Four listings, one renewal invoice after another
You pay for a profile on Psychology Today, another on Counselling Directory, a professional body listing and a local one. Each renewal arrives and you pay it, because you think they help, and you are not sure which you could drop.
When someone gets in touch, you sometimes ask where they found you. Sometimes they remember. Often they say Google, which could mean any of the directories, your own website or a search result.
Why you cannot tell what works
Directories report views and contacts, but not who became a client. Your own records show clients, but not how they found you. The two never meet.
- Directory enquiries arrive as forwarded emails, phone calls or visits to your website.
- Phone numbers on listings are often the same, so calls cannot be told apart.
- Source is asked for in conversation and rarely written down.
- The link between an enquiry and a client who starts weeks later is lost.
What guessing costs
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Paying for listings that do nothing | Money spent every year out of habit |
| Dropping one that works | Fewer good-fit enquiries without knowing why |
| Profile wording never tested | No feedback on what attracts the right clients |
| Website traffic unexplained | No idea which listings send people to your site |
| Group practice spend | Listings for each associate with no view of return |
Directories are a reasonable use of money for many therapists. The point is to know which ones, rather than paying for all of them because you cannot tell.
How we track enquiries to clients
- Each listing gets a traceable route: a dedicated email alias, a tracked link to your website, and where it makes sense, a separate forwarding number through a provider such as Twilio.
- Every enquiry lands in one list with its source recorded automatically. Anything that arrives without a source gets a one-tap choice.
- When the enquirer books a first session, their enquiry is linked to the booking, so the source follows them.
- A simple report per listing: enquiries, first sessions, and clients who continued, next to the annual cost you enter.
- In a group practice, the same view by associate and listing, so you can see where each profile works.
We only count the fact of an enquiry and a booking. Nothing about why someone sought therapy goes into the tracking.
What you know at renewal time
When a renewal invoice arrives, you look at the last year: how many enquiries that listing sent, how many became clients, and what it cost. You can renew, drop or rewrite your profile with evidence rather than a hunch.
You may find a listing you thought was useless quietly brings the clients who stay longest. Either way, you know.
The same record helps with your own website. If most people read your directory profile and then visit your site before getting in touch, you can see which pages they land on and whether your enquiry form is where they give up. Small changes there are cheaper than another listing.
For a group practice, the picture is often surprising. One associate's profile may attract far more enquiries than another's on the same directory, which is a useful prompt for a conversation about how profiles are written.
Is this you?
- You pay for more than one therapy directory listing.
- You do not know which listing brought your current clients.
- Enquiries arrive by several channels without a recorded source.
- You have renewed a listing mostly out of habit.
- You run a group practice with listings for each associate.