Run Through This Checklist Once — You'll Know Exactly What's Holding Your Practice Back

This checklist is built for psychiatrists and practice managers who want to know whether their current website and online presence are SEO-ready, without needing to hire an agency first.

Use it if you:

• Have a website but aren't sure if it's optimized for patient search
• Want to understand which SEO gaps are quick wins versus long-term investments
• Need to brief a team or justify SEO investment to partners
• Are evaluating whether to hire professional help—and want to avoid overpaying for basics

This is tactical, not aspirational. You'll actually complete it in 30–45 minutes and walk away with a prioritized action list.

Why this layer first: A site that's slow, not mobile-responsive, or difficult to navigate will never rank well, no matter how good your content is. Google's Core Web Vitals directly impact rankings, and psychiatry patients search on mobile.

Checklist Items:

• Mobile responsiveness: Open your website on a phone. Can you navigate, read text without zooming, and tap buttons easily? Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to confirm.
• Page speed: Test your site at Google PageSpeed Insights. Aim for a score above 75 on mobile. If below 50, speed is actively hurting your rankings.
• HTTPS/SSL certificate: Your URL should start with https:// (not http://). Check your site's security badge in the browser bar.
• Clear site structure: Can a patient find your treatment specialties, location, and contact info in under 3 clicks? Psychiatrists should have dedicated pages for major conditions and treatment types.
• Contact form security: If you have a contact form, verify it's encrypted and compliant with HIPAA. Never send patient data via unencrypted email. This is both an SEO and compliance issue.
• Broken links: Use a tool like Screaming Frog (free version) to scan your site for 404s. Fix any broken internal links.

Quick diagnostic: If any of these fail, you're competing with one hand tied behind your back. Fix these before moving to content optimization.

Google Business Profile (GBP) is the fastest SEO win for psychiatry practices. Many patients search "psychiatrist near me" or "psychiatrist accepting patients [city]"—and GBP is the primary result format.

Checklist Items:

• GBP claimed and verified: Search your practice name on Google Maps. If you don't have a profile or it's unclaimed, create one immediately at business.google.com.
• All details complete: Business name, address, phone, website, hours, service areas. Psychiatrists should list all major specialties (e.g., "adult psychiatry", "medication management", "anxiety disorders").
• Photos added: At least 5 recent photos of your office, staff, and practice environment (respecting patient privacy). GBP profiles with images get 42% more direction requests than those without (industry benchmarks).
• NAP consistency audit: Your Name, Address, Phone must match exactly across Google Business Profile, your website, and major directories (Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Psychology Today). Mismatches confuse Google's ranking algorithm.
• Posts published: Add at least 2 GBP posts per month (mental health tips, service updates, new insurance accepted). Posts keep your profile fresh and give patients a reason to revisit.
• Review response protocol in place: Commit to responding to every review within 48 hours. For HIPAA compliance: use templated, non-clinical responses. See our HIPAA-Compliant Psychiatrist SEO guide for safe response language.

Expected impact: Within 4–8 weeks of completing this layer, most psychiatry practices see increased visibility in local search results and a measurable bump in appointment requests from Google Maps.

This is where most psychiatry websites fail. They have 10 pages but none target conversion keywords that patients actually search for.

Checklist Items:

• Audit your current pages: List every page on your site. Next to each, write the one main keyword it should rank for. If you can't name one, the page isn't optimized yet.
• Create condition/treatment target pages: Psychiatry practices should have dedicated pages for their top 5–7 conditions and treatments. Example targets: "treatment for anxiety disorders [city]", "medication management for depression", "ADHD psychiatry [city]", "bipolar disorder treatment". Industry benchmarks suggest practices with 8+ condition-specific pages rank 3–4x better than those with only a homepage and about page.
• Page title and meta description: Each condition page should have a unique, patient-facing title (not "Anxiety Treatment | Our Practice") and meta description that includes the condition and location. Google shows this in search results—make it click-worthy.
• H1 and internal structure: Each page needs one H1 (usually matching the page title). Use H2s to break up content into sections (e.g., "What Is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?", "How We Treat Anxiety", "Why Choose [Your Practice]").
• Internal linking: Link from your homepage and other condition pages to related treatment pages. Example: "Many patients with anxiety also have depression—learn about our depression treatment approach." This helps Google understand your content relationships and improves ranking for multiple keywords.
• Keyword mentions (organic, not stuffed): Your target keyword should appear 2–4 times naturally in the page copy, including once in the opening paragraph. Don't force it.

Red flag: If your pages read like generic templates without specific treatment details, they're not competitive. Psychiatry patients want to understand your clinical approach, not just your credentials.

Not everything on this checklist has the same impact or timeline. Use this matrix to decide what to tackle when.

Do This Week (High Impact, Low Effort):

• Claim and verify your Google Business Profile if you haven't already
• Ensure your contact form is HIPAA-compliant and secure
• Test your website on mobile and fix any obvious responsiveness issues
• Audit your NAP consistency across Google, your website, and one directory (Healthgrades or Psychology Today)

Do This Month (High Impact, Medium Effort):

• Create or optimize 3–5 condition/treatment target pages based on your top patient intake keywords
• Add internal links between related pages
• Set up a GBP review response workflow with templated HIPAA-safe language
• Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights and fix any performance issues above the fold

Do This Quarter (Medium Impact, Ongoing):

• Build out remaining condition/treatment pages to hit 8+ total
• Publish consistent GBP posts and manage review responses
• Implement medical practice schema markup on your homepage and condition pages
• Start building local citations in healthcare directories

Consider Professional Help If:

• Your site scores below 50 on PageSpeed Insights and your team can't debug the issue
• You've completed the above steps and still see no ranking movement after 3 months
• You want to accelerate results for a specific service line or geographic area
• Your practice is large enough that multi-page keyword strategy requires ongoing management

"Psychiatry is too specialized to need SEO—most of my referrals are from other doctors."

True, but incomplete. Many patients self-refer or shop around before booking—and they search first. Even if referrals are 70% of your business, the 30% that comes from patient search is revenue you're leaving on the table. The checklist helps you capture that 30% without reinventing your practice.

"I don't have time to do all this."

You don't need to do all of it yourself. The checklist is a diagnostic tool. Use it to identify which items are blocking you, then decide: DIY the quick wins (GBP, NAP fixes) and hire help for the technical or content-heavy tasks. Many practices spend 4–6 hours on this checklist total and then contract a specialist for implementation.

"My website vendor/EHR says they handle SEO."

They usually don't. Run through the checklist anyway. Most practice management websites are built for EHR integration, not patient search. They often fail on speed, mobile responsiveness, and keyword targeting. The checklist will show you the gaps your vendor isn't filling.

"Won't this hurt my practice if I don't do it perfectly?"

No. SEO is rarely about perfection—it's about consistency and directional improvement. A psychiatry practice that completes 70% of this checklist will rank better than one that does nothing. Start somewhere.