Google considers searches for therapists, counselors, life coaches, psychologists, etc. to be local searches. Meaning, even if someone sitting in Denver searches “anxiety counseling”,
Google will serve them local results in Denver. Try and see for yourself. (Same goes for pizza or Chinese food 🙂).
On the contrary, if someone types in “symptoms of anxiety”, Google will show national results. You’ll see huge sites come up like WebMD and Mayo Clinic. Terms like that are not presumed to be local search terms, but rather research terms.
This is why it’s practically impossible to get
SEO visibility for sites in areas away from the city in which your office is located. While you can list other areas that you may serve on your site, Google emphasizes the actual address of your office and makes your site visible to those areas only. (Google also trusts your site more if it lists an actual physical address, so removing your address is not the answer, either.)
The good news is that with
Google Adwords you can target whatever state, city, town or areas you want. In your ads, make sure you feature the fact that you offer tele- or online therapy, as you don’t want to pay for clicks from people that would not be happy talking to you over a screen.