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Frequently Asked Questions
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FAQ for the public.
Does counselling.com authenticate or validate credentials or qualifications for those who list on your service ?
Counselling.com provides a free listing service.
Counselling.com does not authenticate or validate any of the information / qualifications or credentials provided by those placing listings.
Do counsellors or therapists pay for listings or higher rankings in your searches ?
Counselling.com does not charge health care providers for listings. All listings are treated equally. Counselling.com believes that search results should be based on providing you with the search results most relevant o your needs and not based on payment.
If you search using keywords then your search results will rank lisitings in order of their relevance to the keywords you entered.
FAQ for Health Care Professionals
How can you provide the service for free?
I have personally developed and designed the entire site and my costs have been minimal.
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The website is a community service. When the site becomes popular maintaining it will become a significant time commitment and I will have to consider ways of generating revenue to maintain the site.
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I subscribe to a "Craig's" List" philosophy. Craig's list offers free listings yet employs a significant staff and generates revenue.
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My goal is to keep listings free and generate enough revenue to sustain a growing website through tasteful and relevant strategies. These may include offering upgraded services which will be associated with a cost, participating in Google's adsense program and or asking for asking for donations.
How can I help ?
The best ways in which you can help me to keep the site free is to to keep costs low and contribute in the following ways:
1) Tell your colleages and help us spread the word. If you help in this regard I have to spend less time marketing and can focus my efforts on site improvement.
2) Provide a link to our website.
3) Create good short and long listing descriptions which improves your listing's google ranking. See the FAQ section on "How do I get my listing ranked on Google."
Why we ask that you consider adding a link to our site ?
Google looks at how many websites are linking to a specific website to help determine its rank.
If you want to help your listing get seen then please link to us.
What can you guarantee me if I place a listing ?
The site will at all times be run with integrity and the utmost respect for the health care professionals who place listings on the site as well as for the public .
Why isn't my listing showing up on google ?
Google can take some time to index your listing. It can take up to 8 weeks before google incorporates the changes.
The site is also new and Google automatically gives a lower rating to new websites.
The more of your colleagues that place listings the better the Google ratings will be. The power of community rules.
Why should I create a good listing title and short description ?
Each listing functions as an individual webpage which is indexed by google.
Your listing title and short descriptions are part of the "meta tag" description of your listing. Google uses this information to help index your listing. Use keywords that will help clients find your listing.
For example:
Title: "Dr. Mark Weiss - Addiction Medicine-Toronto".
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Your short descriptions should use keywords relevant to your listing. For example:
Short Description: "I am a psychotherapist with expertise in Mindfulness Based Therapies and Cognitive Therapy in the Toronto area. I have been practicing psychotherapy for 10 years with a special interest in anxiety disorders."
Ask yourself what words would you would use to search Google and see if you can incorporate these into your descriptions.
How does the sites search engine work ?
The site search engine uses an algorithm that evaluates the language used in your short description, long description and title.
If for example someone enters the word "coaching" into the keywords field and you have talked about coaching and used the word several times then your listing will show up in the listing results before the listing of someone who may have used the word coaching once and focused their description on mindfulness or CBT.
Good relevant descriptions will help clients identify your listings.
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