Is this keyword stuffing or best practice?

[joebordersmft]

I'm a psychotherapist here in California. Its common practice for people to say "counseling and therapy" on their websites. Although the two are technically different, most people consider them to be synonyms. Do you think google would consider this practice to be keyword stuffing?

Also, I am making a page for the forms I need people to fill out before they see me. Do you think it is bad to list links to the forms like this:
-counseling / therapy intake form
-informed consent for counseling / therapy
as opposed to
-intake form
-informed consent
.....I think this falls under the idea that readability is important. I'm just really struggling because recently google decided my main keywords are things that have very little to do with therapy/counseling.

[brightvessel]

Joe,

Without seeing your site it would be hard to say. I do not think that would be considered keyword stuffing from what you mentioned.

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose).

This is Google's definition.

Here is a great breakdown from MOZ

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines

Supporting Article from Google's Matt Cutts:

https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/avoid-keyword-stuffing/

See this image, this would be keyword stuffing.

http://www.mattcutts.com/images/alex-chiu-banned.png

Hope this helps