Google Business Profile for Therapists: A Step by Step Setup

Most of us build a practice on referrals. Then the referral stream shifts, a colleague retires, a group practice down the road hires three new clinicians, and you find yourself wondering how people actually find a therapist now. Often they open Google and type something like "therapist near me" or "trauma therapy" plus their town. What they see first is a map with a short list of practices on it. That list is built from Google Business Profiles.

If you have never set one up, or you set one up years ago and have not looked at it since, here is how the whole thing works and how to get yours in order.

What a Google Business Profile is doing

Your profile is a free listing that feeds Google Maps and the local results that appear above the regular website links. Google decides what to show based roughly on how relevant your profile is to what someone typed, how close you are to them, and how established your practice appears to be across the web. You cannot pay for placement in that map section, and no one can assure where you land in it. What you can control is whether your information is accurate, complete, and consistent everywhere else it appears.

For a solo or small practice, that matters because the profile is often the first thing a prospective client sees. Wrong hours or a phone number that rings into a full voicemail box is a real loss, and it is entirely fixable.

Step one: claim what may already exist

Search your practice name and your own name in Google Maps before you create anything. Profiles are sometimes generated automatically from other data sources, and duplicates cause confusion. If a listing exists, claim it rather than starting a second one.

Use your practice name as it appears on your website, your license, and your billing. Google's guidelines ask that the name field reflect your real-world business name, not a name stuffed with search terms. "Riverbend Counseling" is fine. "Riverbend Counseling Anxiety Depression Therapy Providence" is the kind of thing that gets a profile suspended.

Step two: decide how to handle your address

This is the step that trips up clinicians most often, because many of us work from a home office, a sublet, or entirely by telehealth.

Google's guidelines generally allow a public street address only for locations that are staffed during stated business hours. If you do not want your home address visible, you can set your profile up as a service area business and specify the towns, counties, or regions you serve while hiding the street address. If you rent a suite in a shared building, include the suite number so clients can actually find your door.

Platform policies change, so read the current guidance in your dashboard before you submit. If your setup is unusual, confirm how you want to present it with your own advisor.

Step three: verification

Google will ask you to prove the business is yours, usually through a short video, a postcard, a phone call, or a document upload. Before you start a video verification, have something on hand that ties you to the location and the practice: exterior signage, mail addressed to the practice, your license, or a business bank statement. Verification can take a few attempts. That is normal and not a sign you did something wrong.

Step four: choose categories carefully

Your primary category carries the most weight in matching you to searches. Pick the one that describes what you actually are, whether that is Psychotherapist, Counselor, Mental Health Clinic, or Psychologist, and only use titles your license supports. Add secondary categories that are genuinely accurate. Resist the urge to add everything available.

Step five: fill in the fields clients actually read

• Hours. List the hours someone can reach you or leave a message that will be returned that day. Accuracy beats generosity here.
• Phone and website. Use a number that is answered or has voicemail that is monitored, and link to a page that explains fees and how to book.
• Description. Plain language about who you work with, your approach, which states you are licensed in, whether you offer telehealth, and whether you are in network or private pay.
• Services. Add individual therapy, couples work, evaluations, or whatever you offer, with short descriptions.
• Attributes. Online appointments, accessibility features, languages spoken, and identity-related attributes are all useful signals to someone deciding whether to call.

Step six: photos

Add an exterior shot so people can find the entrance, a photo of the waiting area and your office, and a current headshot. Take these when no one else is around, and check the frame for anything identifying, including intake paperwork, a schedule on a whiteboard, or a parking lot.

Step seven: reviews, handled with care

Google prompts every business to gather reviews. For our field, that prompt deserves a pause. Professional codes of ethics and many state board rules address soliciting testimonials from current clients or from people who may be vulnerable to undue influence. Read your own code and your board's rules, and confirm your position with your licensing board or your own attorney before you build any review request into your workflow.

Separately, Google's own policies prohibit reviews from people with a conflict of interest, which rules out asking colleagues or family to post as if they were clients.

When a review does appear, you can respond without confirming whether anyone was ever a client. Something neutral works: thanks for the feedback, our practice cannot discuss who we do or do not work with, and please call the office if you would like to speak directly. If a review appears to violate Google's content policies, there is a reporting option in your dashboard, though the outcome is not in your hands.

Step eight: keep it from going stale

Profiles that are maintained tend to be more useful to the people reading them. Update hours before holidays and vacations. Use the Q&A section to answer the questions you get on every intake call about fees, insurance, telehealth, and waitlist status. Post occasionally when something changes, such as new availability, a new clinician, or a new state license. If you enable messaging, keep in mind it is not a channel built for clinical content, and turn it off if you cannot reply promptly.

Then make sure your name, address, and phone number match across your website, your insurance directory listings, and any directory profiles you maintain, including Psychology Today. Conflicting information across the web makes it harder for Google to trust any of it.

The one thing worth doing

If you take a single recommendation from this, make it accuracy over optimization. Correct hours, a monitored phone, a clear description of who you serve and how you get paid, and a fast response when someone reaches out will serve you better than any attempt to game categories or keywords.

Setup is usually an hour or two of focused work, and maintenance is a short monthly task. It is also fully delegable. At Assistant to the Therapist, our HIPAA-trained assistants work inside mental health practices, so they understand why a photo gets checked twice and why review requests are not a casual decision. If profile upkeep and the calls it generates are sitting at the bottom of your list, that is the kind of administrative work an assistant can carry while you stay in session.

If this was useful

• Enrol in Private Practice Prep School — The step-by-step programme for clinicians opening a practice of their own.
• Book a free coffee coaching call — A short, no-cost conversation about what is actually slowing your practice down.

Photographs by Nothing Ahead, Sami Raad and Ekaterina Belinskaya on Pexels.