Keyword research is essential for all marketing activities in Google, including Google Ads and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Without it, you will struggle to build a good online presence in the search engine.
In this post, we want to show you an amazing free tool provided by Google that enables you to conduct quick and effective keyword research for your Google Ads campaign so that you can reach potential clients.
Every step we'll go through is tailored for therapy practices, therapists, and other mental health experts. Let's have a look!
What is keyword research for therapists?
Keyword research is all about finding the keywords and key phrases that people use to look for services such as those offered by you on Google (read more about SEO for therapists and other mental health professionals). And of course, we all intuitively know what kind of keywords clients might use to find what they are looking for. That's why keyword research tools come in handy, especially for mental health professionals.
For instance, if you offer CBT therapy, it's natural that the majority of your potential clients will use "CBT therapy" as a keyword to find such a service, right? 100%, but usually there's more to it. But let's start at the beginning:
When it comes to Google, those keywords can be different, including:
Short-tail keywords: Therapy Toronto, anxiety counselling, EMDR Calgary, etc.
Long-tail keywords: The best therapy for anxiety, family and divorce therapist, therapy services covered by OHIP, etc.
Typically, one service can be described in a few different ways. That's true when it comes to the vast majority of health-related search terms. Let's take EMDR as an example. Potential clients looking for this service can search for it using the following keywords:
EMDR therapy
EMDR counseling
Eye movement therapy
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
And even light bar therapy
To you as a therapist, those keywords can be very similar (if not identical).
But not to Google and not to your target audience.
From Google's perspective, these are all different keywords! And if you offer EMDR services, you need to be aware of what keywords people use to find you on Google. Now, let's talk a bit more about why it is so important.
Why is keyword research for therapists important?
There are a few reasons here. The main one is this: You should promote your mental health services using the keywords that are actually used by your potential clients, in your language and in your area. Only then will you be able to display your ads for relevant search queries and get in front of your ideal target audience.
But there's more:
Good keyword research will save you money
Let's say you have two keywords: EMDR therapy and EMDR counselling. They both mean pretty much the same thing, but in the course of your keyword research, it may turn out that one is significantly more popular than the other or cheaper to use in your campaign.
It may turn out that EMDR therapy costs you $6.00 per click and EMDR counselling $4.00 per click. In such a situation, you may decide to go with the cheaper keyword to see whether it will be effective. This way, you can target not only relevant keywords but also the more profitable ones.
Keyword research will help you make your campaign more effective
It's important to select mostly (if not exclusively) keywords that are at the bottom of the sales funnel (a story for a different article). In short, keyword research for therapists will allow you to identify keywords that show the readiness to book therapy.
Again, a short example:
"What is the best therapy for anxiety"
vs.
"Anxiety therapy Mississauga"
The target audience using the first keyword is just trying to find out more about anxiety therapy. Perhaps that's not even their problem! Perhaps, they are researching for a friend or a family member. Such a person will most likely not become your client, so spending money on this keyword is simply not worth it.
You will spend money and probably not get even one client with this keyword, simply because your ideal clients won't use it.
On the other hand, "anxiety therapy Mississauga" is very specific and shows clear interest in mental health services. Such a person is likely to book therapy very soon, perhaps even right now. If you are in Mississauga and provide anxiety therapy, you definitely want this keyword in your Google Ads account! Especially given such keywords usually have enough search volume to get you enough traffic.
Keyword research for therapists will help you organize your campaign
Let's be honest, Google Ads can be overwhelming, even for professionals. Thanks to thorough Google Ads research, you will be able to organize keywords more effectively and easily.
We will discuss this more in the coming articles, but you don't want to put all the keywords in one place (in one ad group). You need a proper structure for your account, and the structure starts with... That's right, keywords :)
Google will allow you to check 10 keywords at once, but there's nothing stopping you from running multiple searches (e.g., if you have more services to check).
Now that you know what keyword research is and why it's important to your campaign's success, let's have a look at how to conduct it! In this post, we focus on Google Keyword Planner, but there are other keyword research tools for other search engines. With them, you will also find relevant keywords for your keyword strategy.
How to conduct keyword research for therapists using Google's Keyword Planner
In general, you can access Google Ads Keyword Planner only if you have a Google Ads account, so go to ads.google.com and create one for your business first. Don't worry, if you're not running any ads, the Google Ads account is entirely free.
If you already have a Google Ads account, you can access the Keyword Planner from the left-hand menu:
Now, you have three options. Go with "Discover new keywords":
And there we are! You are in the Keyword Planner dashboard. Let's take a quick tour:
We marked all the elements you should be interested in; let's go through them:
Start with keywords or start with a website: Google allows you to choose whether you want to select the keywords yourself or just use your website so that Google's algorithms can take the keywords themselves. Usually, it's easier to start with your ideas, but you can test both options.
Keyword research field: This is where you put your keyword ideas (separate keywords with commas). If you have many services in your offer, you can try several different services. However, if your service can be described in different ways, it's a good idea to start with just one service. If you have two or three ideas, put them in the keyword research field. If not, just go with the name of the service that you use. Google will provide you with some additional ideas.
Language and region: You can test keywords in different languages (for instance, in Canada, you may want to test both English and French keywords if you offer support in French as well). What about the region? Try to be specific; if you have an office in Calgary, and you mostly see local clients, go with Calgary (you can even go with specific postal codes, but it can be too narrow for mental health services). If you work with clients online, you can go with the state/province, or the larger area such as GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
Your website: If you want to test your keywords yourself but you still have a website, it's a good idea to add it to the research. This way, Google will filter out irrelevant results based on what you have on your website (e.g., if you are a mental health therapist, you won't see such keyword ideas as "massage therapy").
And that's what you need to know to start using this tool. As you can see, it's fairly straightforward :) Now, let's see, what Google will show us. Let's use the simple term "therapy" as an example.
Exemplary keyword research for therapists: Therapy
Let's say we just want to research the "therapy" keyword to see what's popular in our region (Alberta):
As you can see, there are quite a few things going on here, so let's start from the top.
First off, Google suggests that you broaden your search. You may consider adding some additional keywords if they make sense in your case.
Below, you can see a chart showing the popularity of the keyword you are researching in time. From our chart, you can tell that this keyword has been relatively popular throughout the year and that people mostly use desktop devices (computers) to look for it (blue line).
Next, Google tells you that it blocked adult results and that there are 127 keyword ideas available for your search.
On the right, you can refine your results and e.g., exclude branded results (such as Psychology Today).
A table with the keyword ideas
Now, let's go through the table as it's important to understand what you can find here. By default, Google will first show you the keywords you provided and then - some additional keyword ideas.
Important notice: 2024/2025 update Google recently changed its policy when it comes to advertising mental-health-related keywords. As of December, you may not be able to research specific mental health terms such as anxiety, depression, or even CBT (you will need different tools for that). It's important to note, though, that you can still advertise for those keywords; you just can't research their popularity.
The first column is obviously a keyword or key phrase. The next column informs you about the popularity (average monthly searches) of this keyword. Keep in mind it's an estimate, and it fluctuates, as you can see in those little charts next to the number.
The next two columns are about three-month and year-on-year changes in the popularity of a given keyword, so that you can see whether it's getting more or less popular.
The next column is super-important: Competition. It will tell you whether many companies use that keyword in their accounts. Of course, Google will not give you an exact number, but it can give you an estimate (low, medium, high). A keyword with low competition is usually better than the one with the high competition.
The next column is search impression share. Likely, you won't see any numbers here, because search impression share is calculated based on your account's performance (and you need to already have this keyword in your campaign!). If you're not running Google Ads right now, you're not getting any search impression share, right?
Important: How to read cost-related columns
The last two columns are about the cost of advertising for those given keywords. They are extremely important as they will tell you how much you need to pay to advertise for those keywords.
You get two columns:
Top of page bid (low range)
Top of page big (high range)
Ideally, you should be able to afford the high-range rate in your campaign, but most of the time, the actual CPC cost will be somewhere between low and high range. To give you an example:
Our therapy keyword has a low-range rate of $3.25 and a high-range rate of $14.68. So, you can expect to pay around $8 per click for this particular keyword (most of the time). But, in some auctions, in order to land at the top of the search results, you may pay up to $14.68 per click.
Keyword ideas
Lastly, Google will provide you with additional keyword ideas based on your search. It's good to go through them to get more ideas on what to advertise for. In our example, you can see that CBT is very popular in Alberta, with almost 2,000 searches per month. This keyword is also relatively cheap, with high-range bid of $6.17 (you can expect to pay around $3 per click).
Of course, sometimes, you will get irrelevant queries such as "electric shock therapy", which is terrifying, but as you can see, for some reason, this keyword still gets around 1,000 searches per month!
Other popular therapy-related keywords are:
Couples therapy
Marriage therapy
Hypnotherapy
IFS therapy
EFT tapping
Compassion-focused therapy, and several others
This way, you get a sense of what's popular in your region and can make an informed decision on what keywords to include in your research.
Wrapping up: Keyword research for therapists and therapy practices
Keyword research should be the very first step, whether you want to run ads or start SEO. And yes, recently this tool has become slightly less helpful as you can no longer research specific mental health keywords (just the general ones).
However, it's still a good idea to run keyword research before you start advertising. This way, you can get more ideas and know what to expect (popularity and cost-wise).
And if you want to run Google Ads for your private practice but you're not sure how to do so, feel free to book an initial consultation with us! We're happy to discuss your needs and ideas and come up with a plan that will allow you to get more clients from Google!