Welcome therapists and group practice owners! I’m Nicole McCance, a psychologist turned business coach for therapists.
If you’ve been wondering how therapists get found in AI search now that your clients are asking ChatGPT for help before they ever open Google, you’re asking exactly the right question. The way people look for a therapist has shifted, and the good news is that catching up is a lot simpler than it sounds (I promise!). I’m going to walk you through what to change on your website, why it works, and how to do most of it from a lawn chair in your backyard.
P.S. Not a huge fan of reading blogs? (I’m more of a podcast girl myself.) You can listen to my podcast episode all about this topic by clicking here or watching the video below!
Why AI Search Changed How Clients Find You
Think back to how you used to search on Google. If I was looking for a therapist because I suspected I was in perimenopause, I’d type “Toronto therapy perimenopause” and hit enter. We were trained to talk to Google in shorthand for fifteen years.
But you don’t talk to your AI bot that way. You over-share. You say something like, “I can’t sleep, I’m hormonal all the time, I feel like a teenager again, could this be perimenopause, what are the symptoms?” Then the bot goes and searches for you, hunting for all of those words.
So, why am I telling you this? Because those words need to live on your website!
I like to picture the AI bots as little Pac-Men, and your website content is their favourite junk food. If the words aren’t there, they can’t find you when someone asks a question. And people trust what their bot tells them. They don’t double-check it against Google anymore, they just ask, “Where’s the phone number?” and call.
The Three Specialty Pages Every Therapy Website Needs
This is probably the biggest change you’ll need to make.
If you have a page called “Individual Therapy” or “Adult Therapy,” it’s time to change it (and if this is your site, please don’t let it get you down, almost everyone has it, mine did too!). Those labels aren’t what people type to their bot. Nobody says, “I’m looking for individual therapy.”
They describe their problem and their symptoms.
People search in a predictable order: problems first, then modalities, then populations. So build your specialty pages in that order.
1. Problem Pages
These are your highest-value pages because problems are what people search for most. Create a separate page for each problem you treat, like anxiety, phobias, or trauma. My advice is to publish one new specialty page a month (more if you can!).
2. Modality Pages
Fewer people search for solutions, but they do exist, especially now that social media has more people asking about EMDR, IFS, and parts work. Give each modality its own page.
3. Population Pages
Some clients do search by population, like child therapy or couples therapy, so give those their own pages too. Just know most people are describing a problem long before they name a population.
Hot Tip: Add all of these as dropdowns under the nav bar at the top of your site, so clients (and bots) can find every problem, modality, and population you serve.
Why Symptoms Matter More Than Diagnoses on Your Pages
Something we often forget as clinicians is that most people don’t know they have the problem. They don’t know their racing mind is anxiety, they don’t know their exhaustion is depression, etc. They’ve never sat in the classes we sat in.
So on your problem pages, go deep on symptoms, because that’s what people are actually describing to their bot.
If I think I “just have a bit of IBS and can barely breathe half the time,” a page that only says the word “anxiety” is white noise to me. But a page that names what I’m living will have me actually stop and pay attention.
This is the same reason your social posts, blogs, and emails land or get scrolled past. When you talk about what someone is feeling instead of the clinical label, they finally recognize themselves.
Hot Tip: Test this by dropping your specialty page into ChatGPT and asking it to summarize who this page is for. If it can’t tell, your clients can’t either!
Get Specific Enough to Spark Emotion
If you take only one piece of advice, take this: specificity is everything. Don’t list symptoms like a DSM checklist. You want to elicit emotion, because emotion leads to action.
Here’s what specific looks like:
- “Are you sick of waking up at 2 in the morning replaying that conversation with your boss?”
- “Do you spend the whole weekend so buried in your to-do list that you can’t be present with your kids?”
- “Do you ever wonder if not wanting sex with your husband means you’ve fallen out of love?”
Even if a reader hasn’t lived that exact moment, their brain remembers something close, and they connect. That’s the magic of vivid, specific writing. Specificity creates emotional memory, and emotional memory is what makes someone book (AKA: our goal!).
Add FAQs to Every Single Page
One piece that most people miss is that every page needs FAQs now, including your team page. Aim for at least 10 frequently asked questions per page. The AI bots are starved for unique, human information they can’t generate themselves, and your real answers are exactly that.
Here’s where to find the questions:
- Ask your bot what people are searching about the topic.
- Type a question into Google and see what it suggests others are asking.
- Best of all, use what you’re already hearing in session and supervision.
You have access to the human psyche that most content creators only dream about. Trust it.
Has Your Website Outgrown You?
Here’s my last question to sit with. If you’ve moved to private pay or premium rates (I love celebrating that with you!), your website needs to match. People take longer to make a therapy decision now, the same way they’d research an expensive hotel before booking. If your rates went up but your site is still the one you built yourself years ago, clients feel that gap and go find a practice that looks the part (an easy fix, I promise).
Inside my program, the Clinic Growth Map™, this is exactly the kind of shift we coach members through, and it’s working. My members are getting found on AI search, and so am I (yay!).
So write the pages, let your bot help, and invest a little to have them designed well.
If you want the deeper walkthrough, listen to my podcast episode on getting found in AI search, and come tell me on Instagram which specialty page you’re building first!
Your Business Bestie,
Nicole
