Mental Health Link Building Case Study

The mental health industry is growing fast. With more people looking for online resources and telehealth options, there’s been a huge spike in demand in recent years. But that also means it’s become a very competitive industry. Big-name platforms dominate the search results, which makes it tough for smaller mental health practices to stand out online.

Our client, a small mental health practice based in North America, faced this problem. They offered excellent services and published valuable educational content, but their website was barely getting noticed. Competing with large organizations backed by major marketing budgets was no easy task. Although they had tried some social media promotion and paid ad campaigns, they didn’t have much experience with SEO or link building. What they needed was a solid strategy to boost their search rankings, drive more traffic to their site, and ultimately bring in more clients.

That’s where we came in. At Rhino Rank, we help businesses in competitive industries grow through smart, effective link building. 

With a clear goal in mind, we focused on getting them high-quality backlinks from reputable sites in the mental health and healthcare space.

Their monthly budget was $1,000. So we recommended our Curated Links Package 2, allowing them to benefit from a 15% package discount and giving them the best return on their investment.

Curated Links Package 2 ($990)

• 5x RD20-100 links
• 4x RD100-250 links
• 4x RD250-500 links
• 2x RD500+ link

This mix of referring domains helped create a natural-looking backlink profile, which not only built trust with search engines but also supported rankings for their most important service pages.

Before building any links, we took the time to fully understand the client’s current website performance. Their dedicated Account Manager ran a comprehensive audit of the site, analyzing traffic trends, current backlinks, anchor text distribution, and keyword rankings.

One red flag we quickly spotted was an overuse of exact-match anchor text, something that can easily trigger penalties from search engines if left unchecked. To protect the site’s long-term performance and build credibility, we restructured their anchor text profile. The new strategy focused on a healthy mix of anchor text:

• 80% branded terms – e.g. “Brand Name” or “www.brandname.com”
• 15% partial-match keyword – e.g., “trusted anxiety support services” or “find help for depression online”
• 5% exact-match keyword – e.g., “online therapy” or “mental health counselling”

We then proceeded to secure high-quality, contextual links from respected mental health blogs, wellness platforms, and health news sites. These weren’t random placements. but were carefully chosen to support the client’s key service and content pages.

Over the course of nine months, the website experienced remarkable growth across multiple key metrics.

Organic traffic increased by 614%, signaling a significant rise in visibility across search engines.

At the same time, organic inquiries and consultations rose by 450%, driven by stronger website authority and improved keyword rankings.

Given these impressive results, the client has chosen to scale their link building efforts. The next phase will focus on acquiring more high-authority backlinks, specifically from RD500+ and RD1000+ domains, to further solidify their position as a leading provider of online mental health services.