Agile Counseling came to us with a problem we see all too often: a therapist with 22 years of clinical experience, serving clients across the Salt Lake Valley, but a website that was actively hurting her business.

Within 24 hours, we rebuilt the entire site and had Google indexing 21 pages. Here's how we did it—and why this matters for any local service business.

Before After

Agile Counseling

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Welcome to Agile Counseling

Therapy services in Sandy, Utah. We provide counseling for individuals and families...

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The Before: A Site Working Against Itself

Candice Gonzalez, LCSW, had been practicing therapy in Sandy, Utah for over two decades. She specializes in anxiety, depression, EMDR therapy, child counseling, and LGBTQIA+ affirming care. Her reputation was built on word-of-mouth referrals.

But when potential clients searched for "therapist in Sandy Utah" or "EMDR therapy Draper"? They found her competitors instead.

The Strategy: Local SEO for Therapists

The mental health industry has exploded online. "Therapist near me" searches have increased over 900% in recent years. But most therapists—even excellent ones—have websites built by friends, family, or outdated agencies that don't understand modern SEO.

Our approach for Agile Counseling:

• Service-specific pages — Dedicated pages for anxiety therapy, depression treatment, EMDR, child therapy, family counseling, and LGBTQIA+ affirming care
• Location pages — Targeted content for Sandy, Draper, South Jordan, West Jordan, Murray, Herriman, and Salt Lake City
• EMDR-focused content — Two dedicated location pages ("EMDR Therapy Sandy" and "EMDR Therapy Draper") plus a comprehensive service page and blog post
• Technical foundation — 11ty static site generator with shared templates, proper meta tags, and lightning-fast load times

The Results: 24-Hour Turnaround

Traffic Projection: 200-400 Monthly Organic Visitors

Let's talk numbers. Based on SEMrush data and industry benchmarks for local therapy keywords in the Salt Lake Valley:

• "therapist sandy utah" — 200-400 monthly searches
• "emdr therapy utah" — 300-600 monthly searches
• "anxiety therapist salt lake" — 200-400 monthly searches
• "child therapist sandy" — 50-150 monthly searches
• "counselor draper utah" — 100-200 monthly searches
• "emdr sandy" / "emdr draper" — 50-100 monthly searches each

Total addressable market: 1,000-2,000+ monthly searches

With 21 pages targeting these exact terms, proper technical SEO, and content that matches search intent, we project Agile Counseling will capture 200-400 monthly organic visitors within 90 days.

For a therapist whose practice is built on 1-on-1 client relationships, that's potentially 10-20 new client inquiries per month from organic search alone.

Why EMDR Was the Key

Here's the insight that changed everything: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy is one of the fastest-growing mental health treatments. It's evidence-based, highly effective for trauma and PTSD, and increasingly sought after.

But when we audited Agile Counseling's original site? Zero mentions of EMDR.

Candice is trained in EMDR. She offers it to clients. But her website never mentioned it—which means she was invisible for every "EMDR therapy near me" search in the Salt Lake Valley.

We created:

• A comprehensive EMDR service page (1,500+ words)
• Location-specific pages: "EMDR Therapy in Sandy, UT" and "EMDR Therapy in Draper, UT"
• A blog post explaining what EMDR is and how it works

These pages are now competing for keywords that her competitors have been ranking for unchallenged.

The Technical Difference

Most therapist websites are built on WordPress with bloated themes, or worse—Wix and Squarespace with limited SEO control. Agile Counseling's new site is built on 11ty, a modern static site generator that produces:

• Sub-second load times — No database queries, no server-side processing
• Perfect Lighthouse scores — Google rewards fast, accessible sites
• DRY templating — One change to the header updates all 21 pages instantly
• Zero maintenance — No WordPress updates, no security patches, no plugin conflicts

The site is hosted on Vercel with automatic deployments. When we make changes, they're live in seconds—not hours.

The Takeaway for Local Service Businesses

Agile Counseling isn't unique. We see the same pattern across industries:

• Skilled professionals with years of experience
• Websites built 5-10 years ago (or by someone's nephew)
• Zero SEO strategy beyond "we have a website"
• Competitors eating their lunch in local search

The fix isn't complicated. It's not expensive. It just requires someone who understands modern SEO and can execute quickly.

21 pages indexed in 24 hours. That's the GullStack difference.