Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Therapists | Ep 5: How to Market as an Introverted Therapist

Released: 12/19/2025

Show Notes:

In this episode, Amanda Buduris discusses effective marketing strategies for introverted and neurodivergent therapists. She debunks common myths about marketing, emphasizing that traditional networking is not the only way to build a successful practice. Instead, she advocates for the use of SEO (search engine optimization) as a powerful and sustainable marketing tool that aligns with the strengths of introverted and autistic therapists. Amanda shares her personal journey and practical tips for getting started with SEO, highlighting its effectiveness in attracting clients without the need for social exhaustion.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. You don’t have to network, perform, or become an influencer to fill a private pay caseload—there are sustainable marketing strategies that work for introverted and neurodivergent therapists.
2. If marketing feels exhausting or inauthentic, it’s not because you’re bad at business—it’s because you’re using strategies that weren’t built for your brain or nervous system.
3. SEO is a quiet, ethical, and energy-efficient marketing tool that allows ideal clients to find you consistently—without social burnout or constant online visibility.

Connect with Amanda:

• Follow on Instagram: @amandakbcoaching
• Check out the Amanda KB Coaching website

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Sponsors:

• This episode is sponsored by Jane – use code: AMANDA2MO for a 2-month grace period

Resources & Links:

SEO for Therapists Membership

Therapy Intensives Academy

Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Mastermind

Free Training: 3 Steps to Booking Your First Therapy Intensive

Free Guide: 3 Steps to Double Your Income

SEO Freebie

Just a quick heads up, everything I share in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, financial advice, or tax advice. Every practice and every state has its own rules. So if you’re wondering how something applies to your situation, make sure to check in with an attorney, accountant, or another qualified professional who can give you guidance based on your specific circumstances.

Transcript:

Amanda Buduris (00:05)
Hey everyone, welcome back to happy, healthy and wealthy therapists. Today’s episode is one of the most requested topics I’ve ever had. And honestly, it’s one I wish someone had recorded for me years ago. We’re talking about how to market as an introverted therapist or a therapist who’s autistic, highly sensitive, socially anxious, or simply not someone who thrives on being on.

in the ways that traditional marketing advice tells us we should. So if you’ve ever felt like you’re failing at private practice because you don’t want to schmooze at networking events or cold DM people or go live on Instagram every day or speak in front of 200 strangers, you are exactly who this episode is for. And we’re going to talk about the myths therapists are told about marketing, why those myths are especially harmful for introverted and neurodivergent clinicians.

my own journey as an introverted therapist who despised traditional marketing and what actually worked for me. So we’re going to talk a little bit about something called SEO today, search engine optimization. And if I just said that and you got scared or overwhelmed, I’m also going to talk about why SEO is way easier than people think and how you can get started in a simple and sustainable way. So let’s get into it. First of all, I want to start with something that genuinely fires me up.

There is this unspoken rule in the therapy world, especially for private pay therapists and especially premium fee private pay therapist, that the only way to fill your caseload is through networking events, building referral relationships, joining some kind of professional group where you can meet doctors and psychiatrists, doing any kind of in-person speaking community events or something like that.

Ultimately, this idea that we have to be extroverted and charismatic and approachable at all times. It’s basically the rule book that is written by your bubbly school classmate who never met a stranger she didn’t immediately befriend. And listen, I can love those people, right? I can respect that energy, but it is not the only way to build a successful, thriving, premium fee, private pay practice.

Here are some of the myths that I hear all the time. Number one, networking is the only reliable way to build a caseload. Absolutely not. Networking is one strategy. It is not the golden key. It is not something that I relied on in my practice. It’s not something that’s helped me in my practice. Throughout my time in private practice, I started in 2022, I had two

people who worked at the agency that I worked at who knew I went into private practice. And so they would refer clients to me. And honestly, that has resulted in one kind of long-term client. It’s someone I saw weekly for about a year. And at this point, we’re doing like once a month sessions and it’s otherwise resulted in one couples therapy intensive that I booked, but those were fine. They were already friends. So it didn’t feel like

extra work to network, so that felt good energy-wise, but it’s not like they’re consistently referring to me. even when I was trying to, know, early 2022, we were still kind of coming out of COVID. So I tried doing some coffee, Zoom dates with people, but that didn’t result in anything. And honestly, I think a lot of that was because like a lot of us who are networking are looking to get clients and

For me personally, it’s really hard when you’re both trying to get clients, like you don’t have anyone to send to the other person. So granted, like networking is a strategy that may be longer term when you focus on building those relationships with time. But networking for me did not come from a place of like, need to get clients ASAP and this is gonna be the thing that helps me do it. Especially because energy wise, I don’t have that energy to do a bunch of networking with people.

generally and especially knowing that it may not ultimately work out. So myth number two, you have to be an extrovert to market effectively. This is also no. Some of the most successful therapists I know barely speak to another human outside of their therapy sessions and maybe not even like their door dash drivers and deliverers, you Like you do not have to be extroverted to market, right? You don’t have to really talk

talk to people about your practice. And I’m not saying, you know, don’t talk to people about your practice, especially if you like doing that. But there are other effective marketing strategies that allow you to really step into who you are authentically and how you want to market. And I’m to talk about that. But I see that as being such a barrier for so many therapists. And it was a barrier for me, too, when I was thinking about starting my practice. I was like,

Again, I’m not going to network with all these people. I have a lot of social anxiety. So even if I were to, like, I’m not coming off as this bubbly, gregarious person. Like, it could be hard for me to start conversations with people I don’t know or to carry conversations with people I don’t know. So I’m not extroverted. I’m very much introverted. And yet I’m still effectively marketing my practice. Myth number three, you have to show your face online constantly.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You do not have to lip sync or dance or point at bubbles that you are putting on the reel. You don’t have to reveal your entire personality online to attract a lot aligned clients. And I want to start by saying this because this question has been asked of me before of for my coaching business, I am very much online and it takes a lot of energy for me to do that.

And honestly, really only, I think the biggest reason that I can do that is because my energy is more protected in my therapy business. Because in my therapy business, I’m not relying on those kinds of strategies and tactics. I’ve done it a little bit. I have a therapy Instagram account, but it hasn’t really ever resulted in anything. I booked one client in the like three and a half years of having…

therapy Instagram account. booked one person who directly said you popped up on my Instagram and I saw them for maybe like eight or ten sessions. So like yes, there’s a return on investment there, but I do not have the time. I do not have the energy to consistently show up in that way. And I think there’s just so much comparison for the therapists who are able to show up relatively consistently on Instagram or TikTok.

that people are like, well, I can never explain that concept as funny as that person did or as relatable as that as relatedly as that person did. So we just get so in our head that even if you have literal prompts and scripts to do it effectively, we then just don’t do it effectively. So it’s helpful to remember that is a myth that is one way to market, but it is not the only way. And especially if it’s not in a lined way.

Relatedly, myth number four, if you’re introverted or autistic, you’ll have a harder time filling a caseload. And this one hurts because I identify. And again, it’s just simply not true. Being introverted or autistic doesn’t make you a worse marketer. It just means the marketing strategies built for extroverts aren’t your strategies. That is literally all that means. And honestly, the field has done a terrible job of teaching non-extroverted therapists.

how to market in a way that respects their energy, doesn’t require masking, doesn’t force social exhaustion, and still fills a private pay caseload. So when all we hear is networking is what fills my practice, you have to network, you have to meet three to five people a week, you have to send out your business cards, post flyers, do free events, that immediately turns me off and I know I’m not.

So let’s talk about why all of these myths are such a problem. Traditional networking relies on in-person interaction, quick rapport building, spontaneous conversation, reading social cues in real time, following up repeatedly, performing a certain type of personality. If you’re introverted, autistic, socially anxious, highly sensitive, or simply someone who has limited social bandwidth,

This is a recipe for burnout and ineffective marketing. Because here’s the truth. When a marketing strategy requires you to be someone you’re not, your nervous system fights it every step of the way. And when your nervous system is overwhelmed, you don’t show up consistently, dread the tasks, procrastinate, mask, overperform, or abandon marketing altogether.

which then reinforces the belief, I’m bad at marketing. But you’re not bad at marketing. You’re just trying to use a strategy that was never built for your brain, your energy, or your strengths. And here’s the cool thing. Introverted and autistic therapists often make excellent marketers when they use the right tools, because we tend to be thoughtful, observant, detail-oriented,

Excellent writers, deep thinkers, great at long form structured communication, incredible at niche specific clarity. These are SEO powers, superpowers. And so that’s why I want to talk about SEO and how I accidentally became an SEO girly. So let me tell you how I discovered SEO. again, SEO, if you’ve heard me say this seven times at this point, it’s search engine optimization.

So I started my private practice thinking I’d fill my caseload through all the traditional ways I had heard at that point. So everyone was like, you got to get on psychology today. I feel like maybe I saw a couple people be like, you need to have a website, but no one was really harping in on that. And then people were saying, you got to network, network, network. So I thought that’s what I would do because that’s what everyone said to do. So I tried it. tried.

emailing a statewide lister for people who were looking to connect. I tried being a little bit more outgoing in some online trainings that I would be at and like engage in the chat. I printed out some business cards that I kind of left at back when I originally started. I was working one day a week in office at somewhere I was subleasing. So I left some business cards there.

I gave some to my couple of colleagues who were at the agency that I left. I tried to make some awkward small talk with people, but they all seemed way more comfortable than I was. And so every time I’m left thinking, if I want to have a successful private practice, I cannot do this for the next even like few months, let alone five, 10 years, however long I want to be in this business. And it’s not because I didn’t and I don’t like people.

I love depth and connection and a meaningful conversation, but networking for the sake of like, this is how you fill your practice and this is what your business success relies on, really just felt like trying to perform a version of myself that didn’t feel authentic. And again, I tried Instagram for a bit and again, was not really for me, not at least for the therapy component. I didn’t want to be a full-time content creator.

I didn’t want to perform vulnerability on command. I didn’t want to court the algorithm like it was a needy houseplant. Right? Like all of these things, again, I do this for my coaching business, but it feels very different when with my coaching business, like even the meetings I have with therapists who are my coaching clients, like they can be vulnerable, right? When we’re talking about where we’re stuck in business.

My first coach referred to business coaching as therapy for your business, and I have always loved that and I will always repeat it. And so it’s not that coaching isn’t vulnerable and that that’s the distinction from therapy. But I think the difference is almost like the power dynamic that I’ve seen within a coaching relationship and a therapy relationship. Like in a coaching relationship, people know me, they know I get it. They are also really just there to like get guidance from me.

Ultimately, we do a lot of different things, but a lot of people are like, teach me the SEO, teach me the website, teach me the therapy intensives. Whereas within the therapy capacity, I talk a lot about complex trauma. Like those are generally the people that I see in my practice. And honestly, it’s kind of hard for me to talk about complex trauma and recovery from complex trauma without putting myself into it. And that’s not…

something I’m specifically comfortable with in an online and public way. I don’t really want to talk about my relationship with my biological dad. I don’t want to talk about ⁓ narcissistic tendencies from my mom. I don’t want to be that level of vulnerable, knowing the power dynamic that is going to naturally and inherently come in a therapeutic relationship. And so it’s not that, again, Instagram can’t work. I just think there’s some…

inherent challenges when it comes to filling a therapy caseload. And so knowing all the reasons that all these strategies wouldn’t work for me, I wanted to try something different. So I started my website because some people were like, you got to have it. I had no idea what went into a website. Like I had fun building my website. I picked out a pretty template. I had tons of fun exploring font styles and colors and

I look back at my first website now and I’m like, oh my gosh, this was a disaster, but it worked. It got me private pay clients at 150 and I think even up to like 175. I then had joined a marketing program that was gonna teach me more about how to effectively write copy and market on your website. And part of what was included in that program was learning just a little bit about search engine optimization. Because ultimately that concept is,

Right? How do people find you? They go to the search engines. These days they go to both search engines and AI and I’ll talk about that in a little bit. learning through that program was simply like the thing that clicked for me. So I tried starting to write some blog posts, you know, answering questions that my ideal clients might be Googling. I wrote specialty pages about here’s what I am an expert in. Here’s how I do approach therapy. And then

clients started finding me without me having to leave my house, without me having to talk to anyone, without me having to pretend, without the social exhaustion. And so over time, SEO became my entire marketing engine. More than 90 % of my therapy clients find me through Google or again, AI these days.

but it’s not that the majority of my caseload finds me through networking or Instagram or referrals. Those still come every now and then. And honestly, psychology today still brings me clients who are interested in therapy intensives. So it’s not like those traditional strategies can’t work, but again, it’s about what works for you. And so if over 90 % of my therapy clients are and are gonna continue to find me through these more honestly like,

passive marketing strategies, like why would I not do that? And so as my practice continued to grow, I kept leaning deeper into SEO because it felt ethical, it felt aligned, it’s introvert friendly, nor divergent friendly, it’s sustainable, quiet, effective. Honestly, it just fit my brain. And I realized this is the missing piece. No one is really teaching therapists.

especially introverted, autistic, and highly sensitive ones. So I’m going to back up just a little bit and talk about the fact that when most therapists hear SEO, they think, God, coding, backend, tech nightmares, no thank you. So many people have been unrightfully taught that SEO is so complicated and you should just hire an expensive

expert marketing company or something like that. But at its simplest form, SEO is literally helping Google understand who you are, where you are, and who you help so it can send the right people to you. SEO is not coding, complicated, expensive, overwhelming, a full-time job. It’s not any of those things. SEO is using simple,

keywords, writing in a conversational natural tone, naming your images properly, having a clear niche, making your website readable and friendly, answering client questions on your website, keeping Google happy with your basic website structure. If you can write a good therapy note, you can write and learn SEO. If you can explain something to a client in session,

You already have SEO content inside your brain. And the best part, literally my favorite part, SEO works while you’re asleep, while you’re on vacation, while the last thing you’re thinking about is getting a new client. It finds your ideal clients. It brings people who are actively looking for your exact help. It is the most introvert friendly marketing strategy available.

And again, I wish more therapists knew it existed and it is easy.

So here’s what I recommend if you are an introverted therapist, if you’re autistic, you get socially exhausted very easily. Here’s what I recommend in terms of how to get started marketing instead of networking. Number one, you should have a website like 100,000%, have a website and clean it up.

your website should say who you help, how you help them, what you specialize in, and why you’re the right fit. This requires not like bragging on yourself, but it does require being authentic, right? Don’t use all the same fluffy words that every other therapist uses in terms of like a safe, non-judgmental collaborative space, because those are, they’re vague at this point and they actually say nothing.

So have a website, clean it up, make it clear and specific. Number two, pick five to eight keywords that you can start honing in on. Keywords are ultimately, what is someone typing into Google to try to find what they are looking for? If I’m looking for a car wash near me, I’m gonna search car wash Seattle. So it’s usually a type of service, in this case, a type of therapy or a type of therapist.

and a location. So this can be trauma therapist in Portland, therapy for perfectionism in Oregon, EMDR intensives in Seattle, couples therapy intensive Washington. These keywords help Google match you to the right people. So we have to have the keywords and then there’s some strategic places you want to put the keywords, but having the keywords

on your site and in the right places helps so that when someone is searching for what they need, it increases the odds that you are going to be one of the providers that show up and then someone’s gonna go to your website and they’re gonna read your copy, learn about how you’re amazing and you’re the right fit for them and then they reach out to you. How great would that be, right? Number three, write a simple blog post. This does not have to be something that is fancy.

It is just answering a client question like, why am I so tired all the time? How do I stop people pleasing? What is a therapy intensive? Just think about what are the things your clients wanna know and write a blog about it. And you can use AI to help with that. That’s literally something I’ve created a whole program of support around is how you can help AI write your blogs faster. And personally, the…

Well, the advice that I give to therapists in terms of frequency of blogs is think about one a week if you can. With AI, this should not take that long between the idea formation, formatting and posting and SEO-ifying the blog. It should not take more than 20 to 30 minutes in a blog. That’s probably a lot. You could do it really, really quick. But a lot of therapists will ask how frequently should I post one?

The nice thing about SEO strategy is this is not like an algorithm thing. It is not social media. So you don’t have to worry about like the consistency or, you know, the algorithm. So it’s not going to hurt if like one month you post four blogs and then you skip two months because that’s already SEO credit that you’ve gained by posting what you’ve posted. So a lot of marketing agencies that I’ve seen recommend for business growth, for like rapid business growth.

two to three blogs per week. I don’t think therapists are looking for that kind of rapid business growth. So like once a week is great. If it’s twice a month, that is still really, really good. It’s still gonna help you grow very quickly. Number four, make your about page personal, right? Like number one, I guess like for a…

What I’ve heard is an about page is still an about the client page, right? You still want them to know you get them, you understand them, but this is ultimately an about you page. And this is way more than about your credentials and your selected trainings that you are showcasing. Clients care about whether you feel safe and relatable, especially clients who are also introverted, who are

also autistic, who also struggle with social exhaustion, they want to know you really get it. And so this does not have to be like a, you know, a diary entry. This just has to show like you are a human and this work matters to you for very specific reasons. And it’s not like, you know, here’s why they should pick you, but it also should kind of be like, here’s why they should, you know, want to work with you, right? You’re a real human who really gets it and really believes that you can help them.

Number five, let SEO do the heavy lifting. Again, this is the strategy that allows you to keep your social battery intact, stay authentic, avoid burnout, remain off of social media entirely if you want, get booked by people who already trust you. These are amazing things. I always say SEO is your 24-7 unpaid marketing employee. It works even when you don’t.

I do not stress about filling my practice. Honestly, so many people ask me, what are you doing for marketing these days? And I’m like, I don’t really do anything. Number one, because the tasks that I do for SEO, I’ve trained my virtual assistants to do. So they know how I write my blogs. They know SEO strategy. They know how to update my Google business profile. So I really don’t do anything to market my therapy practice these days.

SEO is truly the thing that is continuing to bring people to me. And yes, I pay my virtual assistants to do that work, but I do not pay an SEO agency hundreds or thousands of dollars a month to get nothing in return. I’ve worked with so many therapists who have made that mistake and learning the small, simple foundational knowledge and strategies from me has actually helped them even up to double.

their number of calls that are coming in for consultations. So why would you not want that? Right? Like it’s amazing. So if you’re listening and thinking, okay, I do want this, but where do I start without spiraling? That’s exactly why I created my SEO for Therapists membership. It is a low cost membership that helps you understand SEO in actual human language, get weekly blog prompts that are optimized for search.

You will learn what it means to do keyword research, where exactly to put those keywords on your website, how do I actually write my web pages for not just traffic, but also conversion. And you’ll learn how to write pages that Google actually loves and that are also AI optimized. So ultimately you are building confidence without guessing. You are getting visible, quietly, ethically and sustainably.

This membership and the SEO strategies inside are introvert friendly, they’re neurodivergent friendly, and it’s simple. Honestly, you can spend less than an hour a week on it. I have timed myself sending myself one of my own emails, doing it on my website. It takes less than an hour, right? And again, this is something that really helps with, instead of spending that hour on creating reels or something like that, something that is…

time limited in terms of its turnaround, like the benefit of it, SEO truly, truly compounds on itself. So the hour that you spend now is not just gonna help you next week, next month, it’s gonna help you next year and the year after that because SEO builds on itself exponentially. So if that feels aligned for you, you can look at the link in the show notes to join the membership to get started and see if that does feel like the right fit for you.

So that’s all that I have for today. I really just wanted to come on and share how if all of the traditional marketing strategies you’ve been hearing are just really not working for you, they are exhausting you even thinking about them, you do not need to do them if they don’t work for you. As an introverted and autistic therapist, SEO has helped me truly to just fill my practice. I mean, I literally don’t lie about that.

Every time I get a consultation, I ask on the forum, how did you hear about me? And people say online search, Google search, the rare person says psychology today. Even if someone says my therapist, blah, blah, blah. If I don’t know that therapist, I know that therapist went to psychology today or Google to find me. Right. So this helps just the right people find you. And it is such a good strategy that not enough people know about. Too many people think it’s too complicated.

but you can absolutely be successful in private practice without doing it in a way that is cringy or doesn’t feel authentic to you. So SEO is where it’s at. I am 100 % an SEO girlie and I will sing its praises forever. Quick note before I end, I know a lot of people these days are hearing about AI and AIO, AI optimization, and hearing the false belief that

Well, now SEO is irrelevant. That’s just simply not true. AI literally relies on search engine data. And so those of us who have done a ton of work on our SEO are now also seeing the benefits of AI optimization. So we’re getting shown in the AI overview at the top of Google. We are coming up in the list of recommended therapists when people are searching in Chat GPT. So SEO works, AI works.

my SEO for Therapist membership will give you tips on both of how to incorporate SEO strategy and AIO strategy. So I would love to see you inside. If you ever have any questions about if you’re a good fit, feel free to send me or my team an email, send us a DM on my socials, and we’d love to chat with you about the support inside. Thanks so much for listening today, everyone. I hope if you are really struggling with filling your practice, even if you’re an extrovert,

I hope that this brought you some information and some hope that this can work for you and it doesn’t have to be that hard.