A Person in Crisis Searches for Help — Most Therapist Websites Cannot Answer

Why This Matters for Mental Health / Therapy

Key Takeaways

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  24% of therapy sites score below 50 — the majority of mental health websites are underperforming across all dimensions.
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  Readability is critically low at 59 — therapy content should be the most accessible writing in healthcare, not the least.
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  AEO averages 40/100 — AI tools cannot surface therapist websites when clients search for help.
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  19% lack schema markup — without it, search engines cannot distinguish your practice from a wellness blog.
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  SEO at 90 is average for healthcare — basic meta tags exist, but deeper optimization is missing.
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  Engagement at 48 is a relative strength — formatting is decent, but content quality needs attention.

How to Improve Your Mental Health / Therapy Website

1. Add an "Am I Taking New Patients" banner. Put your availability status on every page. This answers the top client question instantly and helps AI cite you for availability searches.
2. Create pages for each specialty. Build pages for anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, couples therapy, and any other focus area. Write 300 words per page in simple, warm language.
3. Write at a 6th-8th grade reading level. Therapy content should be the easiest to read in all of healthcare. Use short sentences. Avoid clinical terms. Write like you speak in session.
4. Add a FAQ about the therapy process. Cover "What happens in a first session?" "How long does therapy take?" "What is the difference between a therapist and psychiatrist?" Add FAQPage schema.
5. Add Physician or MedicalBusiness schema. Include your name, credentials, specialties, accepted insurance, and phone number. This helps Google show rich results and helps AI understand your practice.

Score Distribution

All 370 Audited Sites

Domains are partially blurred. Scores range from 0 to 100.