A solo clinical practice in Naperville, Illinois, competing for patients against Psychology Today, group practices with full marketing teams, and every other therapist in DuPage County.
Anthony Steuer runs Accendo Wellness on his own — ACT, CBT and DBT work, LGBTQ-affirming care, substance use recovery, life transitions. The clinical work is the job. Marketing is what happens in the gaps between sessions, and for a solo practitioner those gaps are small and unreliable.
The head term — “therapist naperville” — is dominated by directories. A solo practice does not outrank Psychology Today. So we stopped trying to.
Discovery
Instead we went after how patients actually search when they already know what they need: the modality plus the city. “ACT therapy Naperville.” “LGBTQ affirming therapist Naperville.” Lower volume, far higher intent, and reachable by a practice of one.
The content library did the rest. Someone searching “CBT therapy for autism” is not booking a session that day — but they are the same person who searches for a therapist three weeks later, and by then the practice is already familiar.
What we did
Today the practice sits at #13 organically for “ACT therapy Naperville” and, more importantly, inside the local pack for it — the three-result box that takes most of the clicks on a local search.
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Search Console tells the trajectory plainly: 30 clicks in a 28-day window in September 2025, 40 by October, 50 by November, and 75 through March 2026 against 29.8K impressions.
“A solo practice cannot outrank a directory. It can absolutely own the specific thing it is best at, in the one town where it practises.”
The outcome
The number that matters to a practice, though, is not clicks. It is 81 — the enquiries submitted through the site’s own forms: 51 appointment requests, 18 meeting requests, 7 general contacts, 5 sign-ups.
For a solo practitioner with no ad budget, that is the entire argument.
