SEO Keywords for Therapists: Building a List by Specialty and Town
· 5 min read · Therapist SEO Company editorial team
The most useful keyword list for a therapy practice is a grid: one column for what you help with, one for how you work, one for who you see, and one for where you can see them. Cross the columns, keep the combinations people actually type, and give each separate intent its own page. Expect keyword tools to report zero searches for many of the phrases that matter most. For small local searches, that zero is often wrong.
Start with four columns
Write these out in a spreadsheet, using the words a client would use rather than clinical terms.
What you help with. Anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, OCD, postpartum and perinatal concerns, couples, life transitions, ADHD testing. "Couples counseling" and "marriage counseling" both belong here. "Relational work" doesn't, because almost nobody searches for it.
How you work. EMDR, CBT, DBT, EFT, the Gottman Method, play therapy. Include only methods you're trained in. Listing one you haven't trained in is a false statement about your services (APA 5.01 and ACA C.3.a both cover this), and people who search for a method by name tend to ask about training on the first call.
Who you see. Adults, teens, children, couples, families, new parents, college students, LGBTQ+ adults, first responders. Again, only where it's true of your practice.
Where. Your town, the neighborhoods and nearby towns within a reasonable drive of your office, and, for telehealth, each state where you're licensed. A search can find you from anywhere; your license decides where you can actually see someone, so the telehealth column stops at your license.
Add the words clients attach
Four kinds of modifier get added to the core phrases.
The profession word. Clients mostly type "therapist", "counselor" or "psychologist", and treat the first two as interchangeable. License titles vary by state: for example, LPC in Texas, LMHC in New York and Florida, LCPC in Illinois and Maryland, LPCC in California and Ohio, and LCMHC in North Carolina. Check your board for your exact title, use it on your bio, and use the plain words in your headings.
Insurance. "Therapist that takes Aetna", "therapist who accepts Medicaid", and private-pay phrases like "sliding scale therapy" and "out of network therapist superbill". Use a plan name only if you're in network with that plan.
Format. "Online", "telehealth", "virtual", "in person".
"Near me". Google handles this from the searcher's location. It belongs on your list as a reminder of how people search, not as words to repeat on the page.
Judge volume when the tools show zero
Keyword tools estimate search volume from samples and round small numbers down, so local phrases often show as zero or as a range starting at zero. "Trauma therapist" plus the name of a town of 40,000 people may be searched several times a month and still read as zero. Better signals:
- Look at the results page. If Google shows a map and directory pages for the phrase, it treats the phrase as a local service search, whatever the volume column says.
- Check the broader version. If "trauma therapist" has real volume for your nearest city or your state, the local form exists too, in smaller numbers.
- Watch autocomplete. Start typing the phrase into Google and note what it suggests.
- Read your own inquiries. The words people use in emails are usually the words they used to search.
- Use Search Console once a page exists. Its impressions show the phrases Google displays you for, including many the tools never listed.
A small phrase is often worth more than its number suggests. Someone typing "emdr therapist" plus a town knows what they're looking for, and few pages answer that exact search.
One page per intent, not per phrase
Phrases that mean the same thing share a page. "Anxiety therapist gainesville", "anxiety counseling gainesville fl" and "therapist for anxiety near me" are one intent. One page covers them, with the main phrase in the title and heading and the variants used naturally in the text.
Phrases that mean different things get separate pages. "Couples counseling gainesville" and "anxiety therapist gainesville" bring different people with different questions. When you're unsure, search both and compare: if the two sets of results mostly overlap, one page of yours can serve both; if they're different, you need two.
Avoid the opposite mistake as well: twenty pages that differ only by the town name. Pages that swap one word and repeat everything else read as copies, and Google tends to rank few of them, sometimes none.
A worked example
Here's the grid for a made-up solo practice, for illustration only. The clinician is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC, the Florida title) with an office in Gainesville, Florida. They see clients in person and by telehealth anywhere in Florida, work with adults on anxiety, with new and expecting parents, and with couples, and are trained in EMDR.
| Page | Main phrase | Variants on the same page | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anxiety therapy | anxiety therapist gainesville | anxiety counseling gainesville fl, therapist for panic attacks gainesville | In person and telehealth |
| Perinatal | postpartum therapist gainesville | perinatal therapist florida, online postpartum counseling florida | Telehealth statewide |
| Couples | couples counseling gainesville | marriage counseling gainesville fl | In person only |
| EMDR | emdr therapist gainesville | emdr therapy florida online | Training listed on the page |
| Telehealth | online therapist florida | telehealth counseling florida, virtual therapist florida | Florida license stated |
| Fees and insurance | therapist that takes [plan] gainesville | sliding scale therapy gainesville, out of network therapist superbill | Plan names as accepted |
Some phrases are left out on purpose. "Therapist gainesville" on its own goes to the home page; directories hold most of that results page, and a specialty page wouldn't add much there. "Psychologist" stays off the list because this clinician isn't one. Jacksonville and Orlando get no in-person pages, because they're beyond a reasonable drive; the telehealth page covers clients there.
That's six pages from a grid that could have produced fifty. Each answers a question a real person asks, and each has one phrase it's meant to rank for, which makes it easy to tell later whether the page is working.
Keep the grid current
Revisit the grid a couple of times a year. Add a row when you add a service, retire a page when you stop offering something, and move phrases between pages when Search Console shows Google matching them differently than you expected. A current grid is also the starting point for the SEO work we do for therapy practices, because every target page and keyword has to come from somewhere.
If you'd like a second opinion on which phrases in your grid are realistic for your town, send your specialties and area through the free visibility review. You'll get a plain read on where your site stands for them today.