Why Can't Clients Find You on Google?

"Nobody finds me on Google" turns out to be about five different problems wearing the same coat, and they need different fixes. Working out which one you have takes about ten minutes, and it saves you from spending three months on the wrong thing.

My name is Conor McMillen. I was trained by the IFS Institute in 2014, and I do all the search work on my own site. September was its best month in eleven, at 632 visits from search, and most of what got it there was unglamorous.

Start by checking whether Google has your site at all

Type site:yourdomain.com into Google, with no space after the colon.

If nothing comes back, or only your home page comes back, that is your whole problem and nothing further down this page matters yet. A new site can take weeks to get picked up, and a site with a stray setting can stay invisible indefinitely. Open Google Search Console, add your site, submit your sitemap, and watch the Pages report. It is free and it is the only place that tells you what Google actually thinks of your site.

If your pages are all listed, your site is findable. Something else is going on, and it is usually the next thing.

You are probably ranking for your name, and nobody is searching your name

This is the most common version by a wide margin. You search your own name, you come up first, and it feels like the site is working.

Nobody looking for help types your name. They do not know you exist. That is the problem you are trying to solve.

There is a harder version of this. Sometimes the name is already taken by someone more prominent, and no amount of work will win it. I worked with a practitioner whose name is shared with a politician in another country who holds the entire first page. Her site was never going to rank on her name, which meant it had to rank on what she does instead. That is the right move regardless of whether anyone famous shares your name.

What people actually type

Three shapes, and you want pages for at least two of them.

The problem, in their words. "Why do I keep sabotaging my relationships." "How do I stop yelling at my kids." They are not searching "internal family systems." They are searching the thing that hurts.

The method plus a place. "IFS therapy Austin." "Parts work coach UK." These have less volume and far more intent, because somebody typing a city is looking to book.

The method plus a question. "What is a protector part." "Is IFS good for anxiety." Lower intent, useful for being discovered early.

Write down ten phrases your clients have used to describe what brought them in. That list is better keyword research than any tool will give you, because it is in the actual language of the actual people.

One page per thing you want to be found for

This is the mechanic most people miss. A page can rank for one cluster of related phrases, not for eight unrelated ones.

If your home page tries to cover anxiety, couples, trauma, grief, and burnout, it competes with itself and ranks for none of them. Five pages, one subject each, will out-perform one page covering five subjects every time. The pages your site actually needs are the foundation, and what you add after that should each have one job.

This is also why the niche decision comes before the SEO work rather than after it. What you decided there determines what you can realistically rank for.

Local is easier than you think, and most practitioners skip it

Competing nationally for "IFS coaching" is hard. Competing for IFS in your city is often not, because almost nobody has bothered.

Put your city in a page title and in your text. Set up a Google Business Profile, and before you create one, search your address in Maps to check whether a listing already exists that you can claim, which is common and saves a verification headache. Get a few reviews.

If you work online, say so plainly, and name the regions you can work in. Practitioners leave both the city and the online availability off their sites constantly, and it costs them the highest-intent searches there are.

Get a few links pointing at you

Search engines read links as a vote. You need some, and you do not need many.

Listings in any directory you qualify for, and which directories are open to you depends on your credentials in ways that are not obvious. Any professional organization you belong to. Podcast appearances. A guest post somewhere relevant. If you are certified through my Academy, your card in the Self-Led Certification Registry links to your site, which is one.

Ignore anybody selling packages of links. That is the one part of this where the shortcut genuinely backfires.

The part that finds all of this distasteful

I want to take this objection seriously, because it is the real reason a lot of practitioners never do any of it, and because the objection is partly right.

A lot of online marketing is manipulative. Fake urgency, invented scarcity, pain-point copy engineered to make somebody feel worse so they buy faster. If some part of you does not want to do that, I agree with that part. I would not do it either.

Being findable is a different activity. Someone is awake at eleven at night typing "why do I shut down when my wife cries" into a phone. Either something useful comes back or it does not. Writing the page that answers them honestly is service, and the search work is just making sure the page reaches them.

If that part is loud, you already know what to do with it. Turn toward it with the same calm, curious, compassionate attention you would bring to a client's protector, and ask what it is afraid you will become. Usually it is guarding something worth guarding, and it settles once it understands which activity is actually on the table.

What I would do first if I had three hours

In this order, and stop when the time runs out.

One hour: write the ten phrases your clients have used, and pick the three you most want to be found for.

Thirty minutes: set up Search Console and submit your sitemap.

Thirty minutes: rewrite your page titles so each one names a real subject and includes your city where it fits.

Thirty minutes: claim or create your Google Business Profile.

Thirty minutes: get listed in one directory you already qualify for.

That is more than most practitioners in this field have done, and none of it requires a tool you have to pay for.

How long before any of this works?

Three to six months before you see movement, and that is with pages that already exist. Six to twelve before search sends you clients with any regularity.

I have been doing this on my own site for years and the gains still arrive in small increments. The reason to start now is that the clock only runs on pages that are published.

If you would rather not learn all of this, search work for practitioners is part of what I do. Either way, the first three hours above are worth doing before anyone touches anything.

Common questions

Do I need to pay for ads?
No, and I would not start there. Ads stop the moment you stop paying. Pages keep working. If you want faster results and have budget, ads can run alongside, though they are a separate skill.

Should I use AI to write my pages?
Be careful. The risk is not that search engines detect it. The risk is that it produces pages that read like everyone else's, and sameness is what gets ignored. Your actual sessions and your actual language are the thing nobody else has.

What about social media instead?
Different job. Social reaches people who already follow you. Search reaches people who have never heard of you at the moment they need help. Most practitioners need the second one more and spend their time on the first.

How many pages do I need?
Fewer than you think. Four or five that each answer something real will outperform forty that restate the model.

Will this work if I am brand new?
Yes, slowly, which is a good argument for starting while you are still building everything else. In the meantime, your first clients come from people who already know you.

All the best,
Conor McMillen