Navigating Censorship as a Holistic Wellness Practice: Our Journey with Email and Google Business Challenges

Teal Saguaro Wellness, a holistic wellness practice in Dublin, Ohio, was founded with the vision to help individuals heal and thrive through holistic approaches to mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. However, as a startup small business, we've quickly learned that growing a practice—especially one that focuses on holistic health—comes with its unique challenges.

For nearly two years, we operated under the name “Kaela Rae Vance LPCCS, LLC,” a solo therapy practice in Central Ohio. The focus then was primarily on mental health therapy, and we worked hard to build a client base and develop a reputation in the local community. However, in January 2024, we took a significant step toward our broader vision and rebranded as Teal Saguaro Wellness. The goal of the rebrand was to expand our staff and services to encompass a holistic wellness approach, integrating mental health therapy with complementary wellness practices.

While this shift represented the heart of what we truly want to offer our clients, we quickly began facing hurdles in our marketing efforts. A significant drop in our email campaign performance was one of the first signs that something wasn’t right.

The Challenge with Email Campaigns

As part of our growth strategy, we send out regular email newsletters to our subscribers, sharing holistic health tips, updates on services, and wellness-related content. However, after the rebrand, and this new content, we noticed that many of our emails containing the words “holistic” or “wellness” were being marked as spam. This was not only affecting our marketing campaigns, but also day-to-day emails, because eventually nearly every email sent from our domain was being flagged as spam, also affecting our ability to communicate effectively with our clients and other providers.

After some investigation and testing, we determined that certain keywords — specifically related to holistic wellness — were triggering spam filters. It seemed like the very nature of our practice, which is rooted in wellness and holistic care, was causing our communications to be silenced.

To counter this, we decided to change the domain we were using for our weekly newsletters, in an attempt to rebuild our email reputation and ensure that our important messages to clients and providers wouldn’t continue to land in spam folders. While we expect this recent change to help to some extent, the issue lingers, and we've found ourselves walking a fine line between communicating our holistic message and avoiding email censorship.

Google Business Profile Suspension

Unfortunately, our challenges didn’t stop there. After recently updating our Google Business Profile to reflect our name change and expanded services, we were prompted by Google to reverify our account — a routine step after making certain profile updates. We followed the automated verification process, only to receive an email notifying us that our account had been flagged for manual review.

Soon after, we were shocked to learn that our Google Business Profile had been suspended for “content" that "violated Google’s terms of service.” This suspension was unexpected and deeply frustrating. For over two years, our Google Business Profile had been an essential tool in helping potential clients find us and understand the services we provide. The suspension has now limited our visibility online, and also left us in the dark as to what content specifically had triggered the "violation".

What’s more, Google provided us with no concrete details about which part of our profile or content was considered a "violation". This lack of transparency has made it impossible to adequately appeal the suspension.

The Bigger Issue: Censorship of Holistic Wellness?

It’s hard not to question whether small businesses in the holistic wellness space are facing an uphill battle when it comes to being seen and heard online. Between the spam filters blocking our email campaigns and Google suspending our business profile without clear justification, we feel as though we’re being unfairly targeted simply because of the nature of our work.

Holistic wellness is a legitimate and important aspect of healthcare, and our practice is dedicated to helping individuals lead healthier, more balanced lives. Yet, it seems that promoting wellness is being met with resistance in the digital space.

Moving Forward

As frustrating as these challenges are, we are committed to pushing forward. Our mission at Teal Saguaro Wellness is to provide holistic healing to our community, and we believe that more people than ever are seeking alternative and complementary ways to support their mental and physical health.

We’d love to hear from Google about why they feel the need to censor holistic wellness-focused small businesses. In the meantime, we’ll continue to find ways to work around these obstacles and ensure that our clients and potential clients know how to access our services.

If you're a small business facing similar challenges, or if you have thoughts on how the digital landscape is treating holistic wellness practices, we’d love to hear from you. Let's continue the conversation and advocate for more inclusive online spaces where holistic health can thrive.