Marketing for therapists · US & Canada

Marketing for Therapists and Mental Health Practices

Most people looking for a therapist start on Google, usually on a hard day. We help your practice show up for the searches that match the work you do, with Google Ads and SEO, so new clients find you directly and you stop paying a directory for every referral. Then we show you which calls and forms came from where.

Book Your 20-Min Discovery Call See how it worked for a mental health group

You'll speak with Salman Mehmood, our founder. If marketing isn't what's holding your practice back, he'll tell you.

Someone searches

anxiety therapist near me

Your page shows up

yourpractice.com › anxiety-therapy

Anxiety Therapy in [City]

In-person and online sessions. New clients usually seen within a week.

We count what happens next

Click from Google Counted
Call from the page, 6 minutes Likely new client
Contact form sent Tracked

Illustrative example

Who this is for

Solo therapists, group practices and multi-location groups

We work with private practice therapists, counsellors and psychotherapists, group practices with several clinicians, and mental health groups with many locations. In the US and Canada, the starting point is the same. People need to find you, understand who you help, and get in touch without friction.

Where therapy practices lose new clients

These are the things we see most often before a practice comes to us.

Paying directories for every lead

Psychology Today and referral sites can work, but you rent those leads and pay again for each one. The mental health group in our results below was paying about $75 per directory referral before we started.

No idea which marketing works

If you can't tell which calls and forms came from Google, a directory or a referral, every budget decision is a guess.

A website that tries to speak to everyone

“Therapy for everyone” doesn't help someone looking for a trauma therapist or couples counselling. Each main service needs its own page that speaks to that person.

Ads that spend without bringing clients

Broad keywords, ads that send everyone to the homepage and no call tracking. The money goes out and nobody can say what came back.

Why it's different

Marketing a therapy practice isn't like marketing a dental office

A few things change how we run Google Ads and SEO for mental health practices.

Stricter ad rules

Google has stricter rules for health advertising. You can't target people based on a mental health condition, and some services, like addiction treatment, need certification before ads can run at all. We build campaigns around what people search, which stays within those rules.

Privacy matters more

In the US, tracking on a therapy website has to be set up carefully because of HIPAA, and Canadian practices have their own privacy rules. We track calls and form submissions without sending client health information to ad platforms.

People search differently

Someone looking for a therapist is often stressed, so the ad and the page need to feel calm and clear, not salesy.

Fit matters as much as location

Clients pick a therapist by specialty and approach, so a page about anxiety therapy for teens will bring better enquiries than a general “counselling services” page.

What we do

How we market therapy practices with Google Ads and SEO

Most practices use one or both. Here's what each involves.

Google Ads

Google Ads for therapists

We run Search campaigns around the services you want to fill, like anxiety, depression, trauma or couples therapy, in the areas you serve. Every ad goes to a page built for that service, and every call and form is tracked, so you can see your cost per enquiry.

Service-based campaigns and ad groups, location targeting, negative keywords, call tracking with minimum call length, form tracking, landing pages per service, Performance Max only once there's enough conversion data.

SEO

SEO for therapists

We make sure each service you offer has a page that answers the questions people ask before they reach out, so you show up in Google's results, in the map and in AI answers. This builds over months, but you don't pay per click.

Keyword research by service and location, service and location pages, Google Business Profile optimization, technical fixes, schema, and question-led articles.

Every month

Tracking and reporting

Every month you see how many calls and forms came in, where they came from and what each one cost.

Call and form conversion tracking, Search Console and Google Ads reporting, set up with privacy in mind.

Results depend on your location, specialties, competition and budget, so we won't promise a set number of clients. We will tell you on the first call whether we think Google Ads, SEO or both make sense for you.

Client results

What this looked like for a mental health group with 10+ locations

A mental health group in Massachusetts with more than 10 locations was relying on directories, paying about $75 for each referral. They wanted their own steady source of new clients instead. Our first Google Ads campaign went live in October 2024. These numbers cover the two years since, straight from their Google Ads account.

3,221

Leads from Google Ads in two years.

About $24

Average cost per lead, roughly a third of what they paid per directory referral.

1,612

Phone calls. Calls were their main source of new clients, plus 691 enquiry forms.

The campaigns, landing pages and data now belong to the practice. They're no longer depending on a third party to send them clients.

Questions therapists ask us about marketing

Start where people already look: Google. Make sure your Google Business Profile is complete, give each main service its own page on your website, and track where your enquiries come from. Once that's in place, Google Ads and SEO can bring in new clients you don't pay a directory for.

They can, when the campaigns are built around specific services and locations and every call and form is tracked. The mental health group in our results got 3,221 leads at about $24 each over two years. There are rules on health advertising, so campaigns need to be set up with those in mind.

For most practices, yes. SEO takes several months to build, but it brings clients without a cost per click, and pages that answer people's questions keep working. Many practices run Google Ads for enquiries now and SEO for the long term.

Usually, yes. It's one more place people can find you. The aim isn't to drop directories overnight but to stop depending on them, so more of your new clients come to you directly.

We track that a call or form happened, not what the person wrote or said about their health. We don't send client health information to Google or other ad platforms, and we set up tracking with your privacy obligations in mind. Canadian practices have their own privacy rules, and we follow those too.

Yes. We work with practices in the US and Canada. The approach is the same, with ads and pages written for how people search in your province and city.

Want to read more first? See our guide to marketing a therapy practice, how we run Google Ads for healthcare, or how we approach healthcare SEO.

Find out how new clients are finding your practice

A 20-minute call. Tell us which services you want to fill and where. We'll look at what people search for near you, where your practice shows up today and whether Google Ads, SEO or both make sense now.

Book Your 20-Min Discovery Call salman@inboundattract.com
Salman Mehmood, founder of Inbound Attract

Salman Mehmood

Founder, Inbound Attract