How to Use Google Suggest to Find SEO Keywords for Therapists

In this post, you will get to know how to use Google Suggest feature to find SEO keywords for therapists which you can use to optimize an existing page or create new pages on your therapy website.

What is Google Suggest?

Google Auto Suggest or popularly called as Google AutoComplete is a search feature provided by Google in their search bar. It is officially integrated in the search bar in 2008 and later renamed to Google AutoComplete in 2010.

What it does is it automatically completes a query and suggests keywords when you type in a seed keyword in the search bar.

As you start typing your search query, Google search engine automatically predicts what you are searching for and displays a list of relevant keywords in the form of dropdown.

Why to use Google AutoComplete for keyword research?

This is not just a simple feature but a very powerful and helpful for finding various type of keywords. Using the Google Auto Suggest feature you can find both short-tail and long-tail phrases for your therapy related terms.

The best thing about this feature is that it shows those terms that people are actually searching and have some search volume.

Unlike other keyword research methods where you have to first brainstorm the seed keyword and then start research, Google Suggest automatically suggests you several kind of keywords which real users are typing in Google search bar every day.

Google AutoComplete is very helpful in finding low-competition keywords for the website.

Another big advantage of Google AutoComplete is that it is completely free and provides authentic data which no other keyword research tool can provide. To use this feature you just have to go to Google.com and type in your search query. And voila, you have many keywords with you just by typing.

For therapy-related content and website specifically, this feature is very valuable because it reveals the exact language and terms potential clients use when searching for help online. People might not use clinical terminology, and AutoComplete shows you the natural, conversational phrases they actually type when looking for therapeutic services or information.

By using Google AutoComplete feature you can find local/location based keywords, service based keywords for your counseling website, and informational/blog post queries.

How to use Google AutoComplete as a keyword research tool?

There are several ways to use Google Auto Suggest as a keyword research tool. I am listing them all in the below paragraphs.

Before doing the keyword research, I want to mention that to do keyword research using Google Auto Suggest use the incognito mode of the browser you are using to perform keyword research.

This is important because Google personalizes search suggestions based on your browsing history, previous searches, and location. When you’re logged into your Google account or using a regular browser window, the suggestions you see are tailored specifically to you. This means they might not reflect what the average person searching for those terms would see.

Using incognito mode removes this personalization. It gives you a cleaner, more neutral view of what Google suggests to users in general.

When you use incognito mode, Google treats you as a new user with no search history. The suggestions you get are based purely on popular searches and general trends rather than your individual profile. This makes your keyword research more reliable and representative of actual search patterns.

Now let’s come back to the topic and see how to perform keyword research for therapists using Google AutoComplete.

1. Space bar method

The first way to use Google AutoComplete to find therapy related keywords is to use the keyboard’s space bar after typing the main keyword in the search bar.

When the space bar will be pressed, Google will provide you several variations of the keyword. The suggested queries can be local, informational, commercial based on the seed keyword you enter in the Google search bar.

In the below image you can see that when I typed “anxiety therapy New York” in the search bar and pressed Space, Google automatically provided me multiple variations of the keyword “anxiety therapy New York” like anxiety therapist new york, anxiety treatment new york city, anxiety therapy nyc.

By just pressing a single Space I was able to find multiple variations of the keyword “anxiety therapy New York”. That’s a good start.

This is a good way of starting Google AutoComplete to use as a keyword research tool. Start by typing in your main service keyword. The suggestions provided by Google Suggest will help to further expand the research.

This space bar method is most suitable for researching local keywords and service based keywords.

2. Putting alphabets after the keyword

Second method to do therapy keyword research using Google AutoComplete feature is putting an alphabet after the base keyword. When an alphabet is placed after the keyword, Google Auto Suggest provide keywords with variations containing terms starting with that alphabet.

This method is especially useful to find long-tail keywords for blog posts. For example when I typed in anxiety therapy activities and added “a” after the term, Google auto suggested me keywords like anxiety therapy activities for adults, anxiety art therapy activities, group therapy activities for anxiety and depression.

You can follow the same method and change the alphabet after the main keyword and Google AutoComplete will suggest with more keywords where that alphabet is used.

This is a very different way to do keyword research for a therapy blog. Not only you get long-tail counseling keywords but very helpful short-tail keywords which you can use to find more long-tail keywords.

3. Using Underscore (_) before the keyword

Third way to use Google Auto Suggest is by placing a Underscore (_) before the keyword. When you place an underscore before your main keyword then that underscore works as a wildcard which tells Google to show all such keywords where words appear before the main keyword.

For example, when I typed in “_ anxiety therapy”, Google AutoComplete feature provided me suggestions like social anxiety therapy, online anxiety therapy, cbt anxiety therapy, and many others.

This underscore method particularly helps understand the intent behind searches. Terms like “best” indicate comparison terms, “online” shows interest in virtual services, and specific therapy types reveal that the searcher may already have some knowledge about treatment options.

Using this method you can find more untapped keywords for individual terms.

4. Using Underscore and an alphabet before keyword

This is the advanced version of the underscore method. In this method, an alphabet is also placed along with the underscore before the keyword.

This feature is a gold mine to find service related terms. For example when I typed in “_ aanxiety therapy” in the search bar, Google Suggest automatically suggested me many type of service keywords which starts with alphabet “a” such as autism anxiety therapy, art anxiety therapy, adhd and anxiety therapy.

These are the terms on which you can create dedicated service pages offering the therapy for the said problem or integrate on existing service pages to improve their SEO.

If I am going to start a therapy website today and need some inspiration for services related to my practice, I would use this method.

Now you can replicate the method with other alphabets and find many other terms using this simple but very powerful method.

5. Underscore after the keyword

This is slightly same to the previous methods just the position of the underscore is changed from before the keyword to after the keyword.

This approach is particularly useful for understanding what additional information or services people are looking for after identifying their main concern. It can reveal service delivery preferences (online vs. in-person), location-based searches, or specific tools and resources that potential clients want.

Just like in other Google Auto Suggest keyword research processes, you can even expand this method by adding underscore and an alphabet after the main keyword. This will help you find more service based and informational keywords.

6. Modifier before/after keywords

Sixth way to find keywords using Google Auto Suggest is adding keyword modifiers like for, with, from, in, what, where, etc. after or before the keyword.

This is one of the best way to use Google Auto Suggest to find many type of search queries. Using modifier before or after you can find keywords with varied intent like local intent keywords, informational keywords, commercial keywords, etc.

For example when you will use “for” modifier after a local therapy service keyword you will find multiple variations of the service.

For example, when you type in trauma therapy and add “for” modifier to it, you will get to find trauma therapy keywords like trauma therapy for PTSD, trauma therapy for adults, etc. These all are different services targeting different type of people and condition.

To make it more hyper focused you can add alphabets after “for” also to get more targeted keywords.

Similarly, when you add modifiers like when, where, why, what, etc. before the keyword you get mostly informational intent keywords which you can use to answer specific questions on a service page or as standalone blog posts.

So a powerful method which can be used in many ways to find various intent based queries.

Final thoughts

Google Auto Suggest is not just a search feature of Google but a great keyword research tool to find keywords with various intent.

With the help of Google AutoComplete you can find informational keywords, keywords for your therapy service pages, specific queries for blog posts. These additional keywords will help in improving On-page SEO of the website.

Because these suggestions are provided by Google itself it means that these keywords are popular, have search volume, and searched by users to reach at the information.

As a therapist doing keyword research for your therapy website, you should definitely add Google Auto Suggest in your therapy website keyword research process.

But while doing keyword research using Google AutoComplete always make sure to do the keyword research in the incognito mode of the browser to keep the suggestions natural.