Therapy is a business like any other. While the service itself is far more personal, before a psychologist can help their clients, clients have to find them, and that means marketing to those that need help with their mental health.
The problem is that active marketing doesn’t necessarily match therapy. You aren’t going to pay for a TV advertisement with “Feeling like your world is crashing down around you? Call Dr. Awesome, today!” In the field of psychotherapy, your clients will seek out help when they’re ready, and they’ll try to find someone that they’ll trust – not someone that tries to convince them to seek out their services.
Passive Marketing Through Therapist SEO
For the average psychologist, there are going three effective ways to market. The first is by providing excellent service and relying on word of mouth. The second is putting up a sign and hoping people see you when they need help. But the third, and the only one you can control, is going to be developing a presence online so that those that need help find you themselves.
That’s why psychologists need SEO – or online marketing that focuses on becoming a presence in search engines as a therapist – is so important. Although you have to be marketing your site, you’re also not finding those in your local city and telling them to come to you. You’re simply making yourself available and letting people find you when they need help.
To do this, you have to add pages to your site that focus on three things:
- Location – This is the most important consideration. You have to create content that talks about your location. Psychotherapy is a local business, and by focusing on your location often in your content, you tell search engines to help you show up for local searches.
- Expertise – When someone visits your site, you’ll want to show that you’re an expert. Identify with the client, show your expertise, and more. Remember that even with word of mouth, a potential client will probably still Google you to learn more about you.
- Variety – Finally, you’ll want to make sure that you have at least one page for anything that a potential client may be looking for. If someone is looking for help with their anxiety, or their ADHD, or their son or daughter’s delusions, a page that discusses each potential issue is going to make sure that clients can find what they’re looking for on your site.
You’ll want to do this through regular blogging, adding main site pages, and more, and throughout the entire time you’ll want to make sure that you keep the search terms that are relevant to your clients in mind, so that search engines learn more about your website, and know where to rank you accordingly.
It’s not a fast process, especially on a low marketing budget. But it’s the best way to get out there as a psychologist, and a smart choice for building yourself as a business without pushing yourself on the client.
Contact Great Leap Studios today if you’d like to learn more.
