Local searches
"Counsellor in Leeds", "therapist near me". These bring up the map results, so your Google Business Profile matters as much as your website.
SEO for counsellors and therapists is mostly about being findable for what someone types when they are ready to reach out: a problem, a place, or the word online. It also has to sit inside your code of ethics, which rules out a lot of what general SEO advice tells you to do. This page covers both, and it is honest about who needs help with it and who can do most of it themselves.
People rarely search for a modality. They search for what they are going through, where they are, and sometimes how they want to meet.
"Counsellor in Leeds", "therapist near me". These bring up the map results, so your Google Business Profile matters as much as your website.
"Online therapy UK", "online counselling for anxiety". No map, national competition, and directories and platforms take most of the page. A clear specialism is how you win here.
"Bereavement counselling Bristol", "couples therapist Manchester", "therapist for anxiety near me". Fewer searches, closer to booking. Each one needs its own page, written by the person who does the work.
Psychology Today, Counselling Directory and the BACP and UKCP directories rank for broad searches you will rarely beat. Stay on them, keep your details identical, and let your own site win the specialism and name searches they cannot.
Most of it is careful writing and tidy details rather than anything technical.
A "near me" search is answered mostly from the map, and the map is built from Google Business Profiles. Choose the primary category that fits how you are registered (counsellor, psychotherapist or psychologist), list the issues you work with as services, add real photos of the room, and keep your hours accurate.
This is where many therapists get stuck. Google lets you hide your address only if you have no premises where you receive customers, for example if you travel to clients. If clients come to a therapy room in your home, that is the place they visit, and the Business Profile guidelines are written around showing it. So the real choice is: show the address, base your profile at a rented room where you see clients during your stated hours, or skip the profile and lean on your website and directories.
Google's eligibility rules require in-person contact with customers, so an online-only practice is not eligible for a profile at all. That is fine: your website, your directory listings and a page for each specialism do the work instead.
The practice gets its own profile, and each public-facing clinician can have one too, which helps when clients search for a named therapist. Keep the practice's details consistent across all of them.
The UKCP Code of Ethics and Professional Practice is explicit: clause 13 says not to include testimonials from clients in any advertising. The BACP Ethical Framework comes at it through honesty, confidentiality and not exploiting the therapeutic relationship, which makes asking a current client for a public review very hard to justify. A Google review is permanent and public. BACP's 2026 framework becomes mandatory on 3 November 2026, so check the current wording.
Your registration and membership shown where people look, your training and supervision, clear fees, and a calm explanation of what a first session involves. If someone leaves a review unprompted, you can thank them without confirming they were ever a client.
Marketing claims on your own website fall under the ASA's remit and the CAP Code, the same as an ad. Avoid outcome promises such as "overcome anxiety in six sessions". Membership claims have to be accurate too: the ASA has upheld complaints against counsellors whose websites claimed a BACP membership they did not hold, such as this ruling.
Most counsellors and therapists start with a website that ranks for their specialisms and a Google profile set up properly. You can do much of that yourself using the list on this page.
If you would rather hand it over, Launch (£449 setup, then £39 a month) suits most solo therapists, and Grow (£949, then £59 a month) adds a page for each thing you help with. For a group practice with capacity to fill, ongoing SEO and ads start from £1,500 a month. Either way, a short call is the quickest way to work out what suits you.
The full picture for group practices: search, ads within the platforms' mental health rules, and AI assistants. See marketing for therapists →
Written, built and hosted for you, ethics-aware, from £449 setup plus £39 a month. See therapist websites →
Just starting out? Read the guide to going private in therapy and psychology, or run the free AI visibility check.
Google Business Profile changes can show within weeks. Specialism pages take months to rank, and longer in big cities or for online searches, where you are competing nationally. We would rather say that up front than promise speed.
Mostly, yes. Write a page for each thing you help with, keep your details identical everywhere, set up your Google profile within the rules, and put your registration where people can see it. If nobody can find your site at all, start with why a website is not showing on Google.
Only if clients do not come to you there. If they do, show it, base the profile at a rented room, or rely on your website and directories instead.
Not current clients, and UKCP registrants should not use client testimonials in advertising at all. Trust for a therapy practice comes from credentials, clear fees and visible expertise, and that is what we build around.
The search side is much the same. The rules are not: professional codes, licensing boards and, in the US, health privacy rules around website tracking all differ. We work with practices in both countries and check the US side at the start rather than assume the UK answer applies.
Yes, it can be. On a UK marketing retainer the promise is that if we don't make you more than we cost you, you don't pay our fee until we do, assessed quarterly against an agreed enquiry value.
One 30-minute call. We will look at how you show up today and tell you honestly whether you need us, or just a few changes you can make yourself.
Book a discovery call →