SEO Checklist for Therapists
Most therapy practices get found the same way any local business does: someone searches, and a few results come back. This checklist walks through the basics of showing up in those results — keyword research, website content, technical setup, link building, and local search. It's built for occupational therapists and other rehab therapists who own or market a practice and want a concrete place to start.
Nothing here requires a marketing background. The checklist is organized into five short sections so a practice owner can work through one area at a time instead of trying to overhaul everything at once.
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Digital visibility is a practical problem for therapists in private practice. A strong clinical reputation doesn't automatically translate into search results, and the advice available online is usually written for businesses that look nothing like a therapy practice.
This checklist condenses the strategies covered in the course SEO for Therapists with Saroosh Khan into a single page a practice owner can act on. For practice-specific keywords and a fuller walkthrough, the companion post is SEO for Therapists.
Resource Utilization
This checklist fits practice owners, solo practitioners, and anyone responsible for marketing a therapy practice. It's most useful at two points: when a practice is first building a website, and when an existing practice isn't showing up in local search and needs to figure out why.
The five sections move from research to execution. Keyword research helps identify the terms potential clients actually type — discipline plus location, specialty, conditions treated, insurances accepted, and common questions. Content SEO covers the pages a practice website needs and how to signal experience and credentials. Technical SEO covers site speed, mobile usability, HTTPS, and Google Search Console. Link building and local audience capture cover directory listings, a Google Business Profile, consistent contact information, and reviews.
The checklist does not need to be completed in one sitting. A few small tasks at a time will steadily build a practice's digital presence.
Instructions and Tips
The checklist includes links to SEO tools and resources throughout, so it works best viewed as a digital PDF rather than printed. Two items worth handling before starting: pull the five to ten conditions the practice most commonly treats, and confirm the exact business name, address, and phone number to use everywhere. Inconsistent contact information across listings is one of the more common and more fixable problems in local search.