For counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists in private practice who want enquiries from Google itself, as well as from the directories. We look after your Google profile, the pages on your website and the register details clients check, worded with your professional code and the advertising rules in mind. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results: nothing upfront, and nothing to pay until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
+398%more times shown on Google, search and profile together
“I’ve tried a lot of other people, spent literally thousands, with really very little return.”
Bradley, BJR PsychotherapyPsychotherapy and counselling, Hove
June to July 2026, two months. Source: Google Search Console and Google Business Profile.
Read the full storyBJR Psychotherapy is Bradley's counselling practice in Hove, seeing clients in person and online. It is the only therapy practice we have worked with so far. Its figures run from the first month we tracked to the best month since, using Google's complete monthly data. Set against June 2026, the month he joined, July was its best month since: shown on Google 398% more often, in search and on its Google profile together, with clicks through to its website up 103% (Google Search Console). That is a two-month comparison, not a long-run trend. Bradley's words in the video are about the agencies he paid before us, not about these figures.
+121%
more clicks a day from Google: 16 a day when the work began, 35 a day in October
“We’ve seen our online presence increase massively.”
Hastings, Protocol Healthcare ServicesHome care and healthcare staffing, London
15 to 31 July against 1 to 18 October 2026. Source: Google Search Console.
Read the full storyProtocol Healthcare is a home care provider, not a therapy practice, and the nearest health and care client we can show. The extra clicks went to the care jobs pages it gained in September, so they came from people looking for work, not from families. Each client can open the same numbers in their own portal.
Many start with "near me", then choose between a map of local practices, directory listings and free services. "Therapist near me" and "therapy near me", which Keyword Planner counts together, average 33,100 UK searches a month, and "counselling near me" 8,100. Google's Keyword Planner supplies those figures and the others on this page: UK monthly averages for the year ending September 2026.
Searching drops over Christmas and comes back in January. Keyword Planner has "therapist near me" at 27,100 searches in December 2025 and 40,500 in January 2026. On Google Trends, December averaged lower than any other month in 2022, 2023 and 2025. So your profile and site should say whether you have spaces before the new year, not halfway through January.
On 20 October 2026 we pulled Google's mobile results for four therapy searches, made from Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Norwich. All four showed a map of three local practices near the top, with directories below it. NHS services ranked too in Leeds, and in Norwich so did a not-for-profit centre offering low-cost counselling.
Google's map rests on three things: how relevant a profile is to the search, how close it is, and how well known the business is, which takes in its reviews (Google). Nine of the twelve profiles we saw had fewer than 40 reviews. Only a practice that sees clients in person can appear.
Directories had pages in the first ten ordinary results of all four searches, Psychology Today most often. New members get six months free, then pay £19.95 a month (Psychology Today). Counselling Directory starts at £24.50 a month (Counselling Directory), and BACP's directory costs registered members £76 a year (BACP).
Adults in England can refer themselves to NHS Talking Therapies without seeing a GP (NHS), and "nhs talking therapies" averages 18,100 searches a month. For some people that is the right route. Your pages only need to say plainly what working with you involves.
Making your practice easy to find and easy to check. That means a complete Google profile, a page for each kind of work you take on, your registration where a client can verify it, and listings that agree with one another. On the profile, this is our standard Google Business Profile management with the rules of your profession built in.
The main category is the one that is true. Of ten therapy profiles we looked up from those maps, six used Counsellor and three Psychotherapist. Google asks for categories that say what a business is, so a counsellor's profile doesn't claim Psychologist, and the hours show when you really see clients.
"Bereavement counselling" averages 5,400 searches a month, "couples therapy near me" 3,600 and "therapist for anxiety" 1,600. Every kind of therapy you offer has a page to itself, explaining how you work and what a first session is like. What a page like that needs.
Google, Psychology Today, Counselling Directory and your professional body's directory all show the same practice name, address and number. A room you moved out of years ago, still listed somewhere, gets corrected. Which listings still count.
Inviting reviews is your decision, made under your own code, and some therapists choose not to. If you do, every client gets the same simple request, never a chosen few. A public reply that confirms someone was your client reveals that they had therapy, so a plain thank-you is the safer answer.
Google's own counts arrive in your portal monthly: how often you were seen, clicks through to your site and presses of the call button. They are Google's totals, with no names attached. How those calls are counted.
No. Google only lists a business that meets its customers in person during the hours it shows, and it names online-only businesses among those that are not eligible (Google). So where and when you see clients decides what can be done on the map.
By looking you up on a register, if you make that easy. "Counsellor", "psychotherapist" and "therapist" are not protected titles, so people using them do not need to be on the register of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). What a client can check is membership of a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), such as BACP's, UKCP's or NCPS's.
Most people never check. In a Censuswide survey for the PSA of 1,000 UK adults who had used a practitioner, carried out in late June and early July 2026, 75% believed therapists are legally regulated. Only one in six had used a register or another verified source before booking therapy, a private scan or a cosmetic treatment (PSA). The PSA's Look Before You Book campaign, launched in August 2026, now asks the public to look for its Quality Mark.
So your registration goes wherever a client meets you: the profile description, every page of your site and each directory listing, as a number anyone can check. BACP asks registered members to show their registration number on all their promotional material, so clients can check the entry (BACP). Where your register allows it, the Quality Mark sits beside it.
For a psychologist the protected title does most of the trust work, so it has to be exact everywhere. Nine titles, including clinical psychologist and counselling psychologist, can only be used by someone on the HCPC Register, while "psychologist" on its own is not protected (HCPC).
So your profile description, page titles and schema (the labels Google reads behind a page) use the protected title you hold, with your HCPC number linked to the HCPC's register check. The profile name stays your own name, though Google lets a practitioner's name carry a title such as Dr (Google). The searches are smaller but specific: "psychologist near me" averages 3,600 a month, "counselling psychologist" 1,600 and "private psychologist near me" 480.
Arts therapists are in the same position. Art psychotherapist, art therapist, dramatherapist and music therapist are protected titles too (HCPC).
Only what you can stand behind, without promising anyone they will get better. Mental health marketing works under tighter rules than most. The ASA, the UK advertising regulator, has said that because people seeking mental health care may be vulnerable, marketers need to take "particular care" (ASA). These are the rules we write your pages to:
Because what people write in it is often health data, which UK GDPR protects more strictly than ordinary personal details. The ICO, the UK's data protection regulator, counts details about someone's mental health as data concerning health (ICO). Using it needs a lawful basis plus a separate condition under Article 9 (ICO).
So a good form asks only for what you need to reply, a name and a way to get back to them, and leaves the reason for getting in touch optional. Your privacy notice should name the tools that see their message, which BACP's 2026 framework also expects. Advertising trackers on pages about anxiety or bereavement need the same thought, because the ICO treats profiling that infers someone's health as special category data too.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results. There is nothing to pay upfront: you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
Websites, ads and social media are quoted separately after the free analysis. How pay on results works
Tell us your trade and area. We record a short video of where you rank, who is above you and what would have to change. It is yours to keep.
If your market is not winnable, we say so. If it is, we agree in writing what a result is and how it is measured, before anything starts.
Your Google Business Profile, the pages that need to rank, citations and reviews. One business per trade per area, so never your rival as well.
Clicks, calls and where you show up, in your own portal, straight from Google. You pay once the agreed results are met.
We don't publish prices. What it takes depends on how strong the practices on your local map are, how much of the first page the directories take, and whether you see clients in person at all. The free analysis comes first, then a figure, and nothing obliges you to go ahead. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results: nothing upfront, and nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met. Past that point the fee runs monthly, and it stops whenever you say. If you stop before then, no fee is due at all. A new website or ads would be quoted separately. How UK agencies usually charge.
That depends on who holds your local map now, so we won't name a month. The strength of the practices around you, whether your profile is eligible and complete, and how much your site needs all play a part. The free analysis puts a size on that gap before you commit, your portal shows the movement each month, and the waiting costs you nothing.
Possibly, by a different route. Google does not give online-only businesses a profile, so there is no map to win, and your site and directory listings carry everything against national services and large providers. The work goes into pages for the specific kinds of therapy you offer online and into directory profiles that match. If it isn't realistic in your field, you hear that first.
Only if you decide you want that. Some therapists invite reviews and some prefer not to, and UKCP's code rules out client testimonials in advertising. Reviews help but are not everything: in the Norwich map we checked on 20 October 2026, none of the three practices had more than ten. If you do invite them, the request is the same simple one for every client, with nothing offered in return, since Google's policy bans incentives and picking out happy clients to ask. Keep any reply to thanks, with nothing that confirms the reviewer was a client.
Keep any listing that brings you clients. Directories take a lot of space on the first page, and the details on each should match your Google profile. The difference is ownership. A directory shows you in a list it controls, while you keep paying. Your profile and site go on working after a subscription lapses, and your portal shows what Google sends you, so you can compare. Asking new clients how they found you helps too.
No. One therapy practice per area is the rule. Your area is closed to other therapy practices while you stay, and if another practice got there first, you hear that at the outset.
Usually not. We work on sound sites that someone else built. If yours cannot hold a page for each kind of work, or a contact form fit for health data, we tell you. Any rebuild is priced separately and sits outside pay on results. More on rebuilding a site without losing what already ranks.
Being easy to find is not the problem: tens of thousands of people search Google for a therapist every month. What needs care is the wording. No promises of recovery, no fear about waiting lists, and your title and registration stated exactly. Pages are written to your professional body's code and the ASA's rules. Where those pull against what might rank, the code has to come first, because your registration depends on it.
Yes. Google lets the practice have its own profile and each therapist who sees the public have one under their own name. A solo therapist trading under a practice name shares one profile instead, named in the form "Practice name: Your Name". Either way it is one profile per person, never one per specialism (Google), and each therapist can have a page on the site with their register details.
Say where you see clients, or that you work only online, and which kinds of therapy you offer. A short video follows within two working days, showing how your practice appears on Google today, which practices come up before yours and what it would take to move up. You keep the video whether or not we work together. If your area already belongs to a practice we work with, or it can't realistically be won, you'll be told that plainly.