Google My Business for Therapists: The Settings That Matter
Google My Business is now called Google Business Profile, and the setup matters less than four specific settings inside it: whether you list a street address or a service area, which primary category you choose, whether Google messaging is switched on, and how you respond to reviews. For therapists, counselors and psychologists, those four decide how you show up in local search and how much client-identifying information ends up in public. Everything else on the profile is housekeeping.
We have written separately about setting a profile up from scratch. This post assumes you already have one, or are about to, and want to know which toggles are worth your evening.
What is a Google Business Profile?
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that appears in the box on the right of a Google search for your practice name, and in the map results when someone searches for counseling in your town. It is the single most visible thing about your practice that you do not control through your website. If you have never claimed yours, Google may already have generated a stub listing from public data, and claiming it is how you take control of what it says.
Should I hide my address?
If you see clients at an office where someone could walk in and find you, list the address. If you work from a home office, or from a room you rent a few hours a week, use the service area option and hide the street address instead.
Google lets a business either display a location or set a service area covering the towns, counties or zip codes it serves. For a practice run out of a spare room, publishing the address puts your home on a map that anyone can see, which is a real safety consideration in this profession. Hiding it does not remove you from local results. Google still uses your address internally to work out where you are, it just does not show it.
A few things that follow from that choice:
- Verification usually still involves a postcard or another check tied to the real address, even when the address stays hidden.
- A service area that covers your entire state tends to work against you. Keep it to the places you would genuinely take a referral from.
- If you rent a room inside someone else's suite, confirm with the landlord before listing the building. Two profiles at one address can get messy.
Which category should a therapist choose?
Your primary category is the strongest single signal Google uses to decide which searches you can appear in, so choose the one that matches what people call what you do. The relevant options include Psychotherapist, Mental Health Service, Counselor, Psychologist, Marriage or Family Counselor and Social Worker, and the list changes over time.
Pick one primary category that describes your core work, then add secondary categories for the rest. An LMFT who mostly sees couples might choose Marriage or Family Counselor as primary and Psychotherapist as secondary. An LCSW doing mixed individual work might reverse that. Resist the urge to add eight categories. A long list dilutes the signal rather than widening your reach.
Your business name field should carry your real practice name and nothing else. Adding "Anxiety Therapy Providence RI" to the end of it violates Google's own naming guidelines and is a common reason profiles get edited or suspended.
Should I turn Google messaging on?
Unless someone is watching it during business hours, turn it off. Google messaging lets a stranger send a chat message straight from your listing, and in a mental health practice those messages routinely arrive containing exactly the information you would rather not receive through an unsecured channel.
There is a second problem. Google tracks response time, and a chat feature nobody answers is worse than no chat feature. If you do want it on, decide in advance what the automatic welcome message says, and make it short: that this channel is not for clinical or personal health information, and here is how to request a consultation.
The booking link field is the better bet. Point it at whichever scheduler you already use so that someone who finds you at ten at night can take an action without waiting for you.
How should I handle reviews?
Reply to every review with the same neutral wording, and never confirm or deny that the reviewer was a client. A public reply saying "thank you for trusting me with your care" confirms a treatment relationship to anyone reading, and you cannot take it back.
A reply that works for a positive review and a negative one both: "Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback. Our policy is not to discuss anyone who may or may not have been a client. If you would like to speak with the practice directly, please call the office." It is dull, and that is the point.
Soliciting testimonials from current clients is addressed in most professional ethics codes, and the wording differs by profession and by state. Read what your own board and your own code say before you ask anyone for a review, and check your position with your own advisor. Colleagues, supervisees and other referral sources are usually a different matter.
What else is worth setting, and what can wait?
- Hours. List the hours you answer the phone and respond to inquiries, not your session hours. This field tells Google whether to show you in "open now" results.
- Services. Add your actual specialisms as named services with a sentence each. This is one of the few text fields Google reads closely.
- Photos. The building exterior so people can find the door, the waiting area, the room. Nothing that could identify a client.
- The Q and A section. Anyone can post a question there and anyone can answer it. Post your own common questions and answer them yourself, then check it occasionally.
- Google Posts. Useful if you already write, skippable if you do not. They expire, and an abandoned posts feed looks worse than an empty one.
Who keeps it current?
Profiles decay. Hours change, you move offices, a category gets renamed, someone suggests an edit that Google accepts without asking you. Keeping your Google Business Profile and your Psychology Today profile accurate is the kind of task that is quick to do and easy to forget for eleven months, which is why it is one of the things a virtual assistant for therapists typically picks up alongside intake calls and scheduling. Our Tier 2 package includes support with both listings. If you would rather hold it yourself, put a recurring quarterly reminder on your calendar and check the four settings above.
Common questions
Can I have a profile if my practice is telehealth only?
Google's guidelines expect a business that makes in-person contact with customers, so a practice with no physical location at all may not qualify, and profiles in that situation are sometimes removed. If you see clients in person even part of the week, you are on firmer ground with a service area listing. If you are fully virtual, your website and directory profiles will be doing most of the work of getting you found.
What happens if I move offices?
Update the address on the profile rather than creating a new listing, because a second profile splits whatever history the first one has built. Expect Google to ask you to re-verify, and expect the listing to look unsettled for a few weeks. Update the address everywhere else at the same time, including your website footer and your directory profiles, since inconsistent addresses across the web make Google less confident about where you are.
Can I have separate profiles for two office locations?
Yes, if you genuinely see clients at both and each has its own distinct address and hours. Each one needs its own verification and its own upkeep, so two profiles is roughly twice the maintenance. A single profile with a well defined service area is often the simpler choice for a solo practice splitting time between rooms.
How long before a new profile shows up in search?
It varies. Some profiles appear within days of verification and others take considerably longer, and how competitive your area is affects where you land more than anything you can change on the profile itself. Nobody can promise a position in local results, so treat the profile as one of several ways people find you rather than the only one.
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 Magda Ehlers, Vitaly Gorbachev and Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare on Pexels.
