Should Therapists Have a Google Business Profile?

Yes, with one important caveat about how you set it up.

The hesitation is understandable. Therapy and counselling involve a degree of privacy that most businesses do not require. Clients may not want it known they are seeing a therapist. Therapists may have their own concerns about a public listing.

But the search is already happening. When someone in Surrey types "therapist near me" or "counsellor Kingston" into Google, results appear. The question is not whether Google shows therapists in those results. It does. The question is whether you are in them.

What the profile shows, and what it does not

A Google Business Profile shows your business name, a phone number, a general location, your opening hours, and your Google reviews. It does not show your home address if you set it up as a service-area business. It does not show who your clients are. It does not reveal anything about sessions or the people who attend them.

If you work from a dedicated therapy room or a clinic, you can list that address. If you work from home and prefer not to display a residential address, you list a service area instead: Kingston and surrounding areas, for example. Google supports this and it does not affect your ranking significantly.

What potential clients are actually searching

The searches are specific: "anxiety therapist Surrey," "CBT counsellor Kingston," "bereavement counselling near me." These are not passive searches. They come from people who have already decided they want professional support and are now trying to find the right person.

A Google Business Profile puts you in front of that moment. A directory listing might too, but directories sit below the Google local pack in search results. The local pack, the three businesses in the box at the top, gets seen first and clicked most.

Counselling Directory, BACP, and Psychology Today UK

These directories are where many therapists already have a presence, and they are worth maintaining. They appear in Google results for profession-specific searches and are trusted by clients who want to verify credentials. A completed Counselling Directory profile, a BACP therapist finder listing, and a Psychology Today UK profile each add a citation that strengthens your Google local ranking as a side effect.

The important distinction is that these directories are not the same channel as the Google local pack. Someone who lands on a directory listing has often already done a broader search and is now in a comparison phase. Someone who sees you in the Google local pack is at the first moment of decision. Both matter, but they are different moments.

Reviews and privacy

This is the part therapists ask about most. Can clients leave reviews? Yes. Do clients leave reviews for therapists? Some do. A review for a therapist does not say "I saw this person about my anxiety." It typically says something about the practitioner's manner, the environment, and whether they would recommend them. Most are brief. Many are meaningful.

The concern is usually larger in anticipation than in practice.

What a good profile looks like for a therapist

• Category set to Psychotherapist, Counsellor, or the closest match to your actual practice
• Service area listed rather than home address, if preferred
• A description covering your approach, modalities, and the kinds of difficulties you work with
• Contact method: phone or contact form link, so someone can reach you without friction
• A booking or enquiry link if you use online scheduling
• Regular posts: an article link, a short observation, something current

The short answer

A Google Business Profile for a therapist or counsellor involves a small number of setup decisions, mostly around address display and category. Once those are made correctly, the profile does its job: it puts you in front of people who are actively looking for what you offer, at the moment they are ready to reach out.

The clients who need you are already searching. Whether they find you depends on whether you are there to be found. For a detailed look at what happens on the client side of that search, see how clients actually find a therapist online.

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