Do you know why people pay hundreds and thousands of dollars for SEO For Therapists? Because this is the best digital marketing channel for therapists.
Though most of your business is dependent on offline clients, You will be amazed after optimizing your website using SEO. Your consultants will increase many folds.
Anyone can easily learn SEO on Google. But still only professionally handled websites rank. Do you know why?
Because every step in SEO has some secret ingredient in it that experts don’t reveal to keep the business running! But today I will public some strategies you can use to rank higher on Google.
You must be wondering what does this ranking, SEO and other technical stuff mean?
Worry Not! I will answer your burning question one by one. And then teach you how to do SEO for therapists with expert tips.
I will specifically focus on:
SEO for Psychotherapist
&
Counsellor SEO
&
SEO for Mental Therapy
&
SEO for Psychiatrists
If you are any of the above or related. You will find this post extremely useful to rank your therapy business. I will discuss general SEO tips but with insider information.
Start your stopwatch and let’s start this session!!
What does SEO for therapists mean?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the art of optimizing your website to rank higher on Google and increase traffic. It has more than 200 components in it. But you don’t have to be an SEO master to rank. Limited but quality knowledge and hard work can help you rank faster.
Ranking basically means where you appear in Google search results. A website that appears on top after a search is the #1 ranked website for that query.
You will be amazed to know that the top 3 websites take away 72% of traffic from Google. And top website gets the biggest pie. 57% of users click goes to #1 ranked website.
Now Imagine if 1000 users search “Mental Therapist” and you are ranked on top. You will get 570 clicks every day. That’s HUGE!!
“SEO is what separates best from rest”
I feel now you are clear about what is SEO and why you need it.
Moving forward!
Black Hat SEO vs White Hat SEO for Therapists
Black Hat SEO refers to optimize the website intensively for higher search engine rankings. This type of SEO breaks search engine rules and is considered unethical. You basically ignore the human element and misuse SEO techniques to rank higher on Google.
I know you don’t know much about SEO yet, Black Hat SEO is not something you should ever consider. First, it is unethical, and second, your website can get banned by Google and de-indexed as a penalization. (Your domain and its content will be deleted from Google)
White Hat SEO refers to optimize websites for both search engines and humans. This means your website will be useful and engaging for humans and optimized for search engines. White hat SEO is a long-term investment and helps you rank organically and ethically.
In this post, you will learn to do white hat SEO for therapists.
Now without further ado let’s talk about various components of SEO.
Types of SEO for therapists
Search Engine Optimization is not a one-step task. You have to check multiple boxes. Today I will discuss various types of SEO for therapists. And then how to achieve them and boost rankings.
On-Page SEO for therapists
Off-Page SEO for therapist
Technical SEO for therapist
Local SEO for therapist
Here are four SEO tactics that can help your site rank for the target keywords. You should use all of them to compete with experts and successfully rank higher on Google.
Do not worry that this all might seem very technical and too much to take in. After you read this post I am sure you will have a better understanding of the subject.
Remember a 10 minutes read can affect your 10 years future. Keep reading!
On-Page SEO for Therapist
On-page SEO means optimizing a website for users and search engines. You will optimize things that appear on different pages of your website.
I will discuss 3 very important components of on-page SEO, You can easily perform and rank your psychotherapist website on Google.
1. Content
Google wants to display websites with the most relatable content for its user’s search queries. Uploading super engaging and useful content is the key to optimization.
Experts suggest to upload “VUUSP-content“. what’s that?
Valuable, Unique, Up to date, Shareable and Professional content. Experts believe to rank your content must be VUUSP inspired content.
Make sure to upload only SEO-optimized content to target Google’s search engine optimization algorithms. Upload blogs and post F.A.Q’s filled with relevant keywords (will discuss later).
Blogs
You are a therapist. Why you need blogs to book consultations? This must be your natural question.
Because therapy is an important part of one’s life. Customers tend to research a lot before booking a session with a therapist. So, If you can answer their question on your website through engaging and valuable blogs. Boom your SEO is initiated.
Write blogs on user queries to optimize for search engine as well!
- How can therapy help me?
- At what point I should consider a therapy session?
- Should I trust my therapist and share everything?
Answering some basic user queries through the heading of your blog will enhance your SEO many folds. Don’t force to include content in one blog, try to create various small blogs to answer multiple queries specifically.
More search queries you answer through your blogs more chances of you to rank.
FAQ’s
Blogs don’t have to answer questions all the time. You can create a separate section for answering frequently asked questions regarding therapy and mental health.
If someone searches “How to improve mental health” on Google, and you have answered this in your FAQ section. There is a chance that you will be shown in the search results of that person. (If your answer is good enough)
Additional on-page SEO tips:
- Don’t overdo anything or make it crowded for your audience.
- Avoid writing a blog with 3000 words.
- Don’t write in big paragraphs, Use 2-3 line paragraphs (to make it easier to read).
- Avoid use of complex English words.
- Don’t make any false claims regarding therapy.
2. Keywords
In SEO language, A keyword is a word or phrase that a user searches on Google. When I break down any paragraph in 2-3 words that is the keyword for that paragraph.
It is safe to say that Google rankings are highly affected by a number of keywords you can incorporate in your content. More keywords mean you will answer more search queries and eventually you will rank on Google. Which is our primary aim.
Follow these steps to strengthen your keywords game and enter SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages)
Step 1: Gather Keywords
Obviously, the first step is going to gather keywords. For that, you will have to research what your audience is looking for.
Use Google Trends and Answer The Public to gather information on search queries.
Step 2: Competitive keywords
You must be aware of the fact that everyone online is using SEO and want to rank on Google. Is that a bad thing?
As an SEO writer, I would say NO. Instead, it is a blessing. You can always look for what keywords your competitors are using. They ranked by using those keywords so you can use them too, along with your unique keywords.
Use Competitive Research tool to spy on your rivals and hopefully beat them in sales.
Step 3: Expert keywords hacks
Every SEO writer does what I have told you to do. But only a few rank on Google. Because we do a little mix and match with keywords for our clients. But this is not easy work as it will appeal visually.
Mix different keywords together and try to form a meaningful and working set of keywords you can use to maximize reach.
Looks like a kid’s work right? But!
- Your grouped keyword should be a keyword
- It should be inspired by your region and locality
- Don’t use repeated keywords
Tada you have optimized your website a little more after knowing about keywords!
3. Title and Meta-description
The title of your blogs is a deciding factor. Before anything, your title decides whether the user will click it or not. So it is absolutely important to create blogs with catchy titles. Also, try to incorporate keywords in your title to optimize it even further.
A meta description is the little description of the content of your website. Many users just read this little data to identify whether this article is helpful or not. Un-optimized websites have a random meta description that slightly affects your SEO ranking.
Off-Page SEO For Therapists
Off-page SEO means optimizing your website outside of your website to improve your ranking in local SERPs. Optimization is not just focused on your website. Google has a robust network and building links is an important part to recognize yourself in this complex network.
To achieve off-page SEO most important concept is link building, Let us understand how does that work!
4. Link Building
Backlinks are the kind of votes which other websites give to you by linking your website in their content. This will help you get credibility as Google will check the backlinks. If you are linked to high authority pages (websites that are ranked high on Google). Then your website will be pulled up in the rankings.
To achieve quality backlinks:
- Create your social presence on popular social media like Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, and Reddit. Upload images of your workplace, meditation tips, self-therapy, or anything that catches user attention.
- Upload a link of your website in all these social media handles, and if people visit you from these social handles, Google believes this is a quality link and is ranks it better.
- Take care of the image/video quality of your content. People get attracted to good-quality content.
Local SEO For Therapists
Experts says, This is the most important component of SEO for therapists.
Local SEO means optimizing your website to appear in local SERPs. Search results change from Region to Region, State to State, and Country to Country. As a Therapist, you don’t have to rank #1 worldwide, Although that’s not a bad thing. But people look for a therapist in less than 4-5 miles of their home or workplace.
It is important to target people living or working near your office because they are your best shot as customers. Let’s see how to do local SEO for therapists.
5. Google My Business
Claim your profile at Google My Business is really important for you. Whenever a person will search for “Therapist near me” he/she will be shown the names of businesses like this –
To make sure you are listed here. You must have a Google My Business Account. This will help you boost your rankings. As it is found that businesses listed in Google My Business are ranked higher in local SERP.
If anyone speaks “Psychiatrist near me” and your company is listed on Google My Business and is close. Google will display your location and contact number.
Just because your listed place is near to a user, You will rank high on that user’s SERP.
6. Other components of Local SEO For Therapists
Local SEO has some “extras” which you can certainly use to optimize your content to appear in local SERPs.
- Include the name of your state or region in your blog’s title to target local clients.
- Upload location pages i.e. local landing pages.
- Get good reviews on local directories.
Using these tips can help to enhance your local rankings.
Technical SEO For Therapists
Technical SEO means fixing technical aspects of your website to optimize your website for both clients and search engines. You might need to convey this knowledge to your website developer because technical SEO includes alteration with the website’s code.
This is the final component of SEO we will discuss in this blog. With technical SEO done along with others, you can expect your website to rank better than earlier. I can bet on this.
7. Mobile friendly website
As the name suggests any website that opens easily on mobile is a mobile-friendly website. More than 68% of Google searches are done on mobile phones. And Google answers these searches with mobile-friendly websites.
Competition to rank on Google is rough and having a website optimized for mobile phones helps you to sustain yourself in the market. You cannot lose an SEO battle because your website loads slowly on a mobile phone.
So make sure if you launch a website or have a running website, Make it mobile-friendly.
8. Image Optimization
The quality of images should be top-notch in order to rank higher on Google. Don’t use vector and sample images. Original high-quality images add fire to your SEO ranking.
Most of the users don’t read everything. But they do stop to have a glance at every image. So it is important to use engaging images and hold your visitors onto your website.
Use keywords in the image to optimize your website even more. Also compressing of your images that help to boost site speed. You can use plugins like WP Smush.it for this purpose.
Make your images optimized with Alt Tags. These are the tags that google bots reads to know what the image is about. It ranks it in the Google Image Search column. If you’re showing the construction processes or the final property. Make sure you give them Alt tags. By doing this your Services will also rank in Google Image search which will help you get traffic from even there.
9. Website loading speed
Your webpage should take a maximum of 3 seconds to load. Otherwise, you’ll face a high bounce rate. This is important on-page SEO.
You can increase your website’s loading speed by using optimized and compressed images. You can use cache plugins that help you clear the cache data to boost your website speed.
Contact your developer right after reading this article if your website speed is slow.
10. Broken Links
To check broken links you must have an account with Google Search Console if you don’t have one by now. You can set up your Google Search Console Account within few minutes.
This will help you track the broken links of your website and shows you how you can fix them. You can then either do it yourself or mail your developer to do it for you. These broken links are actually the links that are not opening because of some errors.
These broken links affect your rankings. Make sure you find out the broken links and tell your developer to fix them. or watch this video on How to fix broken links.
Wind Up on SEO For Therapists
All the expert tips on SEO for therapists are shared. Now your role comes into action!
Remember! SEO is not a one-time thing. There are thousands of websites listing every minute on Google. And with every minute competition to rank on Google keeps on increasing. Perform an SEO check at least every week.
Yes, it might seem to be a lot of work, But the results can blow your mind.
If you get 5-10 clients every day, You can expect at least 50-60 clients every day after optimizing your website with SEO. You can skyrocket your sales at the moment you rank on the 1st page of Google.
Take a moment to revise everything and OOPS! It’s time to stop your stopwatch and finish our session.
Signing Off!