On "therapist london" the local pack shows three listings, all independent practices, with between 22 and 272 reviews. On "online therapy" Google opens with an AI Overview and then lists BetterHelp, Online-Therapy.com and other platforms; BetterHelp alone draws an estimated 86,000 organic visits a month in the UK (DataForSEO, Google UK, September 2026). These are two different races, and a therapist with a practice can win only one of them.
SEO for therapists is the work that gets a practice, solo or group, into the local pack and onto page one for "therapist + city" and "problem + city" searches, with a well-kept Google Business Profile, a website built around problems rather than therapeutic models, and a pricing page that stays within the HCPC standards and the ASA's CAP Code. On national searches such as "online therapy" you compete with platforms that publish hundreds of articles a month: a solo practitioner only gets in with a very good blog, and even then the traffic comes from far away.
Below are the data for both SERPs, how BetterHelp, Harley Therapy and a small London practice rank, and the method we use with professional practices. We have no therapist client whose numbers we can publish: the data come from DataForSEO. The paid side is covered in the companion article on Google Ads for therapists.
How clients search for a therapist
Two searches, two results pages that look nothing alike (Google UK, desktop, 26 September 2026; "therapist london" run from London).
| Search | Who holds the organic top 10 | SERP features |
|---|---|---|
| online therapy | 4 platforms (Online-Therapy.com, BetterHelp, Choose Therapy, Online Therapy UK), 3 information sources (BACP, Mind, NHS), 2 services or clinics (Release Therapy for Women, London Psychiatry Clinic) | AI Overview at the top; no local pack; 0 ads detected |
| therapist london | 5 directories (BACP, UKCP, Counselling Directory, Klearminds, Psychology Today), 1 platform (Self Space), 4 practices or practitioners (The London Practice, London Bridge Therapy, Dr Jane Halsall, UK Psychologists) | Local pack with 3 listings; "People also ask"; no AI Overview; 0 ads detected |
The search with the city is the one where an independent practice exists: four organic results out of ten are practices or named practitioners, and the three local pack listings are all independent practices. The "online" search is national, has the AI Overview on top of everything and lines up four platforms and three charities or public bodies.
The "People also ask" questions show what weighs on the choice: "How much does a therapist cost in London?", "Does the NHS cover therapists?", "Can I see a therapist for free in the UK?", "Where can I find affordable online therapy in the UK?". Price, and the NHS as the free alternative. Related searches add "free", "price", "NHS", "in person" and "best therapists in London".
Recommended reading: how to read search intent from a SERP.
Platforms win "online therapy", not "therapist + city"
The most common belief among the therapists we talk to is that BetterHelp and the other platforms have taken all the space on Google. The data say something else: they have taken the national, informational space and left the local one.
| Domain | Organic keywords | Estimated organic visits per month | Keywords in the top 10 | Estimated traffic value per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| betterhelp.com (platform) | 18,896 | 85,930 | 4,186 | £62,920 |
| harleytherapy.co.uk (Harley Street practice with a large blog) | 4,804 | 16,964 | 614 | £24,510 |
| thelondonpractice.com (independent practice, London) | 209 | 5,398 | 38 | £27,110 |
Look at what that traffic is made of. Of BetterHelp's 25 highest-traffic UK keywords, 23 are informational: "antecedent behavior consequence" (60,500 searches a month, position 1), "misogynist" (60,500, position 10), "splitting" (74,000, position 6), "monogamy meaning" (27,100, position 6), "lust meaning" (14,800, position 5). The two commercial ones are "therapist near me", reached with an advice article, and a search for its own prices.
The last column tells the rest of the story. BetterHelp gets 16 times the visits of The London Practice, but its traffic is worth barely more than twice as much, because a visit to "lust meaning" is worth little to an advertiser and a visit to "therapist london" is worth a lot. The small practice has 209 keywords and they are the ones that fill a diary.
The point for a practice: none of BetterHelp's top 25 keywords contains a city, and across its 18,896 UK keywords the ones that match a city name are a couple of dozen, several of them by accident ("nosebleeds" contains "Leeds"). The "therapist + city" field is left to practices, local groups and directories.
Recommended reading: how company size changes SEO strategy.
Why some therapy keywords have no search volume
Google Ads returns no volume or CPC in the UK for "online therapy", "psychologist london", "psychotherapist london", "couples counselling", "anxiety therapist", "cbt therapist near me" or "counselling london". Part of the mental health vocabulary is hidden in Keyword Planner. The words "therapist" and "counsellor" mostly still have data; "psychologist", "psychotherapist" and condition-based searches mostly do not. The same blackout covers "physiotherapist london", "osteopath london" and "physio near me".
| Keyword | UK searches per month | CPC |
|---|---|---|
| therapist | 49,500 | £8.44 |
| counselling | 40,500 | £6.05 |
| therapist near me | 33,100 | £5.31 |
| couples therapy | 18,100 | £6.40 |
| counsellor near me | 8,100 | £3.25 |
| therapist london | 5,400 | £9.98 |
| therapist manchester | 1,900 | £5.01 |
| therapy online uk | 1,900 | £17.56 |
| marriage counselling | 1,900 | £3.99 |
| sex therapist london | 880 | £4.23 |
| how much does therapy cost | 720 | £3.45 |
It is a real limit of this article: we cannot tell you how many people search for "psychologist" plus your city. We can tell you who wins it and how contested it is: DataForSEO's estimated difficulty is 0 out of 100 for "therapist manchester", 22 for "therapist london", 30 for "psychologist london", 31 for "therapy online uk" and 63 for "online therapy". Local searches are far less defended than national ones.
To estimate demand for the hidden terms there are two routes. The nearby keywords that do have data, as in the table above. And the query report in Search Console, which after a few months shows the real searches, city included. If you already have a website, that report is worth more than any tool.
Recommended reading: keyword research when the volumes aren't there.
The Google Business Profile is the first thing that ranks
On "therapist london" the local pack appears straight after the first three organic results and holds three practices: One Therapy London with 4.7 stars and 71 reviews, The London Practice with 4.9 and 22, Harley Therapy with 4.7 and 272. No platforms, no directories.
The case to look at is The London Practice: in the local pack with 22 reviews, and fifth in the organic results for the same search. With 22 reviews it sits next to a practice with 272: reviews count, but so do the profile category, consistency between profile and website, distance from the searcher and the authority of the linked domain.
What to fix on the profile, in order of weight:
- Primary category "Psychotherapist", "Counsellor" or "Psychologist", not "Medical clinic": the category decides which searches the profile appears for.
- Verified address, even if you see clients in a shared practice room: profiles with only a "service area" drop out of the local pack on searches with the city.
- Reviews. Asking a client for a review is a delicate choice and professional bodies do not all see it the same way: the practical rule is never to ask during the therapy and never to offer anything in return (Google's own policy bans incentivised reviews).
- Link to the right page of the website, meaning the homepage optimised for the city, not the contact page.
The same pattern applies outside London: "therapist manchester" has 1,900 searches a month and an estimated difficulty of 0, and the national platforms do not have a local presence there either.
Recommended reading: how to optimise your Google Business Profile and the local SEO guide.
How to build a therapy practice website
The typical therapist's website has five pages: home, about me, approach, services, contact. It is built around the practitioner and their model (systemic, CBT, psychodynamic, integrative). Nobody searches for the model. People search for the problem and the city.
The pages that rank, in the order we build them:
- The homepage as a "Therapist in [city]" page. It is the page with the most authority on the site and it must carry the city in the title, the H1 and the body copy, with the practice address and your registration (HCPC number if you are a practitioner psychologist, BACP or UKCP membership if you are a counsellor or psychotherapist). That is what the practices on page one for "therapist london" do.
- One page for each problem you treat: anxiety, panic attacks, depression, couples therapy, young people, bereavement. "Couples therapy" has 18,100 searches a month in the UK and a CPC of £6.40, "marriage counselling" 1,900 searches and £3.99: when advertisers pay £4 to £6 for a click, that page is worth building.
- A separate "Online therapy" page, if you also work remotely. It will not rank for the national keyword, but it catches "online therapy + city" and the searches of people who have already found you and want to know if you work remotely.
- A fees page, covered below.
- About me with training, registration number, years in practice and a real photo. It answers "is this a good therapist?" and is a signal of experience and trustworthiness in a sector where Google judges content more strictly.
A group practice adds one page per therapist, with their specialist problems, and ties everything together with internal links from problem pages to people. London Bridge Therapy, sixth for "therapist london", presents itself as a team of psychologists and specialists in this way.
The fees page and the advertising rules
The first question Google shows on "therapist london" is about cost, and two more are about getting therapy for free. In the SERPs, Self Space advertises "free 20-min introductory sessions" in its snippet and Choose Therapy an "initial assessment for just £20". If you don't publish your fees, you let others answer the most searched question, and you leave the NHS comparison unanswered too.
Publishing prices is allowed. For practitioner psychologists, the HCPC standards of conduct, performance and ethics require you to "take reasonable steps to make sure that any promotional activities you are involved in are accurate and are not likely to mislead" (standard 9.3) and to "be honest about your experience, qualifications and skills" (9.2). Titles such as "practitioner psychologist" and "clinical psychologist" are protected; "therapist" and "counsellor" are not, which is why a BACP or UKCP membership line matters to clients. For everyone, the ASA's CAP Code section 12 applies: "objective claims must be backed by evidence" (rule 12.1), and you must not discourage essential treatment for conditions that need medical supervision (rule 12.2). If you belong to BACP or UKCP, check their ethical framework as well.
In practice: yes to the session fee, the length, the difference between the first consultation and later sessions, concessions and cancellation terms. No to "the best therapist in London", success rates, comparisons with colleagues and time-limited discounts: they are claims you would have to prove. If you are unsure about a sentence, ask your professional body before publishing it.
Recommended reading: how to design an SEO-friendly website.
The blog brings traffic, not clients
Harley Therapy ranks for 4,804 keywords in the UK with an estimated 16,964 visits a month, traffic that most clinics would envy. Of its 30 highest-traffic keywords, 28 are informational: "narcissist" (135,000 searches, position 12), "splitting" (74,000, position 15), "celibate" (18,100, position 5), "carl jung" (18,100, position 11), "sarcasm meaning" (12,100, position 6). The other two are its own brand name. None contains a city.
Someone searching "sarcasm meaning" from Glasgow will not book a session in Harley Street. That traffic gives the domain authority, and authority helps the practice hold its place in the local pack for "therapist london". Yet the site is not in the organic top 10 for that search, while The London Practice, with 209 keywords, is fifth. The blog is the push, not the catch.
One limit of the data: DataForSEO estimates visits from keywords with a known volume, and several local therapy terms have none. Local traffic for these sites is underestimated, possibly by a lot. The conclusion does not change: the blog produces almost only non-local visits.
For a practice starting out: problem pages with the city first, then one article a month on a question clients ask in the first session ("how long does therapy last", "difference between a counsellor and a psychotherapist"). Leave the definition articles and pop psychology to the platforms, which write them by the dozen with dedicated teams. And if you write with the help of AI, review it as a clinician would: in a health sector a mistake costs more than a missing article.
Recommended reading: how to write content for SEO.
Psychology Today, Counselling Directory and the BACP register: to list or not
On "therapist london" the BACP "find a therapist" page is first in the organic results, the UKCP directory third, Counselling Directory fourth, Klearminds seventh and Psychology Today tenth. Five of the ten organic results are directories. On "online therapy" BACP is first again, with an information page.
A profile on Psychology Today or Counselling Directory puts you inside a page that Google already ranks. The flip side: the page is theirs, the client compares you with dozens of others in the same list, and the profile competes with your website on searches for your own name. How we use them: the professional body register you are entitled to (BACP or UKCP) plus one or two directories, with name, address and phone number identical to the Google profile and the website. They bring consistency and a few extra clients; the ranking is built on the website and the profile.
Nutritionists, physiotherapists and osteopaths: what changes
The method is the same: profile, homepage with the city, pages by problem, fees. The numbers change, and in one case they change a lot.
For nutritionists Keyword Planner works. "Nutritionist" has 6,600 searches a month (CPC £3.51), "nutritionist near me" 2,900 (£2.17), "nutritionist london" 1,000 (£3.74), "online nutritionist" 260 (£3.08) (DataForSEO, Google Ads UK, September 2026; CPC converted from USD at £1 = $1.3242). Here local demand can be measured, and unlike therapy, where "therapy online uk" has the highest CPC in our list at £17.56, the "online" nutrition keyword is small and no more contested than the London one. "Nutritionist london" has an estimated difficulty of 5 out of 100.
For physiotherapists and osteopaths the Keyword Planner blackout applies: "physiotherapist london", "osteopath london" and "physio near me" have no volume and no CPC. But the estimated difficulty is 20 for "osteopath london", 25 for "physiotherapist london" and 6 for "osteopath near me", and the intent is commercial: keywords you can win with a good homepage and a profile with reviews. Pages by condition (lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder) and by treatment (sports massage, post-operative rehabilitation) matter here too: they are the searches that come before the search for a practitioner.
All three are bound by health advertising rules, with different regulators: physiotherapists and dietitians are registered with the HCPC, osteopaths with the General Osteopathic Council, while "nutritionist" is not a protected title. The ASA's CAP Code applies to all of them: before copying the fees paragraph, check your own rules.
Recommended reading: SEO for the healthcare sector and SEO for independent professionals.
How to measure whether SEO brings clients
Visits are not the number to watch, as the blog case shows. The numbers that count are four, all free.
- Impressions and clicks on queries with the city in Search Console: the only place where you see the real volume of "therapist + your city".
- Calls, direction requests and website clicks from the profile, in the Google Business Profile dashboard.
- Enquiries from the website: calls from the clickable number, WhatsApp, forms, calendar bookings, each tracked in GA4 as a separate event.
- The question "how did you find me?" at the first session, noted in your diary. With twenty new clients a year it is a small number, but it is the only one that links Google to the session.
On timing: on Sunscape, a project in a completely different sector but starting from the same zero, we went from 1 to 38 keywords on page one in six months, with organic impressions rising from 329 to 5,809 a month. For a therapy practice in a mid-sized city: the profile moves within a few weeks, the homepage on searches with the city in three to six months, the problem pages later.
Recommended reading: how long SEO takes to show results and which SEO KPIs to track.
SEO or Google Ads for a therapist?
Neither of the two SERPs we pulled had ads at the top, and BetterHelp shows only 9 paid keywords in DataForSEO's UK database. But the clicks are expensive where they exist: £9.98 for "therapist london", £17.56 for "therapy online uk", £5.31 for "therapist near me". Advertisers pay most for the national "online" searches that platforms fight over, and less for the local ones.
The sequence we recommend to a practice: profile and homepage straight away, because they are free and move first; a local Search campaign of £15 to £30 a day while organic grows. With CPCs between £5 and £10 and a 5% conversion rate, a first-consultation enquiry costs £100 to £200, and a few sessions pay it back. Once the homepage is in the local pack, the campaign narrows to problem searches. The full numbers, Google's policies on mental health and the account structure are in Google Ads for therapists; the general reasoning in SEO and Google Ads together.
Frequently asked questions
How much does SEO cost for a therapist?
For a solo practice the initial work (profile, homepage, four to six problem pages, fees, tracking) takes a few weeks, then little is needed: one article a month and a check on Search Console. It sits at the low end of the rates described in how much SEO costs.
Can a therapist compete with BetterHelp?
On "online therapy", no, or hardly. On "therapist + city", yes: none of BetterHelp's top 25 UK keywords contains a city, and the London local pack is made up only of independent practices.
Can I put my session fees on my website?
Yes. Nothing in the HCPC standards or the CAP Code stops you publishing fees, as long as the information is accurate and not misleading. Fee, length and format, yes; "best therapist", discounts and success rates, no.
Do I need a Psychology Today profile if I already have a website?
It is not essential, but on "therapist london" five of the ten organic results are directories, with BACP first. A profile consistent with your Google profile and website brings a few extra clients; it does not replace the profile or the homepage.
How long does it take to get into the local pack?
With the right category, a verified address and the first reviews, the first local pack appearances for searches close to the practice come within a few weeks. To be one of the three in central London, where competitors have between 22 and 272 reviews, takes months and a website that supports the profile.
Recommended reading: the channel mix for therapists and health professionals.
Where to start
Search "therapist + your city" in an incognito window and look at who is in the local pack and the top five results. If they are independent practices, as in London, the spot can be won: profile, homepage with the city, problem pages, fees. If your website has a blog with thousands of visits and no enquiries, you now know which page is missing.
If you would like an opinion on your case, with your city's SERP in hand, get in touch.
