Manhattan Center for Trauma Studies · Website, SEO and accessibility
How do great programs get found by the therapists who need them?
Manhattan Center for Trauma Studies trains clinicians in EMDR and trauma therapy. The programs were strong, but Google barely knew they existed. We rebuilt how the site speaks to search, made it faster and easier to use, and kept improving it every month.
- SEO
- Website
- Landing pages
- Speed
- Accessibility
Find
The challenge
Great programs, hidden from search.
Missing the words people search
The Programs page ranked for “EMDR training NYC” without saying EMDR or NYC in its title or heading.
Slow on a phone
The homepage took over five seconds to show its main content on mobile, long enough for many visitors to leave.
Small problems everywhere
Login pages showing up in Google, images with no descriptions, messy links and a leftover demo testimonial section.
Fix
The website
Scroll through it the way a visitor would.
The Manhattan Center for Trauma Studies website, section by section
Say it in the first line
The homepage now leads with exactly what people search for: EMDR and trauma training for therapists.
Three reasons, at a glance
Specialized focus, expert-led trainings and ongoing support, each in one plain sentence.
Built for skimming
Headings in order and images described, so screen readers and search engines read the page the same way.
Programs people can compare
Format, price and credits on every card, so therapists can compare at a glance.
Mobile
Faster where it counts
Most visitors arrive on a phone. Caching, lighter images and cleaner code cut the wait, and every section stacks in reading order.
- Homepage speed score 84 to 92 in our tests
- Main pages answer in about a tenth of a second
- Directory pages answer in half a second, down from two
Grow
Sammy has built two websites for my businesses over the past six years and has been an exceptional partner throughout. His design work is excellent and his process is collaborative. He is consistently responsive and a genuine pleasure to work with.
The brand
Calm, credible and warm
A deep slate carries the brand, with a warm coral for every action and a soft blush behind the content. Soft flowing gradients keep the tone gentle, which matters for a subject as heavy as trauma.
The results
Every fix moved the line
Each week of Google results from May to September 2026. Scroll to replay it, and see what we shipped along the way.
the week of May 4
Source: Google Search Console, weekly
- May 4Where it startedAbout 400 appearances a week, before any of the work began.
- 01 · Jun 3The basics, fixedClear titles and headings, image descriptions, and login pages kept out of Google.
- 02 · Jun 10Faster and easier to readPage caching, clean links and structured data, so Google understands each page.
- 03 · Jun 25Programs, rewritten for searchThe Programs page finally says “EMDR training” and “NYC,” the words therapists type.
- 04 · Aug 3Two new EMDR pagesLanding pages for each EMDR pathway, linked from 17 places across the site.
- 05 · Aug 13Search descriptions everywhere26 new search descriptions and proper headings on all 11 therapist profiles.
The answer
More searches, more clicks, a better site
In Google
- +0%clicks from Google156 a month in May, 250 in August
- +0%times the site appeared in search1,628 in May, 4,324 in August
- +0%clicks on “EMDR training NYC”12 a month in May, 33 in August
The design and the search work are the same job here. Clear words, clean structure and fast pages help a therapist decide, and they help Google send that therapist in the first place.
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