Benefits and Downsides of Google Ads for Therapists
If you’re a therapist or counselor trying to grow your private practice, you might have come across Google Ads (formerly AdWords) as a potential channel to focus on. But maybe you’re wondering if it’s worth using Google Ads to get new clients. After all, “ads” implies paying money, so isn’t it naturally better to focus on SEO, social media, and other “free” channels?
In this blog post, I’ll cover the benefits and downsides of Google Ads for therapists.
A Brief Overview of Google Ads
Google Ads is a platform provided by Google to run advertising campaigns across various Google properties, including Google Search, YouTube, display network, Discovery, and more. What most people mean when they say Google Ads — and what I’ll focus on in this blog post — is just Google Search Ads.
Google Search Ads are what you see at the top of Google search results pages (SERPs) when you search for something. If you’ve ever searched for something like “couples counseling near me”, you’ll almost certainly have seen these types of Google Ads.
You’ll likely see 3-4 different ads at the top of the search results, above all the organic (i.e. “normal”) search results.
In theory, setting up Google Ads is simple — you choose the searches (or keywords) you want your ads to show for, choose the locations you want to target (e.g. the city of Los Angeles), write the content of the ads, and publish. Even if you’ve never run Google Ads before, you could have an ad live in under half an hour.
I wrote a Simple Guide to Google Ads for Therapists here and I also wrote here about some beginner Google Ads mistakes you should avoid.
But let me know talk about why you should run Google Ads.
The Benefits of Google Ads for Therapists
From the overview above, you might have already noticed one of the main benefits of Google Ads, but here’s a more comprehensive list:
You can appear at the top of search results
Getting your website to show high in Google Search is extremely difficult, especially as a therapist in a competitive market. Google Ads is a cheat-code to get to the top. It doesn’t come cheap (more on that below), but showing at the top is guaranteed to at least get you people visiting your website and starting to be aware of who you are and what you offer.
Immediate visibility
Similar to above, but with Google Ads it doesn’t matter how new your business is or how established your competitors are; if you’re willing to pay for ads you can have your business be in front of people the same day your website goes live if you wanted to.
You can target people actively looking for therapy
With Google Ads your ads show up only when people search for something you’ve selected, for example things like “therapy for anxiety”. Unlike other advertising platforms like Meta Ads or TikTok Ads where you show up in someone’s feed while they’re scrolling social media, with Google Ads you show up at the exact moment that someone is looking for “therapy near me”. That’s hugely powerful, and leads to extremely strong conversion rates.
Target only your ideal client demographics
As well as targeting specific search keywords, you can also target by demographics: at a most basic level you’ll want to target the area in which your offer therapy services or in which you’re licensed to practise.
But you can also target by things like gender, age, and income level if the clients you work best with fit into specific groups. For example, if your best clients are women in their 30s you can target that specific demographic and avoid wasting money on other people if you know they’re not a good fit for your business.
Measurable performance
Google Ads is all about data. You can see the exact number of impressions, clicks, and leads each of your ads is getting. Not only that but you can break it down by keyword, demographic information, ad group, and lots more.
Looking at the data is how you’ll optimize your campaigns. If “couples counseling” is costing a lot with a low click through rate (CTR), maybe you’ll want to focus more on “therapy for trauma” if its CTR is much higher and leading to more booked consultation calls.
See below for an infographic summary on how to get started with Google Ads.
The Downsides of Google Ads
While I do strongly recommend Google Ads a client-acquisition channel for therapists, they have some downsides to be mindful of.
Google Ads can be expensive
When you pay for Google Ads you tell Google what your budget is, so you’ll have a maximum cost for any given month with no surprises, but Google Ads uses an auction bidding system.
Let’s say, for simplicity’s sake, there are 10 other therapists in your area all running Google Ads, and they all want to show up when someone searches for “therapy for anxiety”. Whichever advertiser is bidding the most for each click will win the search and their ads will show at the top. The next highest bidders will show in 2nd and 3rd slots in the search results. The remaining 7 won’t show at all.
Now imagine that happening with more advertisers and across potentially hundreds of different keywords. It’s a complicated machine, and what I’ve described here is a huge oversimplification (the quality of your ads will also affect whether your ad ‘wins’ an auction, among various other things).
You’ll also only pay Google for people who click on your ads (this is called pay-per-click (PPC) advertising).
The amount you’re willing to pay for a click depends on what you think each click is worth to you.
Again to be simple, let’s say that 50 clicks from your ads to your website ends up with one new client, and that new client pays $200 per session. You could say that $4 per click is a fair amount you want to pay because 50 * 4 = $200, so if that person ends up having more than one session you’re making a profit.
Maybe you charge more for couples counseling so you can bid higher for keywords related to that, maybe you know that each client has an average of 5 sessions, maybe you know that only 50% of your consultation calls result in paying clients; all of these and a lot more should factor into how much you spend.
But when set up correctly, as a therapist your ads can make you money. You just have to make sure the money you’re spending is in the right place.
Google Ads are complicated
Getting listed on PsychologyToday or posting on social media is relatively easy. Sure, there will be some work you have to do and maybe creating designs for social media isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse, but it’s low stakes. You can try a few different things and if they don’t work, no big deal.
With Google Ads there’s a lot of moving pieces. I wrote a guide to Google Ads for therapists here that can help if you want to set up ads yourself, but it’s not the easiest thing to work on if you have no experience, and there are a lot of advanced strategies you’d need to use to maximize the results you get.
Google Ads can have limited reach
As mentioned already, with Google Ads your ads show based on keywords you choose, for example “therapy for depression”. But what if not many people are searching for that? With Meta Ads you can reach huge numbers of people and get great visibility (just a lower-intent audience since they’re not actively searching for therapy), but with Google Ads you might hit a limit.
You can’t force people to search for something.
There are solutions to this though.
Expand your keyword targeting. If you want to focus on the issue of depression, you could expand keywords to include “how to overcome depression”, “professional help for depression”, etc. Or if you’re only focused on depression, target other issues like “therapy for anxiety”, “ptsd therapy”, “cbt counseling”, etc.
Broaden your keywords. When you choose keywords to target in Google Ads, you decide whether you want to use exact match, phrase match, or broad match. Exact match is when you want to target the exact search someone is looking for in Google (or with the same exact meaning), phrase match is people searching for something that includes your chosen keyword or is similar to it, and broad match is, as the name suggests, a much broader version, letting Google effectively show ads to whoever it thinks might benefit from seeing your ad.
If this sounds confusing, I created a table to see the difference more clearly:
Note: I strongly, strongly recommend NOT using broad match, unless you have a huge budget and you’ve tried phrase match and you’re still not getting many clicks. Broad match can often show to very unrelated keywords that will likely result in a lot of wasted budget.
Short-term focus
As discussed, Google Ads are an easy way of showing at the top of search results and getting new clients. But what happens when you stop paying for Google Ads?
You’ll immediately stop showing at the top of search and you’ll go back to relying on your organic presence. This is true for other paid ads channels like Meta Ads too, but it’s not the same with channels like Search Engine Optimization.
With Search Engine Optimization, you’d be putting in ongoing work to get your website to rank higher in search without paying for ads directly, which has long-term benefits. SEO can generate you a steady stream of free clients over time, whereas Google Ads only works while the ads themselves are running.
But SEO takes a long time and requires a lot of ongoing effort, so I’d strongly recommend doing both.
Alternatives to Google Ads for Therapists to Get More Clients
I’ve touched in a few other digital marketing channels that could work for you as a therapist, but here’s a more thorough list:
Online directories. Sites like PsychologyToday can be a great source of free or cheap clients because they typically show up high in search results when someone is searching for “therapist near me”, but directories can be competitive. You need to make your profile stand out from all the other therapists — add an intro video if you can, use high quality photos of yourself and your space, and in your description speak directly to your client and their issues, don’t just talk about how qualified you are. And do research on directories — besides broad-reaching ones like PsychologyToday, there are likely local directories for your city, there might be ones specialized to your target demographic, or specific to things like couples counseling.
Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a time-consuming and never-ending process, but it will pay off in the long run. Check out my beginner’s guide to SEO for small businesses here. Do research on what potential clients are searching, then create content — blog posts, infographics, videos, podcast episodes, etc. — that are helpful to potential clients, and share it on your website and social media.
Google Business Profile. If you see clients in-person, it’s crucial you have a Google Business Profile setup because this is a huge potential source of clients who are looking for “therapists near me”. Make sure your listing has lots of photos, accurate and comprehensive info, and get reviews from current and past clients.
Meta Ads. Generally speaking therapists will see more cost-effective results from Google Ads than Meta Ads just because you can target people actively seeking therapy, but if you have a strong visual identity and eye-catching images and videos that sell yourself and the benefits of therapy, you could run Meta Ads and see good results.
Social media. You probably think you need to be active on social media to spread the word about your private practice and get new clients. But realistically, posting on your social media pages is not going to get many clients and require a huge amount of effort to post regularly. That said, I do recommend you at least have social media accounts set up — which ones depends on your audience, but probably Instagram at least, maybe Facebook, maybe LinkedIn, maybe TikTok if you have resources to create a few videos. But I wouldn’t recommend investing a ton of time and effort into posting 5 times a week on every channel; once a week is fine, and focus on content that builds trust about who you are.
Should You Use Google Ads to Grow Your Therapy Business?
That was a rundown of the benefits and downsides of Google Ads for therapists.
Now, is Google Ads right for your therapy private practice? It depends on your short-term goals and budget constraints.
If you want to get clients quickly, Google Ads will be the most effective way to get clients, and if set up correctly, should be profitable. If you’re okay to take your time and save money, focusing on a long-term SEO strategy would be the best way to get new clients. And ideally you’d do a mix of both. Even if your Google Ads are profitable, eventually you’ll want to reduce your reliance on them and get cheaper clients through SEO.
Also, no matter which strategy your prefer, don’t neglect directory listings too, which are no brainer channels — usually free or cheap, easy to set up, and can generate a solid stream of clients.
If you’re looking for help setting up Google Ads for your therapy practice or looking for general digital marketing advice, get in touch with me for a free consultation.
