The Numbers Behind How Patients Find Therapists Online — and What They Mean for Your Practice

Before citing any statistic on this page — or any statistics page about therapist SEO — it's worth understanding where the numbers come from and what they actually measure.

The benchmarks here draw from three sources: publicly available search behavior research from platforms like Google Search Console aggregates and third-party keyword tools; observed performance patterns across SEO campaigns we've managed for therapy practices; and published reports from mental health industry organizations and digital marketing research firms. Where data originates from our own campaign observations, we flag it explicitly.

A few caveats that matter:

• Market size changes everything. A solo practice in a mid-size city competes in a fundamentally different search environment than a group practice in a major metro. Benchmarks that hold in one context may be meaningless in another.
• Specialty mix affects search volume. A generalist anxiety therapist attracts different search demand than a somatic experiencing specialist. Neither is better — they just operate in different keyword environments.
• Data freshness degrades quickly. Google algorithm updates, rising telehealth adoption, and shifting insurance search behavior all move these numbers. We flag the publication context for any range we cite.
• Conversion is not ranking. A practice ranking #1 for a low-intent query may generate fewer inquiries than one ranking #4 for a high-intent specialty term. Volume statistics and conversion statistics tell different stories.

Use these benchmarks to calibrate expectations and evaluate agency claims — not to set hard performance guarantees. Any SEO provider quoting precise ROI figures before auditing your specific market and practice profile is overpromising.

Understanding search behavior is foundational to understanding why SEO works — or doesn't — for therapy practices. The pattern we observe consistently across markets: most prospective patients begin their search with a problem or symptom, not a credential.

They type things like "therapist for anxiety near me," "help with depression [city name]," or "marriage counseling that accepts Blue Cross." They are not typically searching for modalities or certifications at this stage. That behavioral reality has a direct implication: practices whose websites are built around credential language rather than patient-facing problem language rank poorly for the queries that actually drive inquiries.

Local Intent Dominates Therapy Search

Industry keyword data consistently shows that a large majority of therapy-related searches include geographic qualifiers — either explicit ones like city or neighborhood names, or implicit ones like "near me." This makes therapy one of the more locally-concentrated professional service categories in search.

The practical consequence: Google's Map Pack (the three local listings that appear above organic results) captures a disproportionate share of clicks for these queries. In our experience working with therapy practices, securing Map Pack visibility for core local queries tends to produce more inquiry volume than equivalent organic ranking improvements — particularly for practices without strong brand recognition in their market.

Insurance Queries Are High-Intent

One pattern worth noting: searches that include insurance carrier names — "therapist who takes Cigna," "in-network therapist [city]" — skew toward patients who are ready to book, not just researching. These queries represent a smaller share of total search volume but a higher proportion of actual appointment requests. Practices that include clear, indexed insurance information on their websites capture this segment more effectively than those relying on directory listings alone.

Telehealth has meaningfully shifted some geographic search patterns since 2020, with "online therapist" queries rising substantially. However, for practices offering in-person sessions, local intent searches remain the primary acquisition channel.

Local ranking for therapy practices depends on three interconnected factors that Google evaluates for every local search: proximity (how close the practice is to the searcher), relevance (how clearly the practice signals what it treats and who it serves), and prominence (the authority signals Google has accumulated about the practice over time).

The following ranges represent directional benchmarks based on our campaign observations and published local SEO research. They should be read as starting points for calibration, not guarantees.

Google Business Profile Completeness

Profiles that are fully completed — accurate NAP (name, address, phone), consistent categories, services listed, photos uploaded, and active review volume — consistently outperform incomplete profiles in Map Pack rankings. Industry benchmarks suggest that a significant portion of therapy practice GBP profiles are missing at least one high-weight optimization element. The most commonly missing: a secondary category (e.g., "Marriage Counselor" alongside "Psychologist") and a populated services section.

Review Volume and Velocity

Review count correlates with local ranking, but velocity matters too — a practice that received 20 reviews two years ago and none since is likely being outpaced by a competitor adding reviews consistently. For most therapy markets we've observed, practices in the Map Pack tend to have meaningfully more reviews than those ranking just outside it, though the threshold varies significantly by market competitiveness.

One important ethical note: HIPAA and APA Ethics Code Standards 5.01–5.06 govern how therapists may solicit testimonials and handle patient information in marketing contexts. Review generation strategies must be designed with these constraints in mind. This is educational context — consult your state licensing board and a healthcare compliance attorney for guidance specific to your practice and jurisdiction.

Citation Consistency

NAP inconsistency across directories remains a common local ranking suppressor for therapy practices. Many practices have multiple directory listings created at different stages of their history, with variations in practice name, suite numbers, or phone numbers. Auditing and correcting these is a foundational local SEO task before pursuing more advanced tactics.

Psychology Today, Zocdoc, Headway, and similar directories represent a significant portion of the search real estate that appears for therapy queries. For many practices, especially newer ones without established domain authority, directories deliver the fastest path to online visibility.

But the nature of that visibility matters when evaluating long-term strategy.

What Directories Deliver

Directory listings can appear quickly — often within days of profile creation — and they carry the domain authority of established platforms. In competitive markets, they reliably occupy multiple positions on the first page for local therapy queries. For a practice with no existing web presence, a well-optimized directory profile is a faster path to inquiry volume than a newly launched website with no authority history.

What Directories Don't Deliver

Directory visibility doesn't compound. The traffic belongs to the platform, not the practice. If a practice pauses its Psychology Today subscription, the visibility disappears. No domain authority transfers to the practice website. No search equity accumulates. The practice remains dependent on the directory's ranking performance and pricing decisions.

By contrast, organic SEO and local GBP visibility — once established — continue generating traffic without per-listing fees. Industry benchmarks suggest that practices with strong owned web presence and Map Pack rankings eventually generate inquiry volume that reduces or eliminates their dependence on paid directory listings. The timeline varies considerably by market competition and starting authority — in our experience, meaningful organic traction typically emerges between months four and eight for practices in mid-competition markets, longer in major metros.

The Most Effective Approach We've Observed

Directory listings and owned SEO are not mutually exclusive. Practices that perform best in search tend to maintain active directory profiles during the period when their own domain authority is being built, then shift budget emphasis toward owned channels as organic rankings mature. This sequencing avoids the traffic gap that can occur when practices abandon directories before their own SEO has taken hold.

One of the more consistent patterns we observe across therapy practice SEO campaigns: specialty keywords convert at higher rates than generic ones, even when their search volume is significantly lower.

A search for "therapist near me" reflects early-stage exploration. A search for "EMDR therapist for complex trauma [city]" reflects a patient who has done research, identified a preferred modality, and is actively selecting a provider. These are meaningfully different stages of the decision process, and they respond to meaningfully different types of content.

High-Intent Specialty Queries

Queries that tend to show strong conversion signals in our experience include:

• Modality-specific searches: EMDR, DBT, somatic therapy, IFS, EFT
• Population-specific searches: LGBTQ+ therapist, therapist for teens, therapist for first responders
• Condition-specific searches: OCD therapist, therapist for PTSD, eating disorder specialist
• Insurance-specific searches: [carrier name] therapist, in-network therapist

These queries collectively represent a meaningful share of total therapy search volume — and the practices that create specific, substantive content addressing each specialty area tend to capture them disproportionately relative to practices using generic "I treat a wide range of issues" language.

What This Means for Content Strategy

Search volume for individual specialty terms can appear small in keyword tools — sometimes in the hundreds rather than thousands of monthly searches for a given market. This leads some practices to deprioritize specialty content in favor of higher-volume generic terms. In our experience, this is a strategic error. A practice that ranks for 15 specialty queries with high conversion intent will often generate more actual inquiries than one that ranks modestly for a handful of competitive generic terms.

The compounding effect also matters: specialty content that earns backlinks from mental health publications, therapist directories, and professional association websites builds domain authority that eventually lifts all pages on the site — including the more competitive local terms.

Statistics about therapist SEO are useful for setting realistic expectations and evaluating whether a campaign is on track. They are not useful as precise performance guarantees, and any provider presenting them as such is misrepresenting how SEO works.

The benchmarks that matter most for a therapy practice are the ones specific to your market, your specialty, and your starting position — not industry-wide averages. Here's how to use general benchmarks productively:

Use Ranges, Not Point Estimates

When evaluating an SEO proposal, benchmarks help you assess whether the projected outcomes are plausible. If a provider claims you'll rank #1 for "therapist [major city]" within 90 days, general industry data on how long domain authority takes to build is a useful reality check. If a provider says results typically emerge in months four through eight for a new domain in a competitive market, that aligns with what the data consistently shows.

Measure Leading Indicators Early

Organic ranking and inquiry volume are lagging indicators — they reflect work done months earlier. Leading indicators that matter in the first 90 days include: GBP profile impressions, citation audit completion, crawl error resolution, and content indexation rates. Tracking these gives you meaningful signal before the lagging metrics move.

Benchmark Against Yourself, Not Just the Market

Month-over-month improvement in your own metrics — impressions, clicks, GBP views, inquiry volume — is often more actionable than market-wide comparisons. A practice moving from page three to page one for its core specialty terms in its specific city is succeeding, regardless of what the average therapy practice nationally is experiencing.

For practices ready to move from understanding the data to applying it, the SEO strategies built for therapists outlined in our core practice guide walk through how these benchmarks translate into specific campaign priorities.