SEO, GEO and how to let AI Help Your Clients Find Your Private Practice

Written By Calvalyn Day

If you’ve noticed more people saying things like, “I asked ChatGPT…” or “Perplexity told me…” you’re not imagining a shift.

AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude are quickly becoming how people search for answers, especially when they’re trying to make sense of complex decisions around work, money, and even healthcare. And for the record, that includes who to choose for therapy too.

But here’s the part most private practice owners misunderstand: AI does not work like Google.

What AI Doesn’t Reward

AI tools don’t care much about:

  • Clever keywords

  • SEO tricks

  • Content volume without clarity

You can publish constantly and still be invisible. And who has time to publish constantly?

What AI Does Reward

AI consistently surfaces people and businesses that demonstrate:

  • Clear expertise

  • Consistent positioning

  • Repeated associations between problems, people, and outcomes

In other words, AI prioritizes recognition over ranking. It’s not asking: “What is anxiety?” “Who uses CBT?”

It’s asking:

“Who keeps showing up as an authority for professional women with Anxiety?”

If AI were a therapist (stay with me), it wouldn’t be impressed by charisma. It would be impressed by patterns.

Where to invest your time to stand out on AI

This is the core of how AI decides who to surface, and who to ignore.

Your Website (Still #1)

AI tools scrape and summarize the web. Your website is often the first place they look for clarity.

Your site should clearly answer four questions:

  • Who do you help?

  • What problem are they experiencing before they work with you?

  • What outcome do you help them create?

  • How is your work different?

Here’s the rule I use with clients:

If a human can’t understand your offer in 10 seconds, AI definitely can’t.

The pages that matter most:

  • Your homepage

  • Your about page

  • One or two deep service pages (NOT a menu of everything you do)

Depth beats breadth every time. So as you’ve heard me say, oh 1000 times, your NICHE matters when it comes to AI more than random mental health related words. To stand out, you need to be clear.

Long-Form Thought Leadership (Blogs, Podcasts, YouTube)

AI prefers explainers over promotions. This is actually GREAT NEWS. The content that performs best isn’t flashy, it’s clarifying. This means that you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on fancy ads or promotional tools to stand out in the AI space.

Examples of AI-friendly topics:

  • Why successful women are more anxious than ever

  • What the happiest moms understand about setting boundaries with their family.

  • The real risk of choosing not to medicate your child with ADHD.

Notice the pattern:

  • problem-framed

  • educational

  • opinionated

This is where your perspective becomes machine-readable. This point will be hard, because your set point might be neutral. You’re not just sharing information, you’re teaching AI how to understand your thinking. This way, when your clients are searching for you, with THEIR very specific details, AI will be able to tell them WHY they should choose you.

Repetition Across Platforms (Not Virality)

AI doesn’t chase trends. It tracks consistency. When your name and work repeatedly appear alongside ideas like:

  • Anxious overachievers

  • Burnt Out teachers

  • Stressed out Preacher’s wives

AI starts to treat you as a default reference, not a random option. This is why being crystal clear about your dream client matters. Your angles, specifically on the most easily scrolled pages, are what AI will use to suggest you to clients.

This means your:

  • Podcast descriptions

  • Guest bios

  • Social captions

  • Workshop pages

  • PDF downloads

  • YouTube titles

  • Blog posts

should reinforce the same language, not clever variations of it. Even if you have a clever catch phrase that you use, make sure that you include the ones that your client might be searching for.

Consistency signals credibility.

Clear Category Placement

This is where most experts lose AI entirely. This is going to rub some people the wrong way, but don’t shoot the messenger.

AI struggles with people who try to be:

  • therapist + coach

  • consultant + speaker

  • mentor + guide

Humans can handle nuance. AI hates it. This means that you should consider choosing one primary category. Even if you are a therapist and speaker, AI is not likely to give your name to someone searching for both of those. So choose the one that is the driving force and sprinkle that stuff EVERYWHERE. Here’s an example:

“Calvalyn Day helps high-earning therapists build sustainable, profitable private practices that support their lives, not consume them.”

Once AI understands your category, everything else reinforces it.

Do This First

  • Rewrite your homepage for problem clarity, not inspiration. NO fluffy therapy speak.

  • Publish 5–10 deep pieces answering questions clients ask before they reach out to you. If you don’t know these, guess what, AI can help, but you should also ask clients when they make it to your office.

  • Align bios and descriptions everywhere (LinkedIn, podcast, Instagram, website) These should be as close to identical as possible.

What I wouldn’t spend a dime or a minute on…for now.

  • AI plugins

  • “GEO hacks”

  • rewriting everything weekly(I’ve heard of people doing this with Psychology Today profiles)

AI rewards durability, not novelty.

Do you need help clarifying your niche or outlining the language that will speak to your audience? This is the perfect use of a Strategy Session. We’ll review your current digital footprint and outline a plan to get you found. Strategy session dates open up monthly, get yours today.

Calvalyn Day
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