Case Study: Local SEO for therapists

From Single Provider Practice to $1M Revenue

“Work that matters for people who care.” – Seth Godin

Client: www.Wholewellnesstherapy.com

Marketing tasks provided: Strategy, SEM, SEO, PPC, UI/UX, CX, CRO, Social Media Management, PR/Outreach, Analytics. 

I started working with Isaac in Oct 2019 just before the coronavirus epidemic took off. When we first started working together he was running a single provider (himself) office in Sacramento, and was looking to expand his practice to match what he saw others in the area grow to. Over these past 3 years his practice has grown exponentially to 12x revenues.

How I did it

While Isaac came to me with a different question: how to be found by more searchers on Psychology Today, I pivoted it into the underlying question he had: how can I get more qualified clients reaching out to me?

First I worked with Isaac to understand what made his practice unique and who would benefit most from learning about what we could offer. In my initial discussions with him I learned that he is an exceptional clinician (after working with more psychotherapy clients since this has only become more evident). He has a unique focus on holistic approaches to personal growth including physical activity, nutrition, spirituality and meditation that has huge benefits for a certain segment of open-minded patients. Due to issues with insurance reimbursement, he decided early on to pursue a completely private pay practice. 

Considering all of these we decided that his ideal client was a middle to upper income resident of Sacramento aged 30+. His ideal client is interested in yoga and open minded.  

With his ideal client in mind, we re-wrote all of the content on his website (including an aesthetic redesign in 2021) and psychology today profile. The main purpose of this content update was to connect and build trust with the reader. The secondary purpose was to make sure the web pages were locally searchable. 

Google determines your results ranking based on 2 major components: relevancy (keywords, tags, etc.), engagement (CTR, Conversion rate, bounce rate, dwell time). The first is easy to implement technically, but the second was achieved only with good copywriting and streamlined on-boarding processes. 

3rd place, runner up to a practice that has been online for 5x the time, so difficult, but we will get there.

Over time his search visibility skyrocketed. 

Paired with my work on Google Ads to promote his practice on terms that we were not organically ranking for and some tactical PR including, podcasts, guest post opportunities and social media ads, we were able to grow his leads by the dozen.

Users, client inquiries and revenue all increased 16x over 2020/2021. 

What That Means

As a follower of Seth Godin, I am a firm believer that successful marketing is essentially connecting people who make things that matter for people who care. Whole Wellness Therapy provided exactly that in Sacramento. It remains the only therapy practice that combines nutrition, spirituality and psychotherapy to open-minded people in the area, and it works. 

I still stay in touch with Isaac and am always glad to hear about how his new clinicians are helping people in ways they have never been helped before. This case study always stays on the top of my mind as I consider what marketing really means and what it has the possibility to do.