Episode #767: SEO is Alive & Well, feat. Becky DeGrossa

Summary

Abundant Practice Podcast

Episode #767: "SEO is Alive & Well" feat. Becky DeGrossa
Host: Allison Puryear
Guest: Becky DeGrossa, Founder of Counseling Wise
Date: June 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the state of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for therapists post-pandemic, with special focus on dispelling myths about SEO’s decline due to the rise of tech giants, VC-backed directories, and AI. Allison Puryear invites industry veteran Becky DeGrossa to break down both enduring SEO fundamentals and emerging trends, offering actionable advice for private practice owners concerned about their web visibility in today's digital landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of SEO Now vs. “Back Then”

• SEO Fundamentals Remain Strong
  Becky emphasizes that, despite rapid changes in technology and chatter about AI revolutionizing the industry, “our SEO system is the same system that we've been using for the last 10 years. It hasn't changed a lot.” (08:51)
• Local SEO vs. National Players
  VC-backed therapy platforms and tech companies, while powerful, generally lack local presences, providing private practitioners with a competition edge for local Google searches. “If you have this local address and you're in the community, you have a distinct advantage over them.” (04:08)

2. The Pillars of Effective SEO for Therapists

• Pillar 1: Google Business Profile (GBP) with Local Address
  • Even if operating remotely, therapists should rent hourly office space as proof of local presence, meeting Google’s strict verification standards. “Just rent space on a Saturday morning... It's affordable... you have table stakes to rank.” (08:59–09:42)
  • Caveat: Listing yourself exclusively as "online only" undermines this advantage: “You don't want to do that and then say online therapy only on your website. You want to say online and in person in whatever city.” (10:09)
• Pillar 2: Optimized Specialty Pages
  • Each page should directly address what potential clients are searching: “It doesn't do you any good to rank for something that no one ever searches for... positioning is a lot, position or market demand for what people type into Google.” (10:32–10:57)
• Pillar 3: Blogging & Content Hubs
  • Purpose: Not primarily to rank the blog posts nationally, but to demonstrate expertise and support specialty pages. “If people stop blogging, they lose their rankings over time.” (12:27)
  • Ideal Length: “We do six to 650 [words].” (14:57)
  • Content: Blogs should answer the most frequently asked client questions about each specialty—a mix of what you hear in session and what keyword data shows. “Answer the questions that people have because that's how you provide value.” (13:31)
  • Realistic Results: Most blog traffic is from outside your state and counts mainly as a ‘vanity metric’: “It's going to be from all the other 49 states... Who cares? Doesn't matter.” (13:04–13:05)

3. Blogging, Keywords & Google Algorithm Updates

• Don't Chase AI Trends
  Becky warns against falling for “snake oil” providers promising overnight SEO fixes with AI or viral tactics: “Anything that is not going to produce trustable results because it can be manipulated is not going to last. Right. ChatGPT doesn't want to keep rewarding something that can be gamed.” (07:53)
• Google Algorithm and National Content
  Efforts to rank lengthy, authoritative blog content are tougher now: “With the Google algorithm changes... there's so much AI slop out there. It has to be really, really unique and well-researched. Who wants to go to all that work?” (15:04–15:15)
• Local SEO is Different:
  “National SEO... Local is totally different. So don't worry about ranking blog posts. Use them for fodder to push your specialty pages up...” (15:14–16:12)

4. Conversion Optimization

• Shift Toward Conversions
  Recently, the focus at Counseling Wise has shifted toward maximizing website conversions (getting visitors to call, submit forms, or schedule consults). “If you can keep the same amount of traffic and get twice the number of conversions, you've just increased your caseload, you know, double it.” (17:09)
• Fine Tuning:
  Emphasis on geo pages (targeting surrounding towns) and optimizing specialty pages to improve client inquiry rates.

5. SEO & Ads in Big Cities vs. Small Towns

• Go Niche in Big Cities
  “You can do a whole lot better with really more niche type things in big cities... in New York City... adoption counseling, LGBT, highly sensitive people, Black women in midlife... you would not be able to do that in a small town because there's just not enough demand.” (17:55–19:47)
• Broad Terms in Small/Medium Cities:
  For small towns, aim for high-volume general terms—SEO is less effective for hyper-niche keywords.

6. Are Google Ads Needed to Rank?

• For Solo Practitioners: Niche organic SEO is still possible.
• For Group Practices: “If you're a group practice though, and you want to scale, then pretty much you gotta have ads in a medium size or a large city, you've gotta have ads anymore. That's what it seems like.” (20:08–20:54)
• Paid Search Edge:
  Historically, organic results can improve after running ads, despite Google’s claims to the contrary.

7. Battling Big Therapy Tech and VC-Backed Companies

• Niche, local specialties keep you competitive. Large platforms won’t run ads for highly specialized topics (e.g., betrayal trauma).
• Use “turn the corner” strategies: bring clients in with one specialty then showcase your adjacent expertise once they arrive. (21:27–24:20)

8. Ranking When Licensed in Multiple States

• Physical Office Required:
  “You are not going to rank in another state unless you have an office there in the story... You can run Google Ads there and you can be visible that way.” (24:33–25:32)
• Verification Alternatives:
  Leasing space and video verification (even remotely via someone in that location) is a viable workaround.

9. AI, Zero-Click Search & The Future

• Very Little Actual AI Traffic
  Becky shares her firm’s analytics: “Most of it is over all these accounts, it's half a percent of the traffic comes from AI. Okay, okay, 0.53%.” (28:05)
• Don’t Chase AI at the Expense of SEO:
  “AI search is worth paying attention to, but it's not replacing Google for local therapy practices yet... Most so-called AI optimization recommendations are really just good SEO.” – ChatGPT, as paraphrased/shared by Becky (29:38)
• AI’s disruptive potential is largely “snake oil” for therapists right now; foundational SEO still brings far more practical returns.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you have this local address and you're in the community, you have a distinct advantage over [VC-backed therapy companies].”
  – Becky DeGrossa (04:08)

• “Anything that is not going to produce trustable results because it can be manipulated is not going to last.”
  – Becky DeGrossa (07:53)

• “You may accidentally rank a blog because it's real niche... but... most of the traffic you're going to get to that is not from your state of licensure.”
  – Becky DeGrossa (12:57)

• “We do six to 650 [words for blog posts].”
  – Becky DeGrossa (14:57)

• “You want them to either call, fill out a form, schedule an appointment, something like that.”
  – Becky DeGrossa (17:09)

• “No, we're still getting really good conversions with Google Ads because a lot of it is again around positioning... if you're niched in a large city like you should be, you can still get them in the door.”
  – Becky DeGrossa (21:27)

• “You are not going to rank in another state unless you have an office there in the story.”
  – Becky DeGrossa (24:33)

• “Most so-called AI optimization recommendations are really just good SEO: Clear service pages, strong local signals, consistent directories, helpful content, blah, blah, blah.”
  – ChatGPT via Becky DeGrossa (29:38)

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Important Timestamps

• [03:38] — Initial discussion: Has SEO changed since 2019?
• [04:08] — Local SEO advantage over large, online-only platforms
• [08:51] — The three enduring pillars of SEO for therapists
• [09:42] — How to establish a local Google Business Profile (GBP)
• [12:27] — Blogging is not dead—why purpose matters
• [14:57] — Recommended length and focus for blog posts
• [17:09] — Shift from traffic to conversion-focused optimization
• [17:55] — Strategies for big city vs. small town SEO
• [20:08] — Do you need Google Ads to rank?
• [24:33] — The reality for multi-state licensure and SEO
• [28:05] — Real-world AI traffic data
• [29:38] — ChatGPT’s advice on AI vs. Google for local therapy practices

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Summary Takeaways

• SEO remains essential, especially for locally-based therapists. National trends like AI and big-tech platforms have not rendered local SEO obsolete.
• Fundamentals first: Local presence, optimized specialty pages, and strategic blogging remain the foundation of lasting web visibility.
• Blog with intention, not for clicks. Write short, answer-based posts that reinforce your specialties locally—even if the posts themselves don’t attract national traffic.
• Conversion, not just traffic, matters. Optimize your site to turn visitors into clients.
• Go niche for big cities, general for small towns. Paid ads are increasingly vital for group practices looking to scale.
• Don’t get distracted by AI “hacks.” Tried-and-true SEO holds more value for local therapy practices.
• Multi-state licensing helps only if you have proof of local office space in every state you want to rank in.
• AI referrals are negligible. Focus energy and resources on traditional SEO for real results.

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For further learning: Becky DeGrossa will provide a more detailed training for Abundance Party members.
Find show notes and links at abundancepracticebuilding.com.

Transcript

[Becky DeGrossa]

Foreign.

[Alison Parear]

Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Alison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy filled private practices, just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support. Go to abundance practice building.com links

[Becky DeGrossa]

so

[Alison Parear]

I've talked about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep. But there are a couple things I want you to know about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script.

[Podcast Host]

First is that they actually care if

[Alison Parear]

you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for, like Therapy Search, an included listing service that helps clients find you internal and external secure messaging Clinical outcome measures to keep an eye on how your clients are progressing A super smooth super bill process Real time eligibility to check on your client's insurance. In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that?

[Podcast Host]

Because as soon as venture capital becomes

[Alison Parear]

involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy.

[Podcast Host]

Prices go way up.

[Alison Parear]

Innovation plateaus. Making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus. With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months [e-mail] with the coupon code abundant

[Podcast Host]

the VC back

[Alison Parear]

platforms made promises and then they changed

[Podcast Host]

the pay, they changed the rules and

[Alison Parear]

they made it clear that those promises were never really about us. I built platform to private pay for therapists who were done being dependent on

[Podcast Host]

companies that have already shown them who

[Alison Parear]

they are, but who aren't ready to blow up their income to get out.

[Podcast Host]

You don't have to leap.

[Alison Parear]

I'll show you how to bring in

[Podcast Host]

private pay clients while you stay on

[Alison Parear]

the platforms for stability and then replace graduating clients with private pay clients until

[Podcast Host]

the math works in your favor.

[Alison Parear]

If you've been circling this decision, hit the link in the show notes. Doors to this cohort close July 3rd welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast.

[Podcast Host]

I'm your host Alison Parear, founder of Abundance practice building. And I'm here with Becky DeGrossa who has been around helping therapists for a really long time. At counseling wise, we're going to be talking SEO, which Becky, I reached out to you. I also don't normally reach out to be like, please be on my podcast. But you had shown some data in a Facebook post and I was starting to think like, oh no, is SEO dead? Yeah, has big therapy tech and these vc, these VC backed platforms have. They bumped us as independent practice owners out of the water. And what you showed made me think,

[Alison Parear]

oh, okay, no, there's still space for us.

[Podcast Host]

So I appreciate you coming on and

[Alison Parear]

kind of teaching us some about what

[Podcast Host]

SEO looks like now in this brave new world.

[Alison Parear]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So, yeah, where should we start? Like what? Can we maybe talk about how it might have been different in 2019 or 20?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah, that's really interesting because it's actually not that different.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, Okay. I like it.

[Becky DeGrossa]

This is the thing. Yeah. So I guess the first thing, just because you mentioned something about the, you know, the tech companies, the venture backed companies. So they typically do not have a local address. Right. The online ones anyway. And so they can't compete with the Google local algorithm.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah. So a lot of people don't realize that, that if you have this local address and you're in the community, you have a distinct advantage over them.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Becky DeGrossa]

And so, but you have to utilize it, right? You have to leverage it. Just like most little gifts in life, you got to leverage those things. And so that's the first thing. And then of course, I think what's happened lately, like lately the last couple years is there's been so much excitement about AI, rumors about AI, premature stances about what it could do and how it was going to change the world and how the little guys and girls could play against the big ones and all of the things. Right. And a lot of people get really excited and they want to gamify that thing and take advantage of it and all that good stuff. But if you've been around in the SEO world for a long time, like I have, like old here, right? 18 years of SEO. We've seen this before. We saw this at the beginning of SEO. And anything that can be gamified can be done better, bigger, faster by someone who has more money, money than a typical private practice clinician or small group practice, or a big group practice for that matter. So it's not going to last. Okay. It's just not going to last. I, I mean, I'm a schemer. Through and through. I think anyone who's in SEO has a scheming part, right? Because all you're doing is you're like, oh, I want to figure this out and see if this works, right? And you test, test, test, and you're constantly looking for the advantage. But I got burned way back then, you know, I had like sites that were making thousands of dollars and those tactics were shut down by Google. And then you finally learn, maybe when you get a little older, like, oh, that stuff's just not going to last. That's a gimmick and it's not going to last. Right? So anyway, I think that's what we went through over the last two years with AI, and in that excitement, there's all sorts of companies that are selling, you know, snake oil, right? Like, this is going to work. This is going to be the most amazing thing. And it sounds really good because who wouldn't want to be able to compete, right? When they haven't been able to, or they haven't figured it out, or they didn't do all the work or whatever it is, who wouldn't want to? So they buy these things and they go off and they implement these things and maybe they last five minutes, maybe they don't work at all and you've just wasted a bunch of your life, right? So anyway, I guess the good news about being an old dog in this SEO game is I've seen this whole thing happen before and it's just anything that is not going to produce trustable results because it can be manipulated is not going to last. Right. ChatGPT doesn't want to keep rewarding something that can be gamed. So eventually they're going to go get authoritative results and trustful results and all that. And who has the biggest source of trustable results? Google. Because they've been in this game for all these years, shutting down all of these loopholes and they're the go to. Right? So anyway, that's the best source right now. Yeah. So to answer, that's a very long way of just kind of giving my, my philosophy on the whole thing. Just kind of watching from the sidelines. And we literally, we have a whole system that mines all the SEO news, all the local SEO news, all the AI news every single day, twice a day. And it strips out anything that's low odds based on all sorts of data we have given it and like real, real life stuff that's happening. So we only see the 6 out of 10, 7 out of 10, 8, 9, 10 out of 10. Things and probably get like 15 of those a day that we go through. Okay. So we are drinking from the fire hose in a way. And you can, you can bet that if there's some AI thing that's actually going to work and be sustainable for therapists, I'm going to be there. Right. Because if I could hand that gift to my clients, I would be on that faster than anything. Right. So. So we're watching it. Right. It is something to watch, but it's not something to watch without discernment because there's a bunch of stuff that was already shut down. If it even ever worked. It no longer works. Yeah. So anyway, basically our SEO system is the same system that we've been using for the last 10 years. Mm. It hasn't changed a lot.

[Podcast Host]

Fundamentals of SEO. Right. So like, making sure your images are a good size, so that doesn't take too long to load. Meta tags, metadata, that kind of stuff.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah, yeah. There's. There's really three pillars that we rely on. A Google business profile with a local address. Okay. So even if you work at home, go rent space on a Saturday morning from some clinician, you can even go to someone who doesn't compete with you so that they aren't threatened. Even though every site ranks on its own merit, you're not competition anyway way. But some people feel like you might be. Right. So, you know, you work with kids, go to an adult therapist. If you work with adults, go to a kid therapist. If you work with men, go to a female therapist who doesn't see a whole bunch of men, whatever, and rent a couple hours on a Saturday morning. And it's affordable. You can see people face to face and you have an address. So there you go.

[Podcast Host]

I'll say, like, this is a big shift that's happened at some point since COVID where, like, you have to now do videos to prove that this is your office, that you are renting space. It needs to have your name. They have all sorts of rules.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Seen a lot of people who are like, I'm trying to game this system and it's not letting me because I don't want to rent.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Your idea of it doing just a few hours of subleasing. I think that's brilliant because, yeah, it's affordable.

[Becky DeGrossa]

And you. The thing is you. You don't want to do that and then say online therapy only on your website. Right. Want to say online and in person in whatever city. Right.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Becky DeGrossa]

So you're going to get those folks who are happy with online you're going to get the folks who are. I got to be able to see you every now and then, whatever. And you have the address so that you have, you have table stakes to rank. Okay, so that's the first pillar. Is that okay?

[Alison Parear]

Yeah.

[Becky DeGrossa]

And then of course, you know, specialty pages that are optimized for things that people search for. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Becky DeGrossa]

It doesn't do you any good to rank for something that no one ever searches for. This is the SEO game. Of course. Right. And you know, that's my thing. Yeah. Right. I am not a networker as seen by you. And I have been in this field for umpteen years and we've never had a face to face interaction.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Kind of a hermit. Right. I am, I just kind of build systems in the background, you know, and have built a pretty big company doing that. But that's where I like to hang out. Right. So. So I'm not a networker. So I never built a system that was around networking. I built a system with the machine so that we could like. Okay. Positioning is a lot position or market demand for what people type into Google. Right. That's, that's what I'm all about. And then of course, the other thing is building those content hubs around that specialty, which means blogging. There are some people who are saying blogging's dead. Don't. You don't need to blog anymore. AI's here. You don't need to blog anymore. That is like the worst advice ever in our view. Because we look at our data, we have thousands and thousands of Google Analytic accounts for therapists. I mean, we might have the most of anybody in the field. Right. Because we've been doing this so many years and people share their analytics with us so that we can track it. And so we have all this raw data. It might be the best out there for this field. And we watch it and we see that SEO is humming along, it's just steady. Okay. And we're not seeing a drop in SEO. But what we're also seeing is the people who really implement our strategy, they're continuing to go up, they're doing great. And if people stop blogging, they lose their rankings over time.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah. We have a totally different view of blogging as well. We're not trying to rank blogs at all. That's not of interest. You may accidentally rank a blog because it's real niche. And I know narcissism. Are two narcissists together, Is that a disaster? Right. Or whatever. There are certain terms that people Search a lot that haven't been written about as much as others. So you may rank, but it doesn't matter because most of the traffic you're going to get to that is not from your state of licensure. Okay. It's going to be from all over the world. It's going to be from all the other 49 states.

[Podcast Host]

So what?

[Becky DeGrossa]

It's a vanity metric. You got traffic from that, great. Who cares? Doesn't matter. They bounce, right? You can look at the time that they stay on the site. They bounce, right? Yeah. As soon as they realize you're not there, you're not in their neck of the woods. So those are the three pillars. It's really gbp. It's specialty pages that are optimized and continual blogging.

[Podcast Host]

So I'm curious about the blogging, though.

[Alison Parear]

If the point is not to rank

[Podcast Host]

the blogs, what's the point of the blogging?

[Becky DeGrossa]

The point of the blog is to grow the content hub around the specialty page. So if you have a specialty page on anxiety, anxiety therapy, the term that you should target because that's what people type in, then you write a blog post on what's the difference between anxiety and depression? How do you get to sleep at night if you're anxious? What's the difference between anxiety and social anxiety? How do I know if I have anxiety or if this is distress? Whatever, all the things. And I guess that's the other thing we recommend. And we have done all the research on this and we gather this in our blogging program and our clients choose from these topics. We get the most frequently asked questions in any area. Okay. And sure, you can jazz it up with your language, your personality, what you think about these things, but answer the questions that people have because that's how you provide value. And the data is there to show you what they ask. Right. I mean, you already know if you've been sitting in the seat for a long time, what their technical questions are. But there's also data out there you might not have thought about because your clients haven't asked that yet, but a lot of people do. So go ahead and answer those on your site and then link from the blog post to your specialty page.

[Alison Parear]

Got it.

[Becky DeGrossa]

That's what we do.

[Podcast Host]

If we're not ranking the blog posts themselves. I know if you're trying to rank them, they need to be fairly long. If you're not trying to rank them, do they need to be 800 to 2,000 words or can they be more chill?

[Becky DeGrossa]

We do six to 650.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And the main, you are making lots of people happy right now.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Even if you write really long blog posts, chances of them ranking anymore are pretty bad. With the Google algorithm changes. Right. Because there's so much AI slop out there.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Becky DeGrossa]

It has to be really, really unique and well researched and long and authoritative and pull in studies and I mean, who wants to go to all that work? Right. It's really going to be harder to rank. I know I had a site, I go to Maui every year and I, I finally created a Maui travel site with all my, you know, 20 years of being there, all the secret tips and tricks that was making like 4,000amonth. one point, Google's algorithm came along. Tank. You know, I make like 23amonth now. Yay. You know, it's just, that's what's happened to national SEO. Okay. National SEO. Local is totally different. Local is totally different. So don't worry about ranking blog posts. Use them for fodder to push your specialty pages up because that's what you want to rank. And that's, that's the money page on your site is those specialty pages. Yeah.

[Alison Parear]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. I love this.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah. So it's really quite simple. And you know, the concept is really quite simple. You need to be a real local presence with a real address. You need to have real good content that's optimized. And of course you want it. Not. It's not just keyword focused, it's relational as well. You know, of course. Right. You're. The very first thing is do they get that you get their pain? Right. You gotta establish that in the first hundred words. And so there's a flow to the page that we recommend. But pretty much after that, what we're focusing on anymore is expanding via geopages to other little towns around you and really focusing on conversions. A lot of what we've been doing lately in terms of changing our strategy is not the core three pillars dollars. It's really focusing on improving conversions. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And so for folks who are like, what's conversions? That's the person actually becoming a client. Yeah. We've got a lot of people actually taking.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah. Someone taking action when they get to your site. It's one thing to get traffic. Right. But it. But you want them to either call, fill out a form, schedule an appointment, something like that. Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Really focusing on that. If you can keep the same amount of traffic and get twice the number of conversions, you've just increased your caseload, you know, double it. Right. So yeah, so that's really kind of the fine tuning that we've been doing in terms of all the little changes we make to our system are around that now for the most part. Yeah. Watching Google, of course, all the time and all the time, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. What about bigger cities versus medium sized cities? How are people ranking and how is that working?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah, that's a really good question because that's a question of positioning. And I guess the other thing I should say is that something that has helped us a lot is that we run like 2 million a year of Google Ads for therapists as well. So we have that part of the business as well. And when you're doing that, we don't even take an ads client who won't set up conversion tracking. Right. So we can see exactly, hey, here was the keyword the person typed in. Here's the ad that showed. Here's where they landed and here's where they went. Right. And what percentage of conversions are. So that's how we have a lot of insight into changes to make to our strategy because paid traffic is going through. But what we found is that you can do a whole lot better with really more niche type things in big cities. Right. Because there's demand for everything under the sun in a big city. Right. New York City, we have tons of clients in New York City. And so there you can do adoption counseling. You know, you can, you can just go to town with things like, you know, LGBT or trans or I don't know, like highly sensitive people or black women in midlife. I mean, you can just go to town in New York City. You would not be able to do that from a keyword standpoint in a medium to small size town because there's just not enough demand for that. It's a hell of a networking play in those places, as you know. Right. Yeah, but it's not a Google play in those places. Right. So that is the main thing. It's, it's really around positioning. So go niche. Like, forget. Like, we won't even run ads for someone who wants to advertise couples therapy in Manhattan. They have to be willing to pay $75 a click. Right. Like who's going to do that?

[Alison Parear]

Right.

[Becky DeGrossa]

But what about betrayal, trauma, you know, that'll be awesome in New York City. Okay, so those kinds of things, that's how you want to think about it. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Are Google Ads necessary for people to be able to rank on page one of Google, like if they don't want to run ads?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Well, Google says no, but they lie. You know, I mean, we saw this probably seven years ago. There was a direct correlation in big jumps in organic ranking when someone started running ads. I honestly haven't looked at that myself recently to see if that is still the case. It wouldn't surprise me if it's still the case. But basically what we see is if you're in a big city and you're niched into something that is not as competitive, you're going to do fine. Especially if you're a solo. I mean, you don't need that many people if you're a practitioner. If you're a group practice though, and you want to scale, then pretty much you gotta have ads in a, in a medium size or a large city, you've gotta have ads anymore. That's what it seems like.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Okay, so I was an eating disorder therapist for much of my career. Which Google Ads sucked for because I was against the treatment centers.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

And that's gonna be the same for a lot of substance abuse. And there was no like weird niche thing I could do.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah. With the chronic illness and fertility, all the things that are medical oriented, forget it. They have more money than you. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

How do you foresee this big therapy tech movement? How do you see that impacting things like Google Ads?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah, some of them are definitely playing in the Google Ads world. No, no doubt about it. But I don't know, we're, we're still getting really good conversions with Google Ads because a lot of it is again around positioning. So in a large city, maybe better, better help is running ads or whoever is running ads still. But if you're niched in a large city like you should be, you can still get them in the door. And I like the concept of. Because those big tech companies are not going to run. They're not going to, they're not going to run. Betrayal, trauma. Right. Or something like that. You know, I'm just throwing that out as, as an example, but you can get those folks in the door. And then, I mean the thing I really like is to think in terms of. Turn the corner pages. Imagine this. You might have been like on the planet when this happened in the world. Alison 1979.

[Podcast Host]

I've been here since then.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Post IT notes. Remember when post IT notes came about? Do you remember that?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Becky DeGrossa]

You've always had post IT notes. Darn. Okay, well anyway, it was like a really, really cool thing, but no one knew about it. Right. So no one searched on it. So you would go into a stationary store, they stationery stores. Back then, and you would go in there and you would be getting a pad of paper or whatever, and then you see these little things. What are these? Right. Oh, these are so cool. I mean, I could put that on my cabinet, I could put that on my fridge, I could put that on my desk. Right. And so that's a turn the corner play. That's like, you go in to get one thing, you turn the corner because you see this thing and you get that. And so a lot of these specialties can be that. Okay, So I had a client who did a lot of work with infertility, that. That kind of thing. And she wasn't getting a lot of traffic because there wasn't a lot of search volume for it. But so then she backed up and she was like, okay, what. What do people who are struggling with this feel? Right? They feel depression, they feel anxiety, all these things. So she started, you know, women's therapy. Right. So she started actually positioning for these higher demand terms, started getting people in, but then they would go, oh, my God, you work with infertility. And as well. And so then they could go, oh, you are my therapist. Right. The same thing is true in a large city, because if you, if you can rank for infertility, which you, you should be able to organically still, right. Not don't be paying for ads for that, but you can rank organically. Then they come in and they go, oh, my gosh, you also do couples counseling or, you know, or you do. You. You work with anxiety, you know, oh, you got, you cover all the bases. This is my life. Right. And so, so that turn the corner thing plays differently. In small cities, you go for the big terms, and in large cities, you go for the less competitive terms. But you still want to show that you are adept at treating the main things that people suffer with.

[Alison Parear]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so I'm thinking about how powerful local search is.

[Alison Parear]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And how so many of my people are licensed in multiple states.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

How do you weave all that in?

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah, that gets tricky. That gets tricky. So you are not going to rank in another state unless you have an office there in the story. So if you're in, you know, east coast, where all the states are all next to each other, you can, you can go get an office across the border into another state. Right. So you're not going to be able to actually rank there. You can run Google Ads there and you can be visible that way. Or I have a lot of clients who get an office somewhere and they, you know what? Some people don't know is. Well, certainly if it's within driving distance, you can go do your video verification yourself. You have the key, you do your thing. But I have a client in Florida who leases space to someone in, I don't know where, Maine or something like that. How far apart are those? But she did the video verification for him. Okay. So there is an option to do that as well.

[Alison Parear]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Becky DeGrossa]

And so he, he does go there every now and then so he could see people if he needed to. But it's not a regulation. He's not going to hop on a plane, you know, when someone makes it. Yeah. So that the, you know, side packs and counseling compact and all that stuff, it's great in theory and it's good for when your client moves to another state and you still want to see them. That's awesome. Continuity care. Right? That's perfect. But it's not like this magic bullet where you're going to now be able to see people all over the world or all over the U.S. yeah. So that's just the sad news. That's the real story.

[Podcast Host]

We're here for real, Becky.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Becky DeGrossa]

That's how we roll over here. It's just the way it is. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Okay. So you're doing a more in depth training for the abundance party folks. So I'm excited about that because I know I'm going to have 20 more questions between now and then.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Yeah, no worries. Yeah, maybe the other thing to talk about is AI. How much is AI happening? Like how much you know, and it's not really for local businesses. National. Yeah, definitely. There's also a whole thing, a zero click. The zero click world. Right. Where AI just gives the answer and no one goes to a website ever. That happens on a national basis. But with AI, we are hardly seeing any traffic to therapist sites. And that was again, one of the things in the beginning. People were like, oh, listicles. List yourself as one of the top five, whatever therapists in your town and put yourself at number one. Yeah, that. That worked for five minutes. Press releases, right? That worked for five minutes. All that's being shut down. So it's not easy to game that anymore. And maybe I can just show you this thing because it's. If I can share, that would be awesome. I just want to show you this one. This one chart.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Becky DeGrossa]

So here, can you see this? Okay, so this is what we're seeing. This is our top 89 therapists. Google Analytics accounts. We had 90. But one guy was shared with us twice. So I took him Out. So anyway, that you can see, it's pretty steady, right?

[Podcast Host]

Uh huh.

[Becky DeGrossa]

SEO is not going away. This is the last year.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So for folks listening on the pod is May 2025 to April 2026. And it's basically a straight line almost, you know, like little time between 150k and 200,000 month by month visit.

[Becky DeGrossa]

You can see during the holidays here, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas goes down slightly, then it pops back up and you

[Podcast Host]

know, literally on January 1st everybody's like help.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Right, right, right. So, so that's that. So that's just the, here's the. You know the visual of SEO is strong, right. Nothing is happening there. Everything's good. Then we took our three highest traffic AI sites, meaning they got more traffic than anyone else, which is in the two percents. Okay, 2%. Most of it is less. Most of it is over all these accounts, it's half a percent of the traffic comes from AI. Okay, okay, 0.53%. But these top three, they have the highest. And this is, this is Chat GPT. This is total number of sessions. And here's the Chat GPT traffic, here's Perplexity. It doesn't even appear on the line. And here's Gemini. It doesn't even appear on the line. Okay. You can't track the AI overview traffic and you can't track the cloud traffic. Yet in Google Analytics those don't come in, but they are less by far than. Yeah, so just, I think people should just know that. Yeah, it's something to watch. But do not be chasing this right now because your biggest victory is going to be a big nothing, you know.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it's interesting because the thing, the trainings I've done on it, it's basically all the same kind of thing like SEO.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

Really helpful for AI, what AI deems credible. Like today, those kinds of things.

[Becky DeGrossa]

You just, just cued this up. Here's what ChatGPT told me right after I gave it all the data. AI search is worth paying attention to, but it's not replacing Google for local therapy practices yet. Most so called AI optimization recommendations are really just good SEO. Clear service pages, strong local signals, consistent directories, helpful content, blah blah, blah. Right. The gpp, that work is still valuable, but the main return is likely to come from Google organic and local search, not from AI referrals. Okay, so that's, that's chat GPT's own voice right there telling me everything. That's what its analysis is based on all this data. So anyway, that's just the thing, don't chase that. Or if you're going to chase it, just chase it via SEO. Because there's a much bigger bang for the buck with the SEO.

[Podcast Host]

Awesome. Okay, great. We'll get into all this. So much more. I can't wait until the training, so thank you so much for your time. We'll make sure counseling wise because I know people are going to want to go there. Counseling wise will be in the show notes to make it easy for folks.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Awesome.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I'll see you soon.

[Becky DeGrossa]

Okay, see you. Bye.

[Podcast Host]

Bye. Thanks so much.

[Alison Parear]

If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months. Free. If you're listening, you probably need some support. Support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.