How to Set Up Google Business Profiles for a Group Therapy Practice

A solo practitioner has one Google Business Profile to think about. A group practice has one for the practice and one for every provider who sees clients publicly, and the rules connecting them are specific enough that copying solo-practitioner setup gets the structure wrong from the first step. This is the procedural version of the differences covered in the overview of how group practice SEO differs from solo practitioner SEO, focused specifically on the Google Business Profile side.

The profile structure Google actually specifies

Google's guidelines for representing a business address this directly. When a practitioner is one of several public-facing practitioners at a location, the organization creates a Business Profile for the location, separate from the practitioner's own profile. And the practitioner's profile is titled with only their name, not the practice name attached.

This is the reverse of the solo case. A solo practitioner who is the only public-facing person at a branded location is meant to share one combined profile with the organization, named in the format "[practice name]: [practitioner name]." Google's own example is "Allstate: Joe Miller." That combined format is correct for a solo practice and wrong for a group, where the practice and each provider need their own separate profiles instead. If your practice is a single practitioner, the combined structure and the rest of the solo setup are covered in the private practice SEO guide.

Two constraints follow from Google's guidelines that group practices regularly miss. A practitioner should not have multiple profiles to cover different specializations, so you cannot give one therapist a separate profile for their EMDR work and another for couples work. And each profile needs to be distinct enough not to compete with the others. Google's rule for departments within a business is that each department's most representative category must differ from the main business and from other departments. The widely followed practice among local SEO practitioners is to apply the same logic to practitioner listings: give the practice profile and each provider profile a different primary category, so a provider's profile is not fighting the practice profile for the same search. Google states this explicitly for departments; extending it to practitioners is practitioner consensus rather than a literal Google rule, but it is the safer setup.

Verification is separate for every profile, and that's where it gets awkward

Every profile you create, the practice and each provider, is verified on its own. In 2026 the primary method is video verification: an unedited, continuous recording, at least 30 seconds, captured live and uploaded from a mobile device. The video has to show the location through street signs or neighboring businesses, show proof the business exists through permanent signage whose name matches the profile, and show proof you manage the business through access to non-public areas.

The signage requirement is the friction point for group practices. The practice profile is straightforward, the practice name is presumably on the door. But a provider profile is titled with only the provider's individual name, and a shared suite rarely has permanent signage in each individual therapist's name. Plan for this before you start rather than discovering it mid-verification: know which verification method each profile is offered (Google assigns it, you cannot pick), and be ready for provider-name profiles to be the harder ones to get through. Verification is per profile and cannot be shortcut, so a five-provider practice is running six verifications, not one.

The review rules changed in 2026, and most advice hasn't caught up

This is the part where following older group-practice advice will now actively put you offside. The common recommendation has been to route reviews to the right profile by asking clients seen by a specific therapist to mention that therapist by name, so the review lands on and credits the provider's profile. As of Google's 2026 update to its review policy, that is a violation.

Google's prohibited content policy now states that merchants must not request that reviews include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member. It also prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews or discouraging negative ones, and pressuring clients to leave a review while on the premises. So instructing clients to name their therapist, running staff review quotas, or screening who gets asked based on how happy they seem are all now against policy, and Google's enforcement of this is automated and active.

What remains fully compliant is still enough to build reviews on. You can ask every client for a review through your own neutral channels, a follow-up email, a link in your signature, a card, without scripting what they write and without filtering who you ask. If a client mentions their therapist by name on their own, that is a genuine review and it is fine. The line is between a client choosing to name their provider and you instructing them to. Build the ask into your standard follow-up for everyone, leave the content entirely to the client, and you stay inside the policy while still accumulating reviews.

• Compliant: asking every client for a review through your own channels, with no script and no incentive.
• Compliant: a client independently naming their therapist or a specific experience in their review.
• Not compliant: instructing or prompting clients to name their specific therapist so the review credits that provider.
• Not compliant: asking only clients you expect to be happy, or setting staff review targets.
• Not compliant: any incentive, discount, or gift offered in exchange for a review.

Because you can no longer steer reviews to individual providers by asking clients to name them, the practical reality is that reviews will accumulate more on the practice profile than evenly across providers. Among local SEO practitioners the working view is that reviews spread thin across many profiles are weaker than reviews concentrated where clients naturally leave them; Google does not state this as a rule, but it points the same direction as building genuine review volume on the practice profile rather than trying to engineer distribution across provider profiles.

Setting it up in order

The sequence that avoids rework: create and verify the practice profile first, with its own primary category and complete information, following the same fundamentals as any single profile, covered in the Google Business Profile guide for therapists. Then create a profile for each public-facing provider, titled with their name only, each with a distinct primary category, and verify each one separately. Then set one compliant review process that runs for every client regardless of which provider they saw. Everything in the core GBP guide about categories, descriptions, and completeness still applies to each profile; what changes is that you are now doing it several times with a plan for how the profiles relate. If that's something you'd rather not build and maintain alone, you can read more on what goes into the group practice SEO service.

Frequently asked questions

Does each therapist in a group practice need a separate Google Business Profile?

Yes, if they are public-facing and can be contacted at the location during stated hours. Google's guidelines call for the organization to have its own profile for the location, with each practitioner having a separate profile titled using only their own name, not the practice name.

Can we ask clients to mention their therapist's name in a Google review?

No. As of Google's 2026 review policy update, merchants may not request that reviews include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member. You can ask every client for a review, but the content has to be left entirely to them. A client naming their therapist on their own is fine; instructing them to is a violation.

Why can't a therapist have separate profiles for each specialty?

Google's guidelines state that a practitioner should not have multiple Business Profiles to cover their different specializations. One provider gets one profile. Specialties are handled through categories and on-page content, not through multiple profiles for the same person.

How does verification work for multiple profiles?

Each profile is verified separately, most often now through video verification, a live, continuous, mobile-recorded clip showing location, signage matching the profile name, and proof you manage the business. The signage requirement can be awkward for provider profiles titled with an individual name at a shared office, so plan for those to be the harder verifications.

Should reviews go to the practice profile or the individual provider profiles?

Since you can no longer ask clients to name their provider, reviews will naturally land more on the practice profile, and that is fine. Run one neutral review request for every client and let reviews accumulate wherever clients choose to leave them, rather than trying to engineer distribution across provider profiles.

What's the biggest setup mistake group practices make?

Using the solo-practitioner combined-profile format ("[practice]: [provider]") for a multi-provider practice, which is the wrong structure, or carrying over the old advice to route reviews by asking clients to name their therapist, which is now a policy violation. The correct setup is separate profiles with distinct categories and one compliant, unscripted review ask.