How To Get Clients From AI: GEO + AIO For Therapists | Place Digital

Someone in your city just typed "who's a good trauma therapist near me?" into ChatGPT.

A name came back, and it may not have been yours.

This isn't a hypothetical scenario. It's happening right now, every day, in every city where your ideal clients live. The vast majority of therapy practices are aware that it's happening, but few know how to start marketing themselves in this new frontier.

AIO (AI optimization), GEO (generative engine optimization), or whatever you want to call it—it's a reality that therapy practices must address or risk falling behind.

The good news: AI recommendation isn't random. There's a clear, learnable logic behind which practices get surfaced and which don't. And if you understand that logic now, you have a significant advantage over the practices that are still playing catch-up (or are repressing it altogether).

AI Is Already Changing How Clients Find Therapists

Before we get into what drives AI recommendations, it's worth understanding what's actually shifting in search behavior—and what isn't.

Search engines aren't going anywhere. According to research from SparkToro, 95% of Americans still use search engines every month, and 86% are heavy users. Google remains the dominant way people find local services, including therapists.

But AI tools are becoming a meaningful part of the discovery process—and they're growing fast. People are increasingly using ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, and tools like Perplexity to ask questions they used to type into a search bar. And when those questions are "who should I see for anxiety in Denver?" or "what's a good group practice near me?"—a recommendation comes back.

Here's what's critical to understand: these AI tools aren't generating those recommendations from thin air. They're using the same trust signals that Google has always used—just applying them in a different way.

What AI Tools Actually Look for When Recommending Therapists

When ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode recommends a therapist, it's not guessing. But it's also not ranking your website the way Google does. It's doing something subtly different: scanning the internet for language and patterns that build a case of who you are, what you specialize in, and whether other sources trust you. If there isn't enough out there, the AI has nothing to go on and no reason to recommend you.

This case is built from three types of signals.

1. Reviews That Signal Real Trust

Google reviews have always mattered for local rankings. But they've taken on a second, increasingly important role: feeding AI recommendation systems.

AI tools crawl the web for signals that a practice is legitimate and well-regarded. A practice with 80 five-star Google reviews is telling AI systems something very clear: real people have trusted this practice and had good experiences. A practice with 6 reviews—or no recent ones—is telling a very different story.

This isn't just about volume. Recency matters too. A steady stream of new reviews signals that a practice is active, not stagnant. And the content of those reviews—clients mentioning specific specialties, naming therapists, describing what made the experience valuable—adds rich context that AI tools pick up on.

2. Media Features and Backlinks from Authoritative Sources

This is the signal most practices are completely missing—and the one that creates the biggest gap between practices that get recommended and those that don't.

Here's a key principle worth understanding: AI systems are specifically trained to weigh what other people say about you more heavily than what you say about yourself. Your own website content matters, but external validation—being quoted, cited, and linked to by sources you don't control—carries fundamentally more credibility in the eyes of both AI tools and search engines. This is why PR isn't just a nice-to-have; it's the most direct way to build the kind of authority that actually moves the needle.

And context matters as much as volume. A feature in a topical article related to the searcher’s query carries far more weight than a listing in a generic healthcare directory. The more the context of the mention aligns with your specialty and your audience, the more meaningful the signal.

When Forbes, Business Insider, Time Magazine, Well & Good, or a major health publication quotes you as an expert and links to your website, something significant happens across all three audiences you need to impress:

• Google sees the backlink as an endorsement from a trusted source and ranks you higher

• Potential clients see you as a credible expert—not just another therapist in a directory

• AI tools recognize you as an authoritative source and could include you in their recommendations

This triple benefit is what makes PR such a powerful and future-proof investment for therapy practices. It's not about vanity or brand awareness—it's about building the kind of verifiable, external proof that both human beings and AI algorithms interpret as trustworthiness.

At Place Digital, our award-winning PR team—recognized on Qwoted's Top 100 PR Professionals list for multiple consecutive quarters—secures these placements as a core part of our SEO strategy, not a nice-to-have add-on. For our Dallas client, that meant a feature in Scary Mommy. For our Calgary client, shoutouts in SheKnows and AskMen. For our Denver client, features in Better Homes and Gardens, Well & Good, and Parade. For our NYC client, placements in Time Magazine.

Those aren't just impressive logos to display on a website (although that's really fun, too). They're the backlinks that moved rankings, and the authority signals that position practices for AI recommendations.

3. Citations, Directories, and a Consistent Digital Footprint

AI tools also look for consistency. Is your practice listed in Psychology Today? Healthgrades? Is your name, address, and phone number consistent across directories? Do you have a verified Google Business profile with regular activity?

This web of consistent, verifiable information tells AI systems that your practice is real, established, and present in the community you serve. It's the digital equivalent of a business that's been on the same corner for twenty years versus one that just hung their “open” sign last week.

Good SEO = Good GEO

The good news is that good SEO = good GEO. In my opinion, these aren't separate disciplines, but generative engines have slightly different priorities from search engines.

We can get into the weeds all day (I'll recommend a few tactics here), but know this: most tools like ChatGPT are simply reshuffling the first page of Google. Don't invest separately in GEO.

The only difference between the two is that generative engines place more emphasis on external authority signals and deemphasize content.

Meaning? If content creation comprises 80% of your SEO strategy, you are not appealing enough to AI.

One honest caveat worth naming: even with all of this in place, there's no guarantee a specific AI tool recommends you every single time someone asks, or that you will “rank” consistently. How a question is phrased, what else was discussed earlier in the conversation, the person's specific location—all of it affects the output. 

Plus, AI tools are far from perfect. They can “hallucinate,” recommending practices based on incomplete or inaccurate pattern-matching. They can also provide a totally different answer to the exact same query from one minute to the next.

 What we can say confidently is that every strong signal you build increases the likelihood of showing up—and the practices investing in this now will have a meaningful head start on those who wait.

Why Most Practices Will Be Invisible to AI—And Won't Know It

Here's the uncomfortable reality: if your practice has been relying on content and basic SEO alone, you're building visibility on only one of the signals that matters. You might rank reasonably well today for certain keywords. But as AI becomes a larger part of how people discover therapists, the practices without external authority signals—reviews, backlinks, media features—will gradually fade from view.

Most SEO agencies working with therapists don't offer PR or link building—because it's resource-intensive and hard work. It requires media relationships, pitch expertise, and consistent outreach. It's much easier to sell content packages and point to traffic numbers. But traffic from informational blog posts doesn't build the authority signals that AI tools look for, and it doesn't build the kind of reputation that converts a curious visitor into a booked client.

What to Do Right Now

You don't need to overhaul everything at once. But there are concrete steps you can take today to start building the signals that matter for both Google and AI recommendations.

Audit your Google reviews. How many do you have? When was the last one? If it's been more than a month, you need a system for generating reviews consistently. Even practices with strong clinical reputations often have thin review profiles online—and that gap is hurting them in ways they don't see but feel in their bank accounts.

Check your directory consistency. Search your practice name and make sure your information is accurate and consistent across Psychology Today, Google Business, Healthgrades, and anywhere else you appear. Inconsistencies create doubt for both algorithms and potential clients.

Ask your SEO agency about link building. If they can't tell you specifically how they're earning backlinks from authoritative sites on your behalf, you have your answer. Content without links is only half the strategy.

Start thinking about PR. Therapists are credible expert sources that journalists actively want to quote. Anxiety, relationships, parenting, stress, burnout—these topics are constantly in the news. The right PR strategy gets your name and your website linked in those stories.

Building for Where Search Is Going, Not Where It's Been

The practices that will dominate their markets over the next five years aren't necessarily the ones doing the “most” marketing right now. They're the ones building real authority—the kind that Google trusts, that AI recommends, and that prospective clients choose.

That means reviews. Media features. Backlinks from publications that your clients respect. A digital footprint that says, unambiguously: this practice is the real deal.

If you're not sure whether your current strategy is building that kind of authority—or if you already know it isn't—reach out to our team. We'll learn about your practice and determine together whether a discovery call makes sense. We're selective about who we work with, but if you're a fit, we'll show you exactly where your gaps are and illustrate what a complete strategy would look like for your practice.