Google Knows What This California Ocean Therapy Website Is About
Website In A Week helped Sophie turn her therapy training, surf therapy, events, and growing community into one cohesive institute with a website people could actually find.
As part of our intake questionnaire for Website In A Week, we ask what you think, or hope, your clients are typing into Google to find you.
Sophie, the California-based ocean therapist and educator behind The Ocean Healing Institute, had a pretty specific list:
Ocean therapy practitioner
Ocean therapy training
Ocean healing certification
Surf therapy California
(And not to spoil the ending of this blog, but people ARE, in fact, searching for exactly that.)
Within five months of launching, “ocean therapy practitioner” became the website’s top search query. “Ocean therapy certification” came in second.
Altogether, The Ocean Healing Institute earned more than 7,000 impressions on Google, almost 600 clicks to the website, and another 1,500 impressions through generative AI.
But those delightfully specific SEO results didn’t come from adding a few phrases to the headings and hitting publish. First, we had to make Sophie’s ocean therapy training, surf therapy, events, and growing team feel like they all belonged to the same institute.
Her Ocean Therapy Business Had Outgrown The Whole “Personal Brand Website” Thing
Long before The Ocean Healing Institute had a name, a domain, or a Squarespace account, Sophie was already doing the healing work behind it.
She began in private practice, offering surf therapy to her own clients before creating Waves of Recovery, a nonprofit that brings surf therapy into treatment centres and sober living communities.
After seeing how clients and other therapists responded to the work, Sophie developed The Ocean Healing & Therapy Program to teach other practitioners how to incorporate ocean-based healing and Blue Mind theory into their own practices.
By the time Sophie came to us, she was also hosting ocean therapy events in Los Angeles, hiring additional team members, creating opportunities for alumni, and growing a larger professional community around ocean-based healing.
This was no longer one therapist with a few different services listed under her name. The Ocean Healing Institute wasn’t just a new name stuck on top of the same solo business.
It represented Sophie stepping into a larger role as an educator, founder, and leader while giving the work she had built an identity of its own.
Her new website needed to make that transition obvious without losing the personal trust and experience she had already built around her own name.
“I was getting ready to launch The Ocean Healing Institute and my signature Ocean Healing & Therapy Program, but I knew I wanted a completely separate website that could really bring the vision to life.
I wanted something that felt engaging, professional, and aligned with the heart of the Institute.”
–Sophie Pyne, The Ocean Healing Institute
How Do You Fit An Entire California Ocean Therapy Institute Into One Website?
A few years back, Sophie had hired Isobel to write the sales page for The Ocean Healing & Therapy Program, so we already had a good understanding of Sophie’s vision and work. Plus, she knew her core offers and had her positioning, photography, and custom branding sorted.
(Though if she hadn’t, we think the Coastal Casual Brand Kit would’ve been perfect!)
So, when we first mapped out the ocean therapy institute website, the scope looked fairly straightforward and perfect for our 5-page Website In A Week offer.
Home
About
Events
Alumni
Contact
But five page names don’t tell you much about the job each page actually has to do.
The About page had to introduce Sophie as the Institute’s founder while showcasing the wider team and making it clear the work was no longer delivered by one person alone.
The Alumni and Events pagesneeded to show that The Ocean Healing Institute was an active professional community and be easy for Sophie to update herself.
The Home page had the (not-so) small job of bringing the entire site together so visitors could understand what the Institute was, who it served, and where they should go next.
The new website needed to carry over the trust, messaging, and visual identity Sophie had already built while giving the entire Ocean Healing Institute room to grow.
Then Sophie Saw Her New Ocean Therapy Website And Had A Few More Ideas
You’ll notice that the original website scope DIDN’T include redesigning The Ocean Healing & Therapy Program sales page or a Surf Therapy page.
And yet…
When we sent Sophie the first draft of her website, she could finally see The Ocean Healing Institute taking shape as one cohesive business. But once everything was laid out in front of her, two missing pieces became pretty obvious.
The existing sales page didn’t quite match the new direction.
Samara had used The Ocean Healing & Therapy Program sales page as a visual starting point so the new website felt connected to the brand Sophie had already built. Seeing the full site together helped Sophie realize she wanted the Institute to feel calmer, more expansive, and more established. The sales page needed to move in that direction too.A surf therapy page couldn’t wait.
Sophie had originally planned to hold off on creating it. But once she saw the Institute taking shape, leaving out the work that started her ocean-centred practice no longer made much sense. She asked us to add the page to this version of the website instead of treating it as a someday update.
So, we redesigned the Ocean Healing & Therapy Program sales page so it felt fully integrated with the new website, then added a dedicated Surf Therapy page that invited surf-curious clients across Los Angeles and San Diego to reach out.
And just like that, the neat little 5-page Website In A Week turned into a Custom Website Project that finally fit the size of The Ocean Healing Institute.
The Ocean Therapy Website Made The Institute Real And Findable
The most useful part of The Ocean Healing Institute’s Google results isn’t the total number of impressions since launching. It’s what people are typing before they land on the website.
People are finding the Institute through searches like “ocean therapy practitioner,” “ocean therapy certification,” and “ocean therapy course.”
That means, the website is introducing the Institute to new potential clients already looking for exactly the ocean therapy work Sophie wanted to grow.
Google Search Clicks and Impressions less than six months after launching Sophie’s new website.
Generative AI impressions less than six months after launching Sophie’s new website.
(Not sure what people are typing into Google before they find you? Set up Google Search Console on your Squarespace website! It shows you the actual searches bringing people to your site, so you can stop guessing.)
And when those potential clients arrive, they find more than a sales page for one program. They find an established Institute with a founder, team, alumni, events, surf therapy, professional training, and clear ways to get involved.
Which was exactly what Sophie had hoped the new website would do:
“Since launching, I’ve seen incredible traction and engagement with the website, and it has given me a professional home for the Institute that I’m genuinely proud to send people to.
Most importantly, it has helped me grow awareness around the Ocean Healing & Therapy Program and turn the vision I had for the Institute into something that feels real, established, professional and ready to grow.”
–Sophie Pyne, The Ocean Healing Institute
Has your business also quietly added a team, training, new offers, events, or an entire community while your website is still acting like it’s just you and one offer?
If explaining how everything fits together currently requires a voice note and several clarifying follow-up messages, come and talk to us.
With a Custom Website Project, we’ll develop the strategy, write the copy, create your branding if you need it, and design a website that makes the whole business clear while helping the right people find it.
