If you recently built a website for your private therapy practice, or built one a few months ago, it can feel pretty discouraging when it seems like it's just not working. Cause you've built this beautiful site, but somehow, nobody seems to be finding it.

But before you start thinking you wasted your time or need to spend hours dancing on social media to get clients, know that this is completely fixable.

To show you what works in the real world, let's look at a therapist in North Dakota I’ve been working with, detailing exactly what we did to turn her site into her primary source of new clients.

The different ways to market your private therapy practice

When you open a practice, there is more than 1 way to market your practice:

Word of mouth & networking: Awesome when it works, but rely on it exclusively and it can become unpredictable overtime. Especially when you need new clients.

Therapy directories: Places like Psychology Today work, but you're listed right alongside hundreds of other practitioners in your area.

Social media: It works for some, but having to post constantly to feed an algorithm is exhausting especially when you'd rather spend that energy with clients. Plus you went to school to help people, not to become a full-time content creator.

Your own website and SEO: This is the one channel you completely own. When it's set up right, it sits in the background bringing in local clients who are already actively searching for someone like you.

How I started working with a solo private practice therapist in North Dakota to make her website more visible

Back in 2022, a therapist running her own solo private practice out in North Dakota reached out to me. She was navigating everything that comes with opening a private practice: juggling client sessions, handling admin, and trying to figure out how to actually get new clients to find her online.

She already had a website, she just wanted a warm, human website that made it easy for local people to find her practice. And most importantly, she wanted to market her business without relying on social media.

So she hired me to help her. We tweaked her SEO (which is basically the things that you on your website that makes your website eaier to find, whether that's on Google or on places like ChatGPT).

Fast forward to today, and her website is one of her primary sources for new clients.

Here is a snapshot of the results we got:

• An 8x jump in client inquiries.
• One main website page brings her clients: We did SEO on and off. Initially, the page wasn't helping her get more clients, but after tweaking it a second time, within 30 days there was an increase in traffic. Within a year, it was the best-performing page that brought in a steady stream of clients.
• She got AI & ChatGPT referrals: This year, she's actually had clients reach out saying, "I found you because ChatGPT recommended your practice when I looked for local therapists."

Let's chat about we got these results

We did SEO on and off. (To explain SEO in a non-jargony way: it just means setting up your website so Google actually understands who you are and shows your site to people searching for help in your area.)

The first time she hired me for SEO, it took roughly 12 months to see traction because it was a new website. The second time, it took 30 days. Now, I could lead with the 30-day thing to sound impressive, but the unsexy truth is that SEO takes time.

On average, it takes 6 to 12 months to see any traction. How long it takes for your practice depends on a few things:

• How old your website is: If your site is brand new, Google takes a bit of time to discover it and trust that you're a real business.
• Whether you've done any SEO before.
• How competitive your area of expertise is: And whether your competitors/peers have also been trying to improve their SEO.

There will be people who tell you they can get you seen within 30 days, and perhaps they can. But from experience, nobody really sees results on the same exact timeline.

The biggest shift we made to get her therapy website to work better

The single biggest change we made was ditching clinical language.

As somebody who's worked with a lot of mental health professionals like therapists, I've noticed there's usually a disconnect between how therapists talk about what they do and how people looking for therapy actually talk about it.

Go into any forum where people talk about therapy or something they're struggling with strangers. Then go to a therapist's website The gap is huge.

Because yes, with therapy you want somebody who's a professional, but you also want somebody who, when you go to them, you're gonna feel at ease. A lot of people don't wanna walk into a therapist's office, or hop onto their website and feel like they're walking into a corporate interview or something like that.

But sometimes when I suggest simplifying how you talk about your services, I get push back cause the assumption is that simplifying how you talk about your services equals dumbing down what you do. But there's actually a way to talk about your services that feels relatable and simple to the person you're trying to reach (that doesn't feel dumbed down at all).

So we looked at how her actual clients talk and matched her website copy/words to that. We also ensured that we were noy burying important details in long paragraphs and instead, pulled them out, and put them in large headings that are impossible to miss.

What people want to see on your therapy website (and what might work)

Based on the research I've done for my client's website and my 6-year experience of knowing what works and what doesn't, here's what people want to see on your website:

• Your prices: Hiding prices behind a "contact me" form creates unnecessary friction.
• Your location: If you see people in person, state your town or city right away. If you offer telehealth or online therapy, state the exact state(s) you're licensed in so you aren't competing with therapists nationwide.
• Reassure people: When someone lands on your site, they're often feeling anxious or overwhelmed. They might be hiring a therapist for the first time, and they want reassurance. Your expertise matters, but knowing they'll feel safe is also important.
• Make important details super scannable: Most people who visit your website will skim and won't read a lot of what's on your website. Use headings to outline the most important information that might influence someone when they're looking for a therapist.
• Why they should pick you: People aren't just buying therapy, they're choosing the specific human being they're going to spill their gut to. So share a bit about yourself.

Should you hire help or DIY?

Doing it yourself: If you have the time and enjoy tweaking your site, you can research local search terms, write simple blog posts, and handle it yourself. It might take time, but it is completely doable.

Hiring help: If tech stuff gives you a headache or takes away from client hours, collaborating with someone to handle the strategy and setup can save you a ton of stress and time. And you can check out all the ways that I can support you here.

What monthly support could look like if you hire help

If you decide to work with someone, it doesn't have to be complicated or insanely expensive.

For example, I charge $400/month for simple SEO work, and this is a real example of what I would do with you:

Your role would involve writing blog posts on a monthly basis and from time to time offering me info I might need about your practice.

And my role would involve optimizing and publishing your blog posts, gradually tweaking your SEO over a 6-month preiod, monitoring your website, and tweaking  pages as needed to keep your practice ranking locally. If you want your content to go further you could even add my content repurposing service.

Does SEO even matter anymore in 2026 when AI is changing things?

With everyone talking about AI, a lot of business owners wonder if traditional SEO is even worth doing anymore. Why bother optimizing for Google if people are just asking ChatGPT for therapist recommendations?

But here’s the thing: AI engines like ChatGPT don't pull recommendations out of thin air. They crawl your website just like Google does.

Good SEO is literally the foundation that allows ChatGPT to discover your practice, understand who you serve, and recommend you when someone asks for help in your area.

So yes, SEO matters now more than ever, it's just doing double duty for both Google and AI.

Whether you decide to roll up your sleeves and tweak your website yourself or delegate the tech headaches to someone else so you can focus entirely on your practice, the most important step is simply getting started.

Cause it's better to get started now and have it take the whole year than to wait for the perfect time, only to end up next year at this time of year, with a website that isn't doing what you need it to do, so pick one simple thing to fix on your website this week, and build from there.

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