Many of you have contacted me to inquire about the usefulness of online directory listings.  After hearing Kat Mindenhall’s experience with Good Therapy, I decided to invite her to write a guest post to share with you today.

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A Guest Post by Kat Mindenhall, LCSW

(If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.)

After signing up for four online directories six weeks ago, I began comparing how my profile shows up on each of them. I began by searching in a zip code that borders my own, and what I found on Good Therapy really surprised me.

The Issues

Zip code searches by Good Therapy take the very middle of your zip code area and use that to calculate how far you are from the very middle of another zip code. I searched in a zip code area that was 7 miles away according to Google Maps. However, my profile did not show up on Good Therapy until the seventh page. There were listings ahead of mine that were 16.83, 14.79, and 9.75 miles away.  Good Therapy says that listings appear in order of proximity to the center of the chosen zip code, but this didn’t seem to really be the case.

If you search for a therapist by “browse location,” Good Therapy will only show profiles within that exact town, despite the fact that it says it’s looking within a radius of 25 miles. A search of a town that borders mine returned only 4 profiles followed by a statement that said, “There are a limited number of therapists in your area, but other distance therapy professionals are available to help.” Included within this list of “distance” therapists was a profile from someone in London! Instead of showing nearby towns, Good Therapy apparently thought that I paid them $269 per year to show my potential clients the profiles of therapists from other countries. I find this unacceptable.

I also found that they show all instances of a certain zip code at once. What this means is that if you are 7 miles away, and another highly populated area is also 7 miles away, they may show every one of the other zip’s profiles before yours (instead of mixing them up). This is why I was on the seventh page for a zip code that borders mine.

How I Addressed These Issues

I wrote to Good Therapy about these issues and received a form letter that did not address my specific concerns. They didn’t explain why their website doesn’t quite work the way they claim. I responded and restated my concerns. They simply replied with another form letter on why I would miss Good Therapy if I left.

Mental health professionals have a reputation of being technophobes that don’t understand how simple it actually is to create an intelligent search algorithm. We certainly don’t have a reputation as a community that looks out for each other and uses technology to our advantage to spread the word about an expensive and inferior product. Is Good Therapy capitalizing on this? They don’t seem to care that they are going to lose me as a customer, and Good Therapy’s impersonal response made me feel talked down to.

Good Therapy costs $269 per year, or $24.95 per month, second only to Psychology Today in price ($360/year).  On Psychology Today, Network Therapy ($149/year), and Theravive ($197/year) I had no trouble seeing my profile within the first 1-3 pages for the same nearby cities and zip codes. Part of the premium you pay for an online directory is for their “high ranking.” I’m not convinced that Good Therapy’s ranking really makes such a difference when other directories are also on Google’s first page of search results right alongside Good Therapy.

What Does this Mean for You?

So, the question is: Is it better to take your $269 and use it to get on two other “less popular listings,” or stay on a “mega directory” even if it isn’t showing your profile?

You have to research how your profile shows up in searches to make that decision. Search for yourself in many different ways. See if your listing comes up when . . .

• you search a nearby city by name,
• you search that same city by zip, and
• how your profile is displayed for all nearby zip codes.

Compare how many locations or zip codes you can list with each directory. Track your referrals so that you can know what your return on investment is for each directory.

If you live in a suburb next to a heavily populated area, it may be difficult to show up in Good Therapy’s listing because of their search algorithm. If there is a chance that potential clients will search the city next to you for a therapist and not search for your specific town, beware.  You probably won’t come up in the search. I know I didn’t.

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Kat Mindenhall, LCSW, is a therapist in private practice with A Peaceful Life Counseling Services LLC in Lakewood, CO. She specializes in helping parents enjoy their relationships with each other and their children by overcoming depression, anxiety, and relational issues.