Negative reviews and how SEO can help minimize their visibility and impact.

Some therapists have had the unfortunate luck of getting a bad review and I think everyone worries about this happening to them. 

We work with clients who are already likely to come in feeling generally not well and who deal with multiple stressors that compound their existing conditions. Clients also use us transferentialy and project onto us often. And of course, sometimes therapists mess up too. Usually the client sees this soon enough as a great opportunity to work through conflict with someone they trust. Not always though.  It is no stretch then for all of this to potentially lead to a bad review. 

To hear of a poor client experience whether its sources are real, imagined, transferential or otherwise is disheartening enough. For negative reviews to be seen by the public can be upsetting to existing clients and staff, and also wards off potential clients. Lastly, it just feels terrible.

While there are ‘reputation management’ companies that offer to get rid of reviews by paying the websites they are listed on, or responding to the reviewer, these are not suitable options in our line of work as they are unethical, a liability, and aggressive. These options also tend to be scams that backfire or yield little to no results anyhow. 

I offer a couple of uniquely developed non-interactive approaches which include lowering the ranking of the pages containing the reviews, minimizing a certain review while keeping the page, or strategic ways to get rid of page altogether (just not in the way you might think).

This can work quite well due to the fact that we do not rely on review websites in the way that a restaurant or retailer might.

As for good reviews, it can feel a bit funny getting one though I welcome them especially when it is from a parent of a child I used to work with. It would be interesting for a current adult client to leave me a review and I would hope they bring it up as it is good to talk about and I would wonder what they are trying to tell me and the deeper meaning.

Either way, good reviews are great for SEO! If you are okay with the idea, I suggest having a colleague write you a review and you can write them one as well. 

-The SEO Therapist

Tags: SEO, Therapists, Negative Reviews, Dealing with reviews ethically, mental health