Keywords for Counselors & Therapists: A Complete List [Download Available]
Category: Search Engine Optimization | Tags: industry, therapists
Overview Of This Keyword List
At Avalanche Creative we love helping therapists and counselors with their local SEO. Search engine optimization for therapists is crucial to the success and growth of your practice.
We put together a list of 1,000 local keywords for counselors, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Local keywords are defined by any keywords that trigger the “local pack” or “map pack” in the Google search engine results page (SERP). See below for an example:
The picture above shows that we did a search with the keyword “counselor near me” and near the top of the page, Google is showing a map and suggesting three local counselors.
All of the keywords in our counselor keyword list will show the local pack if you search them in Google.
The 1,000 keywords within this list are tagged so you can sort them easily based on the type of services your practice offers and who you serve.
For example, if you are a counselor that specializes in working with the LGBT community, you can easily sort this list by therapy/counseling-related keywords that include LGBT.
Here are the tags that you can use to sort and find the right keywords for your practice:
- find
- appointment
- children
- therapy
- teenage
- health
- services
- relationship
- couples
- marriage
- depression
- disorder
- family
- child
- divorce
- black
- male
- Christian
- abuse
- drug
- alcohol
- specialist
- autism
- psychiatrist
- counselor
- therapist
- anxiety
- behavioral
- gay
- LGBT
- female
- anger
- group
- free
- psychologist
- mental
- substance
- grief
- teen
- addiction
- counseling
- Spanish
- Medicaid
- postpartum
- narcissism
- ADHD
- pediatric
What To Do With These Keywords
Every time a human makes a search in a search engine they have a specific intention. Each one of these keywords should be looked at from that perspective.
If you want to get in front of the person searching for any one of these keywords or phrases, you’ve got to make sure that your website offers a relevant experience to the searcher’s need. You do that with great content, that is well-organized and the technical parts of your site are healthy.
When someone searches for a “female trauma therapist near me,” Google wants to offer that searcher the most relevant and trusted result.
How do you become the most relevant and trusted result for a keyword like this? Let’s break it down at a high level.
- Female
Obviously, there needs to be clear signals that you or your practice have at least one female therapist. But, let’s be honest. It’s kind of strange to say “WE HAVE FEMALE THERAPISTS” all over your website. That sounds awkward and unprofessional. Instead, what you can do is make sure you have a great profile picture of your female therapists and then in your image alt tag make sure to note that the person in the picture is a female therapist. This is helpful for search engines and that text isn’t visual on your site so it doesn’t create an awkward experience. - Trauma
You need to have more signals that not only do you have female therapists but your female therapists are experienced and/or specialize in trauma. This can be accomplished by having language on your site related to trauma counseling. This would include referencing the types of trauma patients your female therapists have worked with. The reality is, there are a lot of different types of trauma. By elaborating on the different types of trauma, you’ll be able to personalize the experience on your site. You also need to make sure you answer the basic questions that a new patient might have about counseling in general and more specifically trauma counseling (including your methods, etc.). - Near Me
You need to be near the searcher. This sounds like a given, but there’s a lot you need to do both on your website and other places online in order to make it clear that you have an office or take patients in your surrounding area. One of the most important tools to use is Google My Business. Make sure you create and claim your free listing and fill out the details completely.
Get the Keyword List
Fill out the form below and we’ll send you the list! Ready to invest in SEO and find the perfect keyword list for your practice? Chat with us today.
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Download The Counseling Keywords List

Download our list of 1,000 local therapist keywords.
- Organized by categories.
- All local keywords.
- Training on what to do with these.
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