Patient search splits like any local trade, with one extra rule. The urgent half (“urgent care near me”, a pharmacy open now) is won on the map, with correct hours and real reviews. The research half (MRI costs, telehealth, urgent care or the ER) falls under Google's strictest standard for health content, so it's won by named, credentialed providers and reviewed pages. I build both, and I make no medical claims.
If your doctors' own pages rank below three directories for their own names, Google can't tell who your providers are.
Scroll to take the clinic apart floor by floor. Tap any room to see where patients get stuck, what they type into Google at that point, and the page that should be there to answer.
Tap a part on the drawing, or pick one here. Monthly searches that lead patients to each part:
Search volumes · Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, US monthly searches, pulled September 2026
Real searches, sorted by what the person needs at that moment. Each stage needs a different kind of page.
Monthly searches · Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, US, pulled September 2026
Doctor bios that are a name and a headshot
Google holds health content to its strictest standard (YMYL). A bio with no credentials, specialty, locations or reviewed pages gives it nothing to trust, so specialty searches go to directories.
Review and listing sites outrank your own doctors
Search a provider's name with their specialty and the practice's own page lands below several directories. Patients book through whichever page they reach, and a directory profile lists other doctors beside yours.
Evening, weekend and holiday hours out of date
Urgent care and pharmacy searches are decided on hours. A profile that says closed when the doors are open loses the evening patient to the clinic down the road.
Thousands of thin URLs Google has to wade through
Health sites pile up portal pages, tag archives and old campaign URLs. On one YMYL site I work on, a technical audit inspected 3,887 URLs and flagged 526 for removal.
Six moves, in the order they usually pay back. Each one is a service with its own page if you want the detail.
Urgent care, walk-in and pharmacy searches end on the map. Each location gets a complete profile, hours that match the door, and reviews that name the service.
Audit my clinic listingsCredentials, board certification, specialty, locations and the pages each provider reviewed. This is the trust signal health search runs on, and most practices skip it.
Review my provider pagesPhysicals, flu shots, lab work, imaging and telehealth each get their own page, then location versions only where the service actually runs.
Map my practice siteCost, prep and urgent care or ER pages bring the research half. I write for search; your providers review every clinical line and sign it by name.
Plan my patient contentKeep portal and thin pages out of Google, and describe clinics, providers and hours in structured data so the details match everywhere.
Find my index bloatHospital affiliations, medical associations and local health organisations, qualified before they're pursued. No bulk directory submissions.
Review my backlinksThe structure I'd plan for a practice with more than one location. Every clinical page names the provider who reviewed it and links to their bio.
Money page for the cluster Supporting page that links to it
This is health publishing, not a clinic: a non-profit that educates expecting parents, held to Google's YMYL standard. It holds position 1 for large pregnancy questions, and a 90-day audit of 3,887 URLs flagged 526 for removal. The wider record is a separate YMYL medical site: 1.47B Search Console impressions and 21.2M clicks over 16 months, across about 130,000 pages at an average position of 7.3.
The honest part: This engagement is mid-fix. Indexed pages fell from 9,000 to 6,000 in the same window, 108,000 pages are found but not indexed, and Core Web Vitals score 50/100. That is an open problem being worked now. Neither site is a clinic, so the map pack side of a practice is separate work.
The trade and SEO terms that come up in healthcare work, so a report never reads like a foreign language.
The problems and the results on this page come from real sites I've worked on, anonymised, and every search volume is real data. Send me yours and I'll tell you honestly which of these moves would pay back soonest, and which you can skip.
My health results come from medical publishing and a maternal health non-profit, both YMYL sites held to Google's strictest bar. The trust work (named providers, reviewed pages, clean indexing) carries straight over to a practice. The map pack side I run for local service businesses.
I plan and write for search: the question, the structure, the links. Every clinical statement is reviewed and signed by one of your licensed providers, named on the page. I don't make medical claims on anyone's behalf.
No. The work runs on Search Console, analytics and the website itself, and none of those needs patient records. Forms and call tracking should never pass health details into analytics, and I check for that.
Usually one site, with a page per location and a page per provider linked to each place they work. Separate sites split the trust you've built. I'll check what you have before recommending a merge.
Send me your site and the areas you serve. I'll look at it myself and reply personally, usually within one business day.