Local SEO for therapists comes down to three things you can edit: your Google Business Profile, your website, and your directory listings. These 15 yes-or-no questions check each one. Start with your facts: your name, address or service area, phone, fee, and states should read the same wherever they appear.
How We Chose These Questions
Credible by Design builds websites for therapy and private healthcare practices. These 15 questions follow the checks our free audits run on a practice's profile, listings, and pages. Each question rests on help pages from Google, Bing, or CMS, which we read on October 29, 2026. Question 6 also cites three professional ethics codes. Our study numbers come from Where Patients Get Sent, wave 1, captured October 8, 2026. We left out paid ads, and every tactic Google's spam policies name.
Your Google Business Profile
1. Is Your Profile Verified, and Does It Show How You See Clients?
Why it matters: Your Business Profile is the listing Google shows on Maps and in its map pack, the block of local results. In our study, Google showed a map pack on 273 of 300 therapist searches.
How to check: Sign in with an account your practice owns, and make sure the practice is the profile's primary owner. A "Get verified" button on the profile means Google could not finish verifying it.
What to fix: If clients come to your office, show its address. If you see clients only online, Google asks you to hide the address, which is otherwise public, and list a service area. Name up to 20 cities or ZIP codes, within about two hours' drive of your base, as its service area guidance asks. Your website can name every state you serve (question 10).
2. Does Your Primary Category Say What Your Practice Is?
Why it matters: Google says categories help people find specific results for the services they want. In our study, Google's AI Mode showed place cards, which carry a business's name and category, in 164 of 300 answers.
How to check: Read the first category on your profile, which Google treats as primary. Does it complete Google's test sentence, "This business IS a"?
What to fix: Choose the most specific category that fits the practice as a whole. Google asks for as few categories as possible, and none used only as keywords. Leave specialties, such as anxiety or couples work, to your services list and your website.
3. Are Your Hours, Phone Number, and Website Link Current?
Why it matters: Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results. In our study, Google's AI Mode showed place cards from Business Profiles in 164 of its 300 answers.
How to check: Open your profile on your phone. Call the number, tap the website link, and compare the hours with the times someone answers.
What to fix: If a front desk or phone line keeps set hours, list those. If you see clients only by appointment, Google's guidelines say to leave hours off. Use a phone number your practice controls, and link your own website.
4. Does Your Profile Link to Booking and List Your Services?
Why it matters: A profile can carry a booking link and a list of services. Google says a listed service may be highlighted when someone searches for it.
How to check: Open your profile on your phone as a new client would. Does the booking link open your scheduler or consultation form, and are your main services there?
What to fix: Add the link to your scheduler or consultation request, and test it. Add each main service with a one-line description that says whether sessions are online, in person, or both. Our Google Business Profile examples include sample service lists for solo and group practices.
5. Do Your Photos Show Your Real Office and Your Clinicians?
Why it matters: Google asks for photos that represent reality. It suggests photos of the outside, the inside, and the team, and says team photos show a more personal side.
How to check: Look through the profile's photos as a stranger would. Are they current, and do they show the entrance, a session room, and each clinician?
What to fix: Add recent photos you took or have the rights to: the entrance, the waiting area or a session room, and each clinician. An online practice can show its clinicians alone. Keep clients out of every photo.
6. Do You Handle Reviews Within Your Code of Ethics?
Why it matters: Google counts reviews toward prominence, one of its local ranking factors. Your profession's code comes first.
What you may receive: Reviews that clients or former clients choose to write about a real experience. Google's policy bans incentives, and treats reviews from staff, relatives, contractors, or competitors as conflicts of interest.
How to check: Read new reviews each month, and flag any that break Google's policy. Look through your emails, forms, and office for any request for a review.
What to fix: Take out every review request. The APA (5.05) and NASW (4.07) codes bar soliciting testimonials from current clients and others vulnerable to undue influence. The ACA code (C.3.b) adds former clients. We treat a review request the same way. Google suggests replying to reviews, but a public reply can confirm the writer was your client, so we advise against it.
One Set of Facts Everywhere
7. Is Your Practice Name the Same Everywhere It Appears?
Why it matters: Google asks that a profile's name be your real-world name, as used on your website and stationery. It bars extra details, such as a service or a location, in the name.
How to check: List every place your practice appears: your site, the profile, Psychology Today, each directory, social profiles, and your NPI record. Compare the name, address or service area, and phone in each.
What to fix: Use one name everywhere, with no city or specialty added. CMS says providers should correct anything wrong in its public NPI Registry. If your profile's name must change to match, make it your last edit: Google says a name change may mean verifying again.
8. Do Psychology Today and Your Directories Match Your Site?
Why it matters: Google compiles profile information from several sources, including websites it crawls and licensed third-party data. In our study, Psychology Today was in Google's top 10 for 267 of 300 searches. ChatGPT quoted a session fee in 263 of 900 answers, with a Psychology Today link right after the fee in 229.
How to check: Open your site, your Psychology Today profile, and each directory listing side by side. Compare the fee, insurance, openings, telehealth states, phone, and website link.
What to fix: Update every listing to match your site on the same day, and note the date. Our therapist directories guide compares where else to list. Psychology Today vs Google Business Profile covers which to work on first.
9. Do Professional Groups List You and Link to Your Site?
Why it matters: Google says prominence also draws on how many websites link to your business. A listing in your professional association's member directory can add one such link.
How to check: Search the member directories of your state and national associations, and of local groups you belong to. Does each list you, with a link to your website?
What to fix: Complete each listing you already qualify for, using the same name, phone, and website as your profile.
Your Website
10. Does Your Site Say Where You See Clients, in Person and Online?
Why it matters: Someone reading your page wants to know at once whether you can see them. Google's guide to its AI features asks site owners to keep important content in text.
How to check: Read your homepage, contact page, and main service pages. Does each name your office's city, or say sessions are online, and list the states where you see clients?
What to fix: Under each page's main heading, add a line such as "In person in Austin, and online across Texas" in plain text. Name each state once, and use the same list on your profiles. Google's spam policies count blocks of city names as keyword stuffing.
11. Does Each Location Page Have Something of Its Own?
Why it matters: Google's spam policies list "pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse. A page for each nearby town, with the same text and a new name, fits that description.
How to check: Open two of your location pages side by side. Does each give something the other lacks, such as an address, directions, parking, or the clients you see there?
What to fix: Keep a location page where you have an office, or where it answers questions particular to clients there. Fold the rest into one page that names the areas you serve, and redirect each old address to it.
12. Do Your Page Titles Name the Specialty and the Place?
Why it matters: A page's title is one of the sources Google uses for the link in its results. Google asks for titles that are "descriptive and concise," and distinct on every page.
How to check: Read the title in the browser tab for your homepage and each service page. Does each service page's title name its specialty and your city or state?
What to fix: Write each title as the specialty, the place, then your practice name. A couples page might read "Couples Therapy in Austin, TX: Your Practice Name" in the tab. Google warns against repeated words, and against titles that differ by only one detail.
13. Do Your Pages Link to Each Other in Plain Words?
Why it matters: Google says every page you care about should have a link from another page on your site. The link's words tell people and Google what that page is about.
How to check: From your homepage, can you reach each specialty page and your contact page in one click? Read each link's words alone. Do they name the page they open?
What to fix: Link each specialty page from the homepage and from related specialty pages, and link each to your contact page. Use words that name the page, such as "couples therapy in Austin." Google calls "Click here" too generic.
Measuring What Changes
14. Is Your Site Verified in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools?
Why it matters: Search Console is Google's report on how your site appears in its results, AI Overviews and AI Mode included. Bing Webmaster Tools does the same for Bing, which said in 2025 that it powers search for Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and ChatGPT.
How to check: Sign in to each with an account your practice owns. Is your site listed there, with the practice as its owner?
What to fix: Add your site to Search Console first. Then import it into Bing Webmaster Tools, which verifies imported sites automatically.
15. Do You Check Each Month Which Searches Find You?
Why it matters: Search Console's Performance report lists the searches that showed your site. Its generative AI report shows which pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Your Business Profile's performance view lists the searches that found the profile. Bing Webmaster Tools reports Bing's searches the same way.
How to check: Open each report today, and write down the leading searches and the totals. That record shows where you stand before any change.
What to do: Look again each month and compare. Searches that pair your specialty with your city or state show whether the pages and profile above are being found.
The 15 Questions at a Glance
How to Use This Checklist
- Write down your current facts once: name, address or service area, phone, website, fee, insurance, and the states where you see clients.
- Set up Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and record today's searches before you change anything (questions 14 and 15).
- Work through questions 1 to 6 in your Business Profile, signed in as its owner.
- Hold every listing up against your list of facts, and fix the ones that differ (questions 7 to 9).
- Turn to your website (questions 10 to 13). Our seven short website checks cover the rest of it, from first impressions to fees and contact.
- Run the whole list again each quarter, and whenever a fee, an address, or a state changes.
For search beyond local results, our SEO for therapists post covers keywords and the wider basics.
Questions About Local SEO for Therapists
Can an Online Therapy Practice Have a Google Business Profile?
Yes. Online practices hold verified profiles as service-area listings, with the address hidden and the areas served named. Our own studio works online and holds one. Set yours up as question 1 describes. In our study, Google showed a map pack on 28 of the 50 searches for an online therapist in a state.
Should Each Clinician in a Group Practice Have a Profile?
Google's guidelines allow a profile for each public-facing practitioner, beside the practice's own profile for its location. A clinician's profile carries the clinician's name alone, and may include a title or degree. Google asks practitioners to keep one profile, whatever their specialties. Start with the practice profile, then add clinicians whom clients look up by name.
Do I Need Special Markup or an llms.txt File for AI Answers?
Not for Google. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special schema.org markup to add. Its guide to generative AI search says Google Search ignores llms.txt files. It describes answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) as "still SEO" for Google Search. FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search on May 7, 2026. The basics Google names include key facts in text and a current Business Profile.
How Long Does Local SEO Take?
No one can say for a given practice. Google's SEO Starter Guide says some changes take effect in hours and others take months. It suggests waiting a few weeks before judging a change. Google also says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. So record where you stand first (question 15), then compare month to month.
What This Checklist Doesn't Tell You
- Where your practice will show up. Google keeps its local ranking details confidential, and one of its three factors is the searcher's distance from you.
- How every assistant chooses. Google's statements here cover Google Search, and Bing's cover Bing. Other AI assistants pick their sources by their own rules.
- Your profession's full rules. Question 6 cites the APA, NASW, and ACA codes. Marriage and family therapists and other professions have codes of their own.
- How every search looks. Our study is one day of data, October 8, 2026, from one desktop location in one city per state, logged out. It shows patterns, and none of its numbers shows a cause.
We read every Google, Bing, CMS, and ethics code page cited here on November 10, 2026. The study's method and full report are on our research page. If something here is out of date, email charles@crediblebydesign.com and we will check it.
