In this article
Why it matters more in healthcare than elsewhere
The patient is often in pain, anxious or in a hurry, and takes the first credible option nearby. They do not compare five websites; they compare three map results. The clinic that is on the map with a good rating and correct hours gets the call, and the clinic that is not — however good — gets the patient only if someone recommended it by name. Local search is where a clinic is chosen or missed, several times a day.
What it brings, in plain terms
Calls and walk-ins from the catchment, which is the only patient base most clinics have. Trust before the visit, from the review count and the photographs. A site and a listing that work on a phone, which is how every patient arrives. And an advantage that lasts, because most clinics nearby have a half-finished profile and no review process — the competition for a neighbourhood is thin.
The work, in order
The Google Business Profile for each location — and for a hospital, for each major department — complete: category, services, doctors, hours, real photographs, the same name, address and phone number everywhere.
Reviews asked for at the moment a patient is relieved, by the department or the dentist, with a link that takes thirty seconds; every review answered, complaints calmly.
A page on the site for each location, naming the area in the text, with the doctors, the treatments and a call button at the top.
The site fast on a phone on 4G, because that is where the map sends the patient. Then, over time, pages that answer the questions patients search — with a named doctor — which bring the catchment in months earlier.
Do it yourself, or get help
A single clinic can do the profile and the reviews itself in a fortnight, and should; they cost nothing but attention, and they are most of the result. Where help earns its fee is the site — speed, location pages, the technical faults a crawl finds — and a multi-location or multi-department hospital where the profiles, pages and review process have to be run as a system. If a firm proposes to start with a campaign before the profile and the reviews are right, it is starting in the wrong place.