Online Marketing for Therapists: The 7 Essential Steps

Building a therapy practice is an outreach to your community. Each client or patient is someone who needs to meet with you personally for the treatment, guidance and care you can provide. 

Of course, just about every client journey today starts online.
When your clients know they need a certain type of therapy – or are just seeking solutions to known symptoms, they go to the internet for answers because that’s how we, as a culture, do everything these days.

This means that just hanging your shingle or even building a referral network isn’t enough. Every modern therapist now needs to build their private practice online in addition to establishing an office and professional presence.

Equally as important to having online therapy sessions, effective marketing for therapists is something one should consider.

The 7 Steps of Effective Marketing For Therapists in Private Practice

What are the most important elements of your online therapy practice? What will bring clients to your therapy office and fill your inbox with booked appointments? It all starts with being found.

Here’s how you do efficacious digital marketing for therapists.

1) Optimize Your Website for Local Clients

When it comes to online marketing for therapists, first and foremost, you should focus considerable resources and efforts to optimize your website and its user experience.

For today’s clients, your website is your virtual storefront and lobby in one. It is where future clients go to get a feel for your practice.
Are you modern? Do you offer the therapies they need?
If the website looks and feels right, clients who find you online will reach out to book an appointment.

The basics are essential.
Your homepage is like your office lobby, welcoming tailored to your clients’ needs.
Your ‘Services‘ page should provide a detailed selection of therapy pages to explore.
Share a little about yourself and your team on the ‘About‘ page.
And make sure your ‘Blog‘ tab is full of useful, interesting, and home-care content for both new and current clients.

Localization is also essential.
Use the local lingo. Include your office address on the homepage and on the Footer of every page. Mention the regions you serve in your content and name specific neighborhoods or sub-cities nearby. This will help both Google and your clients know when a website visitor has come to the right place.

2) Hone Your Practice’s Google Business Profile (GBP) Presentation

Google Business Profile is the business side of Google Maps. And as we all know, if you’re not on Google Maps, your local business might as well be invisible.

• Claim Your Pin
• Define Your Business
  • Select your primary and secondary business categories
  • Description
  • Hours
  • Website Link
  • Address
  • Phone Number
  • Services
• Provide Photos and FAQ Answers
• Set Up the Book-an-Appointment widget
• Hone Your Listing

Start by claiming your pin, if you haven’t already. Take control of your address and business listing.

Make sure to fill out every detail of data asked for, these are critical search parameters as well as useful for new clients browsing their options.
Be sure to provide a few photographs of the building outside and interior, then seed your Q&A section with a few FAQ answers.

Don’t forget to set up your Book an Appointment tool to streamline bookings or provide a link to your booking platform. This will make it easy for new clients to make a decision, fast. Then put effort into perfecting your listing for your audience and the types of therapy you provide.

3) Cultivate Your Therapy Practice’s Online Reviews

Make an effort to cultivate reviews.

Add a posted reminder in your lobby and ask your staff to ask for reviews in a friendly, casual way when therapy is complete. 

Occasionally mention that reviews help your therapy business when you send out a newsletter to your clients.

(By the way, send a newsletter every 1-3 months to your client list with helpful seasonal tips, friendly news, and interesting updates about your therapy practice to keep clients engaged and encourage returning one-timers.)

Whenever possible, respond to the reviews you get.
Thank reviewers for their kind words or express sadness if they didn’t enjoy their experience. This will show that your practice is responsive and cares about the reviews that you ask for.

4) Claim Local Therapy Business Listings and Citations

Get into local listings.

Therapists are one of the professions where clients will browse a directory of local providers to find those who fit specific criteria. Many only feel comfortable with a therapist who is of their own gender, within 10 miles, or who provides specific sub-specialties.

Getting into local business listings and directories will allow your clients to find you by multiple avenues – and to sort for your specialties and qualities based on search filters in these listings.

Don’t be shy to reach out to local associations, sign up for website memberships, and go through the process of getting verified for each one. It’s a lot of work, but the referrals and client inflow will make the effort worth it.

5) Build Authority with High-Value Content Worth Reading & Linking

Therapists have some of the best potential for winning clients through online content, mainly your blog or structured information center.

Developing a winning content strategy is the key.

Your therapy expertise is an inbound marketing gold mine.
Why? Because your clients need answers and they don’t always know the questions.

The online content provided by therapists can help clients on the symptom-search discover what is wrong, that your therapy can help them, and build initial trust in you as an expert.

Inbound and Link-Building

The best inbound marketing content builds SEO authority with highly accurate therapeutic information and advice while building trustworthiness authority with information that is truly useful to your readers.

In addition, a great information page on specific symptoms, conditions, and at-home care can become linkable by other sites as a reference page – providing a source of SEO link-building as well.

Building Trust with Readers and Future Clients

Focus on content that helps your future clients understand their conditions, feelings, and symptoms.

Then provide some useful at-home treatment and insight on how professional therapy can help them overcome their challenges in the short- and long term.

Finish with a warm Call-to-Action inviting readers to contact you for a consultation to discover if your therapeutic practices are the right fit for their needs.

Local Geo-Targeting

Don’t forget to mention your service area 1-3 times per blog. This will help Google direct your local clients to the page and let readers know if your services are an in-reach option for them.

6) Social Media Marketing for Therapists

Marketing for therapists isn’t rocket science. Especially when it comes to social media.
Therapists also have a lot to gain from successful social media marketing.

For many people, successful therapy is a long-term process. Just by providing a few practical “From the therapist” tips a week and interacting with interested parties, you can build a community of people sharing their experiences, personal life hacks, and therapy reviews.
Altogether, this builds both your pool of potential clients and your reputation as a great provider for those in need of the type of therapy you provide.

Act as the voice of professional knowledge and compassion, reach out to provide advice to others, and be responsive to questions asked of you. This will naturally build your social media following and a community around your private practice online.

7) Paid Marketing Your Therapy Practice

Paid search marketing can also make a difference in reaching future clients online.

PPC (pay per click) is the most efficient form of paid marketing because your ad spend is only used when viewers click and follow your advertising links.

PPC can be done through Google Ads, Facebook, and many other platforms that make it possible to provide your ad copy exactly when users are most likely to need it.

On Google, for example, PPC is how you achieve the top SERP ad spots when users in your geo-targeted service area search for keywords that relate to your practice or the conditions you treat.

Digital Marketing Services For Therapists

Building your therapy private practice online is an important project to reach local clients and build local community support.

Here at LoclBizGuru, we develop premium therapist websites and bespoke marketing strategies for therapists that build a commanding online presence for your private therapy practice.

We do this by partnering with your brand for exactly the right combination of tactics, message, and community connection. 

Contact us today to begin online outreach for your therapy office.