Most counselor sites look fine and quietly leak clients. Old design. Fees you can't find. Invisible on Google. I rebuild them so the right people find you — and you stop thinking about your tech.
My dad runs a counseling practice in Colorado Springs (matthewbaileycounseling.com). Rebuilding his site taught me what most counselor sites are missing — and it's never the part that looks broken.
It's the hero that doesn't say what you do. Fees buried three clicks deep. A contact form that filters nobody. A site Google can't read, so it shows your Psychology Today listing instead. You can't see any of this. It's costing you bookings.
So I work with one counselor at a time. The person who built your site is the one who texts you back six months later.
Psychology Today gets you onto someone's shortlist. Your site is what wins the next click — or loses it.
Someone looking for a therapist is overwhelmed. They click through four or five PT listings looking for one that feels right. The one they pick is rarely the highest-rated — it's the one whose site makes them feel yes, this person gets it. That signal lands before they read a word.
A new site doesn't rank on Google the day it ships. It ranks 90 days later, if someone keeps working on it. Most counselor sites never get that work. Here's what it actually looks like:
Site is live, Google has indexed it cleanly, and it ranks #1 for branded searches ("Matthew Bailey counseling Colorado Springs"). Non-branded local queries — "EMDR therapist Colorado Springs," "Christian counselor near me" — aren't ranking yet. Exactly where a brand-new site sits at two weeks.
Google Business Profile fully overhauled — 489-char keyword-rich description, all 7 services with their own descriptions, a year of monthly posts queued. Directory listings (Psychology Today, Headway) aligned to the new phone number. Updates here as the data lands.
Four to six locally-targeted blog posts published. Google now has content to rank for non-branded queries. First non-branded rankings start showing up in Search Console. Updates here as the data lands.
Six months of Search Console + Cloudflare analytics. Real numbers on impressions, clicks, ranking lift, and conversions. The full case study lives here when this lands.
Most "rebuilds" list twenty deliverables. Five of them actually matter. Here's the five, and they all come standard.
Fast, mobile-first, built around the decision a prospective client is making when they land.
The highest-leverage thing a solo practice can do. Most people skip it.
Stop getting "hi I'm interested" from people who aren't a fit.
The biggest dropoff on counselor sites. People leave because they can't tell what it costs.
The boring infrastructure. Set up once, never your problem.
The build is a one-time project with a flat fee. Once it ships, you have two options for what comes next — and both of them are good options.
Foundation build
Everything above. 2-3 weeks kickoff to launch. $1,500 for the first 5; $2,500 after.
Payment
50% on kickoff, 50% on launch. No retainer required to start. No long contract.
Maintenance
Uptime, small content updates, fee changes, broken links, renewals. Handled quietly. 24-hour email turnaround.
Active growth
Two blog posts a month, weekly Google Business Profile activity, AI-drafted intake replies queued for your review. The full engine.
Two paths. I hand you the keys and walk away — site is yours, you owe me nothing. Or you keep me on retainer and I keep it growing. The site runs fine without me either way.
Do you touch PHI?
No. I work on the public side — site, Google profile, intake form. Anything sensitive lives in your EHR, where it belongs. If the retainer drafts client messages, they're templates with name and appointment time — never session content.
What does this require of me?
About 3-4 hours total. A 60-minute kickoff, an hour of content review, a 30-minute walkthrough at launch. Retainer afterward is optional and zero-effort — I post and draft on your behalf.
Can I cancel the retainer?
Yes, any time, no contract. The site is yours from day one of the build. Retainer is month-to-month — pause it for a slow month, cancel it entirely, upgrade or downgrade between tiers. Whatever fits.
Why $1,500 right now — and $2,500 after?
An agency would charge $15K–$25K for this scope — their overhead, not your value. AI lets me deliver the same thing for $2,500. The first five counselors get $1,500 in exchange for being the case studies. After that, $2,500 is the rate. If you're reading this, you're probably one of the five.
What if my current site is actually fine?
I'll say so. The honest answer might be "you don't need a rebuild — you need a fees page and a Google profile overhaul." If that's it, I'll either quote the smaller scope or hand you the punch list and wish you well.
Do you work with group practices?
Not right now — everything's built around how a solo counselor runs a practice. If you're curious anyway, send me a note and I'll be honest about fit.
First conversation is free, no expectation either way. We talk about your practice and what (if anything) I'd actually rebuild. If it's a fit, we line up a kickoff. If not, you leave with a punch list.