Search Engine Optimization or SEO can be tricky, especially when you don’t know what it entails, just that you were told you need it.  Luckily, you’ve got me, an SEO specialist specifically for counselors, to give you some pointers. When trying to grow your business and your online presence, it is important to gain trust with Google and improve your SEO. Specifically, search engine optimization for counselors can help your ideal clients find your site and realize that your provide the help that they need.

Why Do I Need SEO?

Optimizing your website can help you show up in Google searches, be a site your ideal clients want to click on, and hopefully, get you the calls and consultations you are needing to really fill up your schedule. In other words, I am so glad you are here, because you are about to learn some quick tips to help you with your website’s SEO!

There are a million and one little things you can do that can add up to make a big difference on your site. Today, I’m going to share 10 things with you!

Now, before I start sharing the good stuff, I want to remind you that search engine optimization for counselors is not rocket science. Plus, you went through how many years of school for that degree? You certainly have a good head on your shoulders. You can do this. And if you read through this and decide it is still out of your wheelhouse, I totally get it. We’re humans and we simply can’t be good at everything.

Thankfully, you’re in the right place to get help. Whether you want to learn to do SEO yourself or would rather have it done for you, our staff at Simplified SEO Consulting is here to help!

Hopefully by now you realize that search engine optimization (SEO) is so important for your private practice! Because we care so much about helping you find your ideal clients, I wanted to share some tips with you to increase your website’s SEO!

10 Quick Tips: Search Engine Optimization For Counselors

1.Include Pictures

Pictures are extremely helpful for your SEO! The space it creates for more keywords is an extreme benefit to your ranking goals. Make sure your images have an image file name and an alt text that both include keywords. Further, your photos should be representative of your practice and your values.

Additionally having photos that are inclusive of different races, religions, body sizes, lifestyles, sexual orientations, and more can show potential clients that you are inclusive and accepting of all walks of life. Pictures are worth a thousand words… allow them to speak for you!

2. Break up the text!

Seeing a giant paragraph of text is overwhelming for everyone. It can turn people away from your page, because no one wants to sift through a big block of 400 words just to figure out what they need to know. Break up your text into sections. Make your pages more user friendly by having subheadings that hit the main points with the explanations in each section. Remember, you are a therapist, seeking clients who need help. Anyone in crisis is not going to process a large amount of information. Break it down and spread it out so they can easily navigate the page and find the information they need!

3. Speak to your ideal client

This one might seem like a no brainer, but I challenge you to really reflect on your content throughout your site. Does it speak directly to the pain points of your ideal client? Like the people you really want to see. There is no sense in speaking to all who are hurting when you don’t want to see everyone. You have a niche, so don’t be afraid to stick to it.

4. Use your real voice

When writing blog posts or service pages, you need to really think about the language you are using. Does the voice on each page sound like you and your therapists? The goal here is to sound just as you would in a therapy session. Speak to clients in a way they can trust and relate. Speak through your pages and posts just as you would want to talk to someone during the first therapy appointment! Make sure to always use authentic, original content! 

5. Use blogs as “homework” 

A personal favorite tip. Write with the idea in mind that you can use these blogs as assignments for your clients. Blog about things you want your clients to know. Think about what ideas and tools you would want them to think about and utilize outside of sessions, and recommend they read that before you meet again. For example, if you use DBT… write a blog post about DEARMAN for them to read and refer back to rather than giving a handout. What a way to boost views and view time!

6. The more content the better

Yes, I know I said to break up with bulky text. But that doesn’t mean less text. It just means you need to space it out. Google needs to trust that you are an expert on the content. In order to do that, you need to write about it… a lot. Write multiple  blog posts that relate to your service pages to help google see that you really know what you are talking about. Build that trust! Don’t want to write it yourself? I get that completely! You can always hire us to write and have it done for you!

7. Simplify the language and improve readability

I know you are intelligent and I know you worked hard for that degree. Trust me, as a grad student, I understand that you are so used to APA format and using language that appeased your professors. But, this is not the world of academia. This is the world of SEO and having user friendly content. More importantly, your content needs to be crisis friendly. It’s no secret that it is harder to process information when trauma, anxiety, and other mental challenges are clouding your brain. Try to keep this perspective in mind when writing. If it isn’t easily understood by a middle schooler, it is probably too complex. Simplify it!

8. Connect Google my business

Make sure this is connected to your site so google knows who you are and where you are. Connecting your Google my business helps you show up in Maps and can benefit current and future clients!

9. Include internal links wherever possible

Keep people clicking around on your site! Provide internal links throughout the pages and posts and link to other relevant content on your site. Make it a game even– start on one page of your site and see if you can get to every other page on your site just by clicking through internal links. There’s a challenge for ya!

10. Build an “About Us” page

Use this page of your website to expand on the expertise of you and any other professionals on your team. An “about us” page is great for discussing strategies, theories, and preferred clientele. That also means that about pages are great for keywords! Create space and use it!

Search Engine Optimization for Counselors: We Can Help!

Again, SEO for counselors may seem intimidating at first, but you can do it! And, you don’t have to do it all alone. You can always reach out to us and gain a helping hand in boosting your rankings. We are here for you. Our services can support you in doing your SEO yourself through courses, help you through a strategy session, or we can do the hard stuff for you with our Done-For-You Services. Reach out today and start talking with us about your private practice goals!

Start SEO for Therapists today!

Our SEO Specialists are excited to help you build your practice and see you reach your ideal clients. All of our specialists have a background in the mental health field and understand the importance of hitting pain points, speaking to your ideal client, and sharing content that is relatable and helpful. To start SEO services with Simplified SEO Consulting, please follow these simple steps:

1. Book a free consult 
2. Meet with an SEO specialist to discuss our services
3. Start improving your site’s SEO today!

Other Services Offered by Simplified SEO Consulting

Simplified SEO Consulting was built to provide personalized services that fit your needs. Therefore, we offer a variety of services. For those with the desire to tackle SEO on their own, we offer DIY services. For those who already understand SEO but need a bit of help, we offer a strategy session or we can work with you through our Done With You services. Finally, we offer Done For You services, where you don’t have to spend time on the hard stuff. You can simply tell us your goals and allow us to get to work! Still not quite sure what you want yet? Read through our blog and learn more about SEO for your private practice site!

Happy Blogging 😉

About the author

Reagan is one of our newest Simplified SEO Specialists, but she has been diving right in to the work. As a new graduate student working towards her LPC, she understands the importance of reaching your ideal clients and building out your private practice. Reagan enjoys blogging, both for Simplified and in her free time. Reagan helps current clients through our Done-For-You services, but also speaks to potential clients through our FREE consults! Reagan is excited to be here and is ready to start helping you on your SEO journey!

1. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation
2. Learn more about our team
3. Start becoming more visible, and helping your ideal clients!

About the Author

Sterling Humburg-Cage graduated from the University of Missouri with a BA in Psychology in 2020. He integrates what he learned in school into his work as an SEO Specialist with Simplified SEO Consulting. Sterling prides himself on helping current clients & alumni problems solve difficult SEO issues.  He’s great at giving clients multiple options about how to approach a situation and responding quickly to client concerns.  Since he started, Sterling has met frequently with our alumni and provided them extra problem-solving support, often going the extra mile to do outside research and make sure private practice owners have everything they need to rank well on search engines long term for the keywords their ideal clients are using!

Our search engine optimization (SEO) consulting business helps private practice therapists across the country (and even in other countries) get ranking on Google. And as we’ve worked with more and more therapists over the years, we’ve gained experience in helping all different types of practices. Many of our clients come to us as solo private practice owners. And they’re looking to get found on Google better and bring in new clients. On the other hand, some of our clients begin SEO work when their practice already has upwards of eight therapists and they want to expand even further.

SEO Strategy

While our mission at Simplified is the same for each client, the strategy we will use for each is unique. Our team of SEO Specialists takes pride in working with each practice individually to help them reach their business goals. One factor that comes into play when we discuss individualizing a long-term SEO strategy is location.

Location and SEO

Search engine optimization has a close relationship with geographic location. And it needs to be this way in order for Google to function properly. When SEO work is being done on a website, lots of energy gets put into connecting the website content with locations in order to be found by the right searchers.

With that said, if your practice has multiple locations, you may have some additional SEO work that needs to be done. And there are actually a few reasons you may decide to include multiple locations in your SEO strategy. But not all of them have to do with having two physical locations. In this blog post, I’ll share tips for optimizing your website when you are targeting more than one location.

Landing Pages for Each Location

Online Therapy

If you have been offering virtual services, as nearly all therapists have over the past year, you need an online therapy page. Let’s work with an example practice. We’ll say it’s located in Denver, Colorado, and has a few therapists also licensed in New Mexico and Utah. So the first step is to create an “online therapy in Colorado” page. This is pretty straightforward since the practice is located in Denver, CO.

The tricky part is that each location where you want to pull clients from needs its own online therapy page. So if we wanted to get clients from New Mexico and Utah to fill those therapists’ caseloads, we’ll need individual location pages for each. This would look like “online therapy in New Mexico” and “online therapy in Utah” pages. In our SEO work, we’ve found this to be the best practice in bringing in clients not residing in the practice’s physical location.

Opening a New Physical Office

Now let’s say this same practice decides to open a new physical office in Boulder, CO. Instead of just adding Boulder, CO to the website content, a new location page needs to be created. This communicates to Google and website viewers that this practice has multiple physical locations.

And we recommend including many references to locations on the new location page. This may look something like “Our counseling practice in Boulder, CO is right between the hot yoga studio (business name) and the doggy daycare (business name).”

This is great for helping your website viewers visualize where your office is. So it lessens the mental energy it takes to situate the location for them. And this strategy also helps Google understand exactly where you are located.

Location Indicators in the Footer

Usually, when therapists start working on their website, they overlooked the footer. And this is a prime place to include location indicators! Using the above example, a practice opening a second office in Boulder, CO would need to include both locations in the footer. This may look something like “Offices located in Denver, CO and Boulder, CO and serving the entire states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah with online therapy.” Having a clear explanation like this helps get location information on every page, which is extremely useful in terms of showing Google where your business is.

Blog Posts and Call to Action Sections

Another tool you can use to help Google understand you have multiple locations is writing blog posts for each location. This may look like “5 date night spots from a couples therapist in Boulder, CO” or “our therapists share 4 hikes they love in Boulder, CO.” Incorporating locations into blog posts helps Google situate your business’s location.

In addition to blog posts, you can include location indicators in your call-to-action sections. An example of this may look like “We want to make it as easy as possible for you to begin family therapy! Therefore, our family therapists offer in-person counseling at our offices in Denver and Boulder as well as online family counseling sessions for anyone in the state of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.” This helps website viewers understand if your services are geographically accessible to them and further shows Google where your site should rank.

Focus on Ranking in One Location at a Time

When private practice owners first start working with us, we typically want to rank in one area first. It takes time for Google to trust your website and get you ranking. So for example, maybe your practice located in Denver, CO already ranks well, and you want to start ranking in Boulder, CO at your new location. Our approach is usually to focus on ranking in Denver first, then once we feel confident about your rankings, move on to the Boulder location.

Prioritizing where to rank first can be really helpful for your SEO strategy clearer in the beginning stages. We focus all of our effort gaining Google’s trust in one area. Then, as we see your SEO rankings steadily increasing or remaining stable, we will move onto the next location.  It’s easier to convince Google, “Hey since you already know we offer great information about therapy for depression in Denver, you can also now trust us to provide great information about depression to people in Boulder.”

Get Ranking and Expand Your Business

Our hope for our clients is that by getting ranking on Google, you can reach all of your business dreams. Want to move from solo practice to group practice? Or do you want to open a second or third office? Whatever your hope is, we want to help you along the way. If you are interested in learning more about our SEO consulting services or are ready to get started, follow the easy steps below.

1. Schedule a free 30-minute consult call.
2. Chat with one of our SEO Specialists to learn more about our services.
3. Start working on your site’s SEO and moving closer to reaching your dreams!

Services at Simplified SEO Consulting

For many therapists, SEO is a foreign concept. And when our founder, Jessica, started SEO work, she felt the same way! You’re not alone if you’re feeling like this marketing stuff is way over your head. And if you want to get started and take a more hands-off approach, check out our Done For You SEO Package. But if you’re more hands-on and want to learn the ins and outs, check out our DIY Online SEO Courses and Done With You Package.

About the Author

Olivia Bahr is an SEO Specialist and Content Writer here at Simplified. She received a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Missouri in 2020 and plans to begin working toward a Master’s of Social Work in the Fall of 2021. Olivia’s experience is centered around trauma work and domestic violence. And she is passionate about women’s and LGBTQ+ issues.

Our Connected World

These days, you can use social media for just about anything! You can reconnect with old friends, keep up with current events, and even buy and sell through online marketplaces. But, did you know that social media can influence the SEO of your site as well? Yep! As Google has changed, so have the many factors that influence how a site may rank. So, today we are going to cover some of the ways social media can help to boost your site’s SEO!

Social Media Can Help Build Reputation & Trust

Social media offers private practice owners a wonderful place to post news, updates, and other important notifications for people to see. This can go a long way in building familiarity with your brand, what you stand for, and what your practice offers. Having this connection can help show people that you aren’t just another cookie-cutter therapy practice. You are a caring individual that offers real support! Creating an audience over time will serve as an invaluable resource as your practice grows, and more people become familiar with it. 

Creating a social media presence can also help your website gain more authority with Google as well. When people share your content, they accomplish more than just “getting the word out” But, we will discuss this a bit more later in the post. So, continue reading on!

Social Media & Marketing

Social media also allows you to make the most out of your blog posts! Developing a presence on different platforms will provide you with many opportunities to spread your content beyond your own site so that more people can see it. 

Let’s take Facebook as an example

Say you write an awesome blog post on your site, but you wish more people could see it. One way to do this might be to link that post from your practice’s own Facebook page. By doing this, you’ve accessed a whole new group of viewers. A group that might not have seen the content if it was only living on your site. By nature of being on a social platform, this “audience” is already more likely to share the post with others. So, there is a lot of potential for posts to “blow up” or “go viral” if the right people see it and share it with others.

You can also tailor unique posts based on the platform itself. Does your practice specialize in therapy for teens? Well, creating a TikTok or Instagram post that speaks directly to that audience may be just the thing to help spark interest in the services that your practice offers. However, this can be a bit difficult to do. You will need to have a solid understanding of your ideal client, what content will be most engaging for them, and which social platforms they are likely to be on. 

Social Media May Help Keyword Rankings

When people share your post, the keywords associated with the post can also be affected as well. As high-quality content is shared by people on social media, Google will start to recognize your site as an authority on the subject due to the increased number of people viewing it. As the authority of the site grows, the more likely your site will rank better for the keywords that the post is optimized for. Google loves putting trusted, engaging content on the front page. So, social media and SEO can help out when trying to rank for more competitive keywords. 

Yet, it is worth noting that social media success will not guarantee ranking success. There are many factors that go into how Google decides the ranking of a site. This might include your location, local competition, and how relevant the content is compared to other posts. So, even though a post might go viral on a certain platform, this does not guarantee that the rankings will skyrocket for that keyword.

Build Links & Authority

We saved one of the most important aspects for last! By publishing high-quality content that people share, the likelihood of others linking to the same post increases. As a result, this means more backlinks for your site! In a way, social media success can result in a snowball effect of sorts. This can be a bit confusing, but I like to think of it like this. 

Someone sees your post and shares it. As a result, more people see & share that post. As more see the post, the chance of a site or individual with a higher authority viewing the post increases. Once an authoritative source links back to your post, this creates a high-quality backlink and helps raise the authority of your site. The more authority the site has, the more likely the site is to be ranked higher in the search results, and seen by more people. 

In Short, Success Breeds Success!

Keeping up with social media can feel like a chore at times. But understanding how to effectively use it can become a vital part of the synergy SEO marketing for therapists. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can provide fun distractions and interesting ways to connect with others. But, they can also be powerful tools when used correctly.

Begin SEO Consulting Services with Simplified SEO Consulting

Our trained SEO specialists understand how to help your site rank higher on Google. We have experience working with therapists across the country and would be honored to help your practice thrive! To start SEO services, follow these simple steps:

1. Book a free consultation
2. Speak to one of our SEO specialists
3. Start climbing the rankings of Google!

Other Services Offered by Simplified SEO Consulting

Simplified SEO Consulting offers multiple SEO services to help meet the unique needs of your website. Our services include DIY Online SEO Courses, Done For You SEO services, and our Done With You 12-week SEO intensive program. For more helpful info, please visit our blog!

About The Author

Sterling Humburg-Cage is a member of the 2020 graduating class from the University of Missouri. He is intent on using his B.A. in Psychology to help provide the best results as an SEO specialist.  Sterling prides himself on helping alumni problems solve difficult SEO issues.  He’s great at giving clients multiple options about how to approach a situation and responding quickly to client concerns.  Since he started, Sterling has met frequently with our alumni and provided them extra problem-solving support, often going the extra mile to do outside research and make sure alumni have everything they need to continue ranking well!