How are your services currently listed on your website? Do you have a list of your different specialties? Maybe a paragraph about the different therapy services you offer? Or, perhaps you actually have separate pages for each of your services, but only a couple hundred words on each of them.
My biggest suggestion for therapists and helping professionals who want to improve their SEO is to create individual service pages for all of the services they want to rank for. And if they already have service pages, I almost always suggest that they bulk up their content! Often the response I get is, “I feel like I’ve said all there is to say.” Or, “I want to keep it simple.”
Here’s the thing. If you want to rank high on Google (and be easily found by clients) for the different services you offer, Google has to know that you offer that service. If you only mention the word “anxiety therapy” or “EMDR” on your website a couple of times, Google isn’t going to rank you well for it. And honestly, the clients coming to your website probably aren’t going to be compelled to reach out if they don’t know much about you.
So in this blog post, I’m going to share my tips for deciding what service pages you should create and what you should add to those service pages to rank higher on Google and get noticed by potential clients!
I mentioned that if you want to rank high on Google for a keyword, you should probably have a service page for it. Now, you may be wondering what sort of things need their own service page. For example, do you need a “trauma therapy” AND a “trauma therapy for children” page if you offer both of those services?
The short answer is, maybe! It really depends on who your ideal client is, how much of a “niche” you have, and what your SEO goals are.
If you have a group practice and you have a clinician that specializes in trauma therapy for adults and a clinician that specializes in trauma therapy for children, then it would be a good idea to have two separate pages! However, if you are a solo therapist that specializes in trauma therapy and happens to sometimes offer trauma therapy to children, then you probably don’t need a separate page for it.
So, I would suggest starting with the services that you specialize in and that you are excited to offer. For some, this might be postpartum therapy, coaching for parents, and anxiety therapy. OR if postpartum therapy is your niche, then you should have separate pages for postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression. This is going to be very dependent on your practice and what you really want to rank for.
Besides service pages for the different mental health concerns you want to rank for, you can also have service pages for the different age ranges you work with. If you work with children, teens, adults, and seniors, then you can make a “therapy for ____” service page for each of those age groups.
However, it’s not essential to create service pages for different age groups. This is only important if you want to rank for “teen therapist” or “therapy for children” for example.
If you offer online therapy, especially if you are an online-only practice, you really want to have an online therapy page as well. If you offer online therapy in multiple states, you’re going to want to have an online therapy page for each state if you want to rank for terms like “online therapist in North Carolina” or “online therapy in Los Angeles”.
However, if online therapy is a service you offer simply to accommodate clients and not something you really want inquiries about, then you don’t need an online therapy page. Again, it’s all about what you want to rank for.
Beyond the specific service pages I’ve mentioned, there may be others that are applicable to your practice. You can also have service pages for the different treatment models you use such as EMDR, the Gottman Method, or DBT. If you are bilingual and offer therapy in more than language, you can have a service page dedicated to your therapy services in Spanish for example. Or, if you cater to clients of a particular faith or culture you can have a service page focused on that as well.
Think about the terms that clients are searching for. If a service of yours is something that is commonly searched for online, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a service page for it. You can use tools like KW Finder to learn what keywords are actually being searched for widely in your area.
Now that you know what service pages you may want to add to your website, you should start thinking about what needs to be on those service pages.
In order to have enough content to show Google that you’re an expert on the services you offer, we suggest that you have a minimum of 500 words on each of your service pages. If you have more, that’s great! However you shouldn’t have much less than 500 words.
If you’re thinking that you won’t have enough to write about to get to 500 words, then you may not be considering all of the information that you should include on the page.
First, you want to start with what we call “pain points”. Pain points are the things that your clients are struggling with. Think about the clients who you’ve worked with or people who’ve reached out for help. What were their main concerns? Maybe their social anxiety was making it challenging to make friends. Or their troubles in their marriage were starting to affect their children. Perhaps their addiction was causing financial problems.
You may even mention the common symptoms of PTSD or anxiety. Or, you can list the common reasons that people seek therapy for the specific service you’re offering. For example, the common reasons that teens come to therapy or that couples seek support.
By mentioning these pain points you are showing prospective clients that you actually understand what they’re going through. You’re also showing that you’ve worked with enough clients to really understand the challenges that they’re dealing with. It also gives you an opportunity to explain the specific ways that therapy can help them.
In addition to mentioning the challenges that they may be experiencing, it’s important that you also describe the ways that therapy can help. You want to give prospective clients hope by telling them how they can expect their life to be different after therapy.
Will they be able to manage their anxiety? Will they feel less trapped by their traumatic memories? If you’re having trouble, think about your clients that have made changes in their life. What was different for them?
You can also describe why therapy for their specific mental health concern is effective. This may mean giving a brief description of the CBT triangle and how therapy can help break the cycle of anxious thoughts. Let them know how therapy can actually help them manage or overcome their specific concern.
Beyond giving a description of how therapy can help, you need to explain how you or the therapists at your practice can help them. What makes you unique?
Don’t forget to wrap up this section with a “call to action” where you direct them to contact you or your team if they’re interested in beginning therapy. Make it easy for them to take the first step.
Creating service pages with valuable content is only one piece of the puzzle. It’s a great way to start showing Google that you’re an expert on the services you offer. And it’s incredibly valuable for potential clients who want to learn more about you and your services. However when it comes to SEO, content only goes so far.
In order to rank well for the keywords those service pages are targeting, you really need to optimize them. The basics of optimization include adding keywords, location indicators, and other elements like internal and external links to the pages of your website. However there is a bit more that goes into it, so I’m going to direct you to this comprehensive guide on optimizing a private practice website for more information.
Once you’ve written and optimized your service pages, the next step is to start writing and optimizing blog posts related to those service pages. See, you can only pack so many SEO elements into your service pages in a way that feels natural. At a certain point it’ll look repetitive, awkward, and it won’t appeal to clients.
That’s where blog posts come in! Blog posts allow you to create more relevant content that is valuable to potential clients AND that continues to show Google that you’re an expert on the services you offer. Blogs also allow you to pack in more of those SEO elements.
We recommend starting with at least 3 blogs per service page to start. However a consistent blogging strategy (such as posting 2-4 optimized blogs per month) is a great way to really improve and then maintain your rankings.
It may sound a bit overwhelming right now, but if you take it step by step you can slowly and steadily start improving your SEO and creating a website that is packed with great information for prospective clients.
However, if this all is sounding like a bit too much for you to take on, you can reach out to us for help!
As a busy therapist you might not have time to learn SEO and optimize your own website. That’s where we come in! Our team is entirely focused on helping therapists and helping professionals rank higher on Google. The Mental Health SEO Specialists on our team can optimize your service pages and blog posts to help you rank higher on Google and reach more clients! If you’re interested in learning more about our SEO services, you can follow these simple steps:
We are so excited to be a part of your SEO journey!
At Simplified SEO Consulting we offer a wide range of SEO services to help therapists at different phases in their practice! For therapists who are too busy to optimize their website and want to outsource their SEO, we offer Done-For-You SEO services.
We also offer training options for those who want to learn how to optimize their own website with the help of our team members. Our 12-Week SEO Intensive program is great for those who want to learn SEO one-on-one. Our Small Group SEO Intensives are perfect for therapists and helping professionals who want to learn SEO in a group of other professionals. You can also purchase our DIY Online SEO Courses to learn SEO on your own, at your own pace.
If you aren’t sure what option is best for you, then you can book a free consultation with a member of our team for our suggestions!
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