website is accessible, mobile-friendly, has great content, and has all the components for Google’s bots, you should have a reduced bounce rate, and receive more views. Traditional technical SEO is still necessary for the process because it helps Google find your website, helps other search engines find you and allows Google to index your content. Plus it is how online apps, web crawlers, and search bots find you.

Both holistic and traditional SEO has their benefits, but these are great places to start for a whole picture on your website that calls on both methods for a better user experience. Likewise, as SEO specialists we strive to address the whole picture rather than parts in order to make sure your SEO is sustainable and up to par.

Begin SEO Services at Simplified SEO Consulting

Holistic SEO has many components, but once well optimized, your website and clients will appreciate the effort. This is meant to help you sustain rankings and make sure your clients are taken care of from the moment they land on your page.  Simplified SEO Consulting in Columbia, MO offers DFY packages, courses, and training options. Our skilled team of SEO experts is excited to work with you and answer any questions you have. To get started follow these three steps to begin ranking better on Google.

1. Schedule an appointment for a free 30-minute consultation with a member of the Simplified SEO Consulting
   staff
2. Learn more about our SEO packages and training opportunities
3. Start optimizing your website holistically for a better user experience and SEO!

Other Services offered by Simplified SEO Consulting

Simplified SEO Consulting is passionate about providing SEO services for mental health professionals and therapists. Our comprehensive SEO services are included in our Done for You SEO Service packages, and our online DIY courses. If you have questions about any of our other services please feel free to reach out or if you want to get in touch with Simplified SEO to learn more, book a free SEO Consultation with our Client Success Specialist or one of our SEO specialists to decide which option is best for your business. We look forward to working with you to build your technical SEO and Holistic SEO together!

About the Author:

Jasmine Jaquess is currently working towards her Masters of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Northwestern University. She has been doing SEO with Simplified for the last few months. Currently, she serves as the Client Success Specialist in new client consultation with Simplified SEO Consulting and is an SEO specialist. She specializes in platforms such as Squarespace and Wix but has learned to love WordPress sites as well. She really enjoys hearing the clients’ goals for their businesses and helping them achieve them.