Anonymous medical content
Health pages with no named author and no review date are held to a standard they cannot meet. Sign them.
Guide
Local SEO for doctors
Medical search is held to a higher standard than any other local category, because Google treats health as a subject where bad information does harm. That has a practical consequence: who wrote the page, what their qualifications are, and whether the practice is a real, verifiable organisation all count for more here than in any other trade.
8 steps
Free to read, in the order it pays to do it. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to download.
The second thing that defines it is the competition. You are not mainly competing with the practice down the road. You are competing with the health directories, which have enormous authority, an entry for every practitioner in the country, and no interest in whether the patient can actually get an appointment with you.
You can beat them, but not by writing what they write. You beat them on the things they cannot know: which insurers you take, how soon somebody can be seen, which conditions you actually treat, and who the patient will be sitting in front of.
What doctors are actually competing for
These are the shapes the searches take. The words in brackets are whatever the searcher puts there, which is usually a town, a neighbourhood or a brand.
- doctor near me accepting new patients
- [speciality] doctor [city]
- doctor that takes [insurance]
- same day appointment doctor near me
- is [symptom] serious
- [doctor name] md reviews
The work, in the order it pays to do it
- 1
Give every practitioner a properly credentialed page
Full name, qualifications, registration number where it is public, years in practice, conditions treated, languages spoken, and a photograph. This is the page the directories cannot beat because they are guessing at half of it.
- 2
Say whether you are accepting new patients
Prominently, and keep it current. It is one of the most searched qualifiers in medical local search and almost no practice site answers it.
- 3
List the insurers and plans you accept
By name. A patient who cannot tell whether you take their cover will ring the practice that made it obvious instead.
- 4
Set the profile category to the speciality
Not Doctor. Family Practice Physician, Dermatologist, Paediatrician and the rest are separate categories that appear in separate map results.
- 5
Write condition pages, carefully, with an author
What the condition is, when it needs a doctor, what an appointment involves. Signed by the practitioner, reviewed and dated. Unsigned medical content is the fastest way to be ignored in this category.
- 6
Make appointment availability real on the page
How soon somebody can be seen, whether there are same-day slots, how to book out of hours. The directories cannot say any of this and it is what the patient is actually deciding on.
- 7
Handle reviews without breaching confidentiality
Thank the reviewer, do not confirm they are a patient, do not mention anything clinical. A single careless reply in this category is a serious problem.
- 8
Keep the practice details identical everywhere
Name, address, phone, across the profile, the site and every health directory. Medical listings are duplicated more than any other category and the inconsistencies suppress you.
What usually goes wrong
Nothing about insurance or availability
The two questions every patient has, answered by neither the site nor the directories, and the easiest ground to win.
The generic Doctor category
Puts you in the widest possible pool rather than the speciality pool where the patient is looking.
Clinical detail in a review reply
A confidentiality breach in public, and one that cannot be taken back.
How to tell whether it is working
Rankings are not the measure. These are, and all of them come from accounts in your own name rather than from a report you have to take on trust.
- Calls and appointment link clicks from the profile
- Whether your own practitioners now outrank the directories on their own names
- Search Console impressions on insurance and availability queries
- New patient registrations, which is the only outcome that counts
If you would rather not do it yourself
Everything above is work you can do without hiring anybody, and the profile half of it is worth doing whatever else you decide. If you want it done for you, this is the service that covers it, and we scope it on a call before anything starts.
Other guides
Questions about local SEO for doctors
Why is medical SEO treated differently?
Google applies a higher bar to subjects where poor information can cause harm. In practice that means named, qualified authors, verifiable organisation details and dated reviews of clinical content matter far more here than elsewhere.
Can a small practice outrank the health directories?
On the directories’ own ground, rarely. On yours, routinely: which insurers you take, how soon a patient can be seen, who they will see, and what you actually treat. The directories cannot answer any of those.
Should doctors write their own content?
They should review and be named on anything clinical. Drafting can be done for them, but an unsigned medical page starts at a disadvantage it rarely recovers from.
How do we reply to a negative review?
Without confirming the person is a patient and without any clinical detail. Acknowledge, give a route to discuss it privately, and stop there.
Book a call with us
A 30-minute call in your working hours. Tell us what you sell and where, and we will tell you what we would do first and what it involves. Prefer email? Send your website through the form and the Passieon Team will reply within two working days.