Join the Thriving Therapist Backlink Network and get FREE backlinks to boost your SEO.
Sometimes it feels impossible to compete with giant websites like Psychology Today and TalkSpace.
These behemoths, with their seemingly insurmountable number of backlinks and marketing dollars, dominate Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), making it challenging for smaller practices like yours to get noticed. Yet, you refuse to give up.
To truly get that steady flow of new clients, you need a realistic, budget-appropriate SEO strategy to show up on page 1 for those vital “therapist near me” searches.
It’s not just about visibility; it’s about survival. That’s where SEO backlinks for therapists come in. The more sites you have linking to yours, the higher you show up in Google. As a result, your intake numbers go up while your stress and overwhelm go down. But, the question remains … how do you get backlinks?
The Thriving Therapist Backlink Network is a collective of therapy practice owners who want to improve their SEO while also helping others.
Together, we will cultivate a supportive community where therapists at every stage of their careers can contribute to (and benefit from) shared growth, prosperity, and abundance.
Unlike traditional “link exchange programs,” the Network uses an ABC system to ensure your website maintains its good standing with search engines like Google.
Convinced? Fill out this form to secure your spot in the Thriving Therapist Backlink Network.
If you’re on the fence, keep reading to learn more about the importance of SEO backlinks for therapists websites, their impact, and other strategies for getting backlinks.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
Backlinks are links from one website to another. Think of each backlink as a vote of confidence from one site to another. This is akin to a digital referral or recommendation.
Search engines like Google use backlinks as key indicators of a website’s quality and relevance.
In Google’s eyes, a site with a high number of quality backlinks is often considered authoritative and trustworthy in its field or niche.
This is critical because search engines aim to provide users with the most relevant and high-quality results for their queries. Hence, sites deemed authoritative tend to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), making them more visible to potential visitors.
When getting SEO backlinks for therapists websites, you want links from sites that are both authoritative and relevant to the mental health and therapy field. A backlink from the APA, for example, will carry more weight than a link from a plumber.
Backlink relevance tells search engines that your content is not only trustworthy but also pertinent to what searchers are looking for in the realm of therapy and mental health services.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
The linking site’s content should be closely related to your own. For a therapist, this means the best backlinks come from websites within the mental health, wellness, healthcare, or related industries. A backlink from a mental health advocacy group, a healthcare professional’s blog discussing therapy techniques, or a wellness platform that addresses psychological well-being carries more weight because it’s contextually relevant to your services.
Search engines assign a higher value to links from established, reputable therapist websites. Authority is often measured by tools like Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR), with higher scores indicating more influential websites. For therapists, a backlink from a site like the American Psychological Association (APA) or a well-known mental health institution would be considered very high quality due to their authoritative status in the field.
Sites that are considered trustworthy and secure contribute more positively to your SEO when they link to you. Trustworthiness can be gauged by factors such as a site’s age, its adherence to best practices in content and user privacy, and the absence of spammy content. For therapists, receiving a backlink from a trusted healthcare directory or an educational institution can enhance your site’s credibility.
Websites that receive a high volume of traffic and engage a relevant audience can pass on more value through their backlinks. If a popular mental health blog or a therapy tool that many people use links to your site, it not only boosts SEO but could also direct meaningful traffic to you—potential clients interested in your services.
While all backlinks can bring some level of SEO benefit, “DoFollow” links are particularly valuable because they pass on link equity (or “juice”) to your site. These are the types of links that tell search engines to consider the link as a vote of confidence in your site, contributing to your site’s ranking power. Most high-quality backlinks ideally should be DoFollow, whereas NoFollow links, while still useful for driving traffic, don’t contribute as directly to SEO rankings.
A high-quality backlink should fit naturally within the content, providing value to the reader. For example, a blog post about coping strategies for anxiety might naturally include a link to a therapist’s guide on the subject. This kind of organic, content-based linking strategy is highly regarded by search engines and users alike.
Diversity in your backlink profile is beneficial. Links from the same domain have diminishing returns, so it’s advantageous to have backlinks from a wide range of reputable and relevant domains rather than multiple links from the same few sites.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
I just did a quick search for “therapist near me” here in Santa Cruz, CA. Would it surprise you to know that Psychology Today showed up in four of the top ten Google search results? With 5.2 million backlinks (coming from 390,000 websites – aka, referring domains), it makes sense. The rest of the top 10 included:
That’s right – a local therapy practice is showing up in the top 10 with a meager 25 referring domains (26 when this page goes live. This is a testament to the power of targeted, local SEO efforts.
KEEP READING TO DISCOVER
To effectively gain SEO backlinks for therapists through guest posting and guest blogging, you need to follow a structured approach that includes finding the right opportunities, evaluating potential sites, crafting a compelling pitch, and adhering to best practices for your posts.
While the dream is to find websites with a Domain Authority (DA) of 80+ like Psychology Today, GoodTherapy, and ZocDoc, you will probably never get a guest post on those sites.
Instead, look for blogs that show up in the first few pages of the search results for your niche. Then, check their DA using this tool from ahrefs. Most blogs and therapy websites have a DA of 10 or less. If you find one higher than that, it’s worth a little extra effort.
Search Modifiers are specific search queries you can type into Google to uncover guest posting opportunities. To use these, just Replace “your specialty” with keywords related to your practice area, such as “anxiety therapist,” “marriage counseling,” or “mental health” when doing a Google Search:
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
Many therapists adopt an “if you build it, they will come” approach to content creation, hoping that merely creating content will naturally attract backlinks. This mindset, while optimistic, often overlooks the crucial role of SEO and the need for crafting exceptionally in-depth, authoritative articles.
Without a strategic focus on optimizing your post for onsite and offsite SEO elements, the likelihood of garnering more than a handful of SEO backlinks for therapists is slim.
High-quality, detailed content that addresses specific needs, offers unique insights, or provides comprehensive guides in the mental health field is more likely to stand out and earn links.
Moreover, actively optimizing this content for search engines through targeted keywords and engaging titles can significantly increase its visibility and shareability, making it more attractive for others to link to.
Without these concerted efforts in content depth and SEO, the passive strategy of hoping for backlinks can leave many valuable resources hidden … no matter how much relevant content and high-quality content you create.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
The practice of buying backlinks presents a controversial and risky shortcut in the SEO world. On one hand, it offers the allure of quick and effortless gains in your site’s backlink profile. This method can seem especially appealing for those looking to rapidly enhance their website’s visibility and authority.
The immediacy with which bought backlinks can elevate a site’s standing in search results is undeniably attractive, bypassing the slow and steady effort required in organic link-building strategies.
The cons of buying backlinks heavily outweigh the temporary pros.
Primarily, buying links directly contravenes Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Google’s algorithms are increasingly sophisticated, designed to detect and penalize unnatural link patterns, including purchased backlinks.
This means that while buying links might offer a short-term boost, it carries the significant risk of long-term damage to your site’s credibility and search rankings. There’s always the lurking danger that Google might update its algorithm or manually penalize your site, leading to a dramatic drop in traffic and visibility.
Furthermore, the sustainability and quality of bought links are uncertain. Websites selling backlinks may not be around forever; if they go down, so do your links and the supposed SEO benefits.
The financial aspect cannot be ignored either—buying backlinks can become an expensive endeavor with costs accumulating over time, all for a strategy that lacks transparency and guarantees.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out is a website that connects you with reporters looking for expert insights and original research on an article they are writing. It’s a lot of work to prune through the 3 daily emails and come up with pitches .. but it’s worth it from a backlink perspective.
In addition to getting lots of traffic, the websites these journalists write for are usually highly reputable media outlets and professional organizations.
As such, they provide high quality backlinks for your therapy websites. While there may be a lot of competition from other therapists focusing on ranking SEO and getting more traffic from search engines, there’s no better way to get organic backlinks to your therapy website from DR 90+ websites.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
By connecting with student health centers, LGBTQ+ centers, women’s centers, or other relevant campus organizations, therapists can offer their services as a resource for students and staff. Requesting to be included on these centers’ online resource lists not only secures a high-quality backlink from an authoritative .edu domain but also positions therapists as accessible, community-oriented professionals.
Building relationships with campus organizations goes way beyond trying to rank higher on Google and increasing your website’s search engine rankings.
It also opens up opportunities for workshop presentations, guest lectures, or collaborative mental health events, thereby deepening the therapist’s connection with the local academic community.
This approach checks off multiple boxes in the marketing for therapists playbook, as your backlink strategy outreach can also lead to more referrals. To make this engagement effective, therapists should present clear, concise information about their services, emphasizing any specialties or experiences that align with the needs of the college community.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
Sharing your expertise on popular podcasts is a great way to get backlinks and a key part of marketing your therapy practice. Being featured on a podcast often secures you a dedicated page on the podcast’s website or resource pages.
Since a podcast overview page is all about YOU, Google interprets it as a strong endorsement of your authority. As a bonus, if the episode is shared on platforms like YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, you receive more backlinks from these high-traffic sites.
If you want to appear on my podcast, reach out and let’s chat.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
Broken link building is a strategic approach in SEO where you identify broken links on other websites and offer your content as a replacement for the dead link. This tactic involves reaching out to webmasters or site owners and informing them of the malfunctioning external and internal links on their pages.
Then, when you have their attention, you suggest a piece of your content that provides similar, if not more updated and valuable information. It’s not an easy way to get backlinks and it does require a paid tool like Semrush.
Join the Thriving Therapists Backlink Network and Get Free SEO Backlinks For Therapists
Ad extensions are additional pieces of information that can be added to your ad, such as your phone number, location, or links to specific pages on your website. One of the most popular ad extensions for therapists is the call extension.
The call extension allows potential clients to call your practice directly from the ad, making it easy for them to schedule an appointment.
You can also add location extensions, which display your practice’s address and a map of its location. This can be especially useful for clients who are looking for a therapist in their area.
Another ad extension that can be helpful for therapists is the sitelink extension. This allows you to include links to specific pages on your website, such as your services or about page. By providing more information about your practice, you can help potential clients make an informed decision about whether or not to schedule an appointment.
The Network is built on the belief that therapists thrive together. Through mutual support and strategic link exchanges, we elevate each other’s practices, making quality mental health services more accessible and visible to those in need.
Benefits — Members enjoy enhanced SEO, increased website traffic, and a broader reach to potential clients. By being part of a network of reputable mental health professionals, your practice gains credibility and authority, critical components in the SEO for therapists world.
ABC Link Exchange — The majority of your links will not be recipricol, which means your website will remain in good standing with Google and other search engines.
It’s So Easy! — I’ve streamlined the entire process. With just a few simple steps, you become part of a community where backlinks are built organically and ethically. No need for the exhaustive outreach marathons, content gambles, or financial stretches typically involved in acquiring high-quality backlinks.
Domain Rating (DR), Domain Authority (DA), and Page Authority (PA) are crucial metrics for understanding the strength and quality of backlinks created by leading SEO tools. DR and DA gauge the overall authority of a website based on its backlink profile, with higher scores indicating a greater potential to rank well in search engine results. PA focuses on the strength of individual pages. For therapists seeking to enhance their online presence, securing backlinks from sites and pages with high DR, DA, and PA can significantly boost their website’s visibility in search results.
These metrics serve as a guide for prioritizing which backlinks to pursue.
A backlink from a high-DA site in the mental health sector, for example, is more valuable than one from a lesser-known blog with a low DA. This strategic approach to building backlinks not only improves your site’s SEO performance but also supports your goal of attracting more clients. By focusing on quality over quantity and targeting authoritative sites within relevant fields, therapists can effectively leverage these metrics to bolster their online authority and reach.
Incorporating no-follow links into one’s backlink profile can be a strategic choice, depending on the overall goals of a website’s SEO strategy.
On one hand, no-follow links, by design, do not directly influence search engine rankings because they do not pass link equity. This might suggest they’re less desirable for boosting a site’s authority.
However, no-follow links can still play a vital role in a well-rounded SEO and digital marketing strategy.
They can drive traffic to a site from reputable sources, increase brand exposure, and contribute to a natural and diverse backlink profile, which search engines favor. The presence of both no-follow and “do-follow” links can signal to search engines that a site’s backlink profile has not been manipulatively inflated, lending credibility to the site’s organic growth.
Link juice is a term used in SEO to describe the value or equity passed from one site to another through hyperlinks. Essentially, when a website links to another, it shares some of its site’s authority with the linked site, helping to improve the linked site’s search engine rankings.
The amount of link juice passed depends on several factors, including the linking site’s authority, relevance, and the number of other links on the page. This concept underscores the importance of acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable sites within your industry to enhance your site’s visibility and credibility in search engine results.
Yes, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is incredibly important for acquiring quality backlinks. When your content vividly demonstrates your professional experience and expertise, it not only serves your prospective clients with valuable information but also positions your site as an authoritative source in the therapy field.
High-quality, E-E-A-T-aligned content is more likely to be cited by other reputable sites, leading to valuable backlinks.
These backlinks, in turn, signal to search engines that your website is a trusted and authoritative resource, further boosting your SEO and online visibility.
Moreover, focusing on E-E-A-T on your landing pages helps ensure that the backlinks you receive are from credible and relevant sources, which is crucial for your site’s search engine ranking. Search engines, particularly Google, prioritize content that meets their quality guidelines, rewarding sites that exhibit high levels of expertise and trustworthiness with better search visibility.
Therefore, by prioritizing E-E-A-T in your content creation, you not only enhance your chances of securing meaningful backlinks but also strengthen your overall SEO strategy, making your practice more discoverable to potential clients online.
Backlinks to avoid are those that can negatively impact your site’s SEO performance and credibility. Specifically:
A PBN (Private Blog Network) is a collection of websites used to create links to a single website, with the aim of artificially boosting that site’s search engine rankings.
These networks are often made up of low-quality sites with thin content that serve no real purpose other than to link back to the main site. While this might sound like a quick way to improve SEO, search engines like Google have become increasingly adept at identifying and penalizing sites that participate in such schemes.
Therapists should avoid using PBNs for several reasons.
First, it’s considered a black-hat SEO tactic, violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Engaging with PBNs can lead to your site being penalized or even removed from search engine results pages, drastically reducing your online visibility.
Also, the penalties and damage to your online reputation can be difficult and time-consuming to reverse. Focusing on ethical SEO practices, such as creating high-quality content and building legitimate backlinks, is a safer and more effective strategy for long-term success.
Marketing yourself as a private practice therapist involves a multi-faceted approach, focusing on establishing your online presence, leveraging local SEO, and utilizing the power of networking and professional relationships.
Begin by creating a professional website that not only showcases your expertise and services but also adheres to SEO best practices. This includes optimizing your site with relevant keywords, producing high-quality content that reflects EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) principles, and ensuring your site is user-friendly and accessible.
Incorporating a blog into your website where you can share insights, therapy techniques, or client success stories can significantly enhance your visibility and establish you as an authority in your field.
Engage in local SEO strategies by claiming your Google My Business listing, getting listed in local and therapy-specific directories where links can be added, and encouraging satisfied clients to leave positive reviews online. This not only improves your search engine rankings but also increases your visibility to potential clients in your area.
Additionally, network with other professionals both in and out of your field through referrals, attending industry conferences, and participating in community events. Offering to guest blog, appearing on podcasts relevant to mental health, and utilizing platforms like HARO to gain backlinks are also effective ways to market yourself and reach a wider audience.
Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of social media for building connections and reinforcing your professional brand. Regularly sharing valuable content, engaging with followers, and participating in relevant discussions can drive traffic to your website and help establish a strong online presence.
By combining these digital marketing strategies with genuine, relationship-building efforts, you’ll effectively market yourself as a private practice therapist, attracting more clients and growing your practice.
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