The top result on Google gets 30 to 40% of clicks. Position two gets 20%. Position three gets 10%.
Everyone below that is fighting over scraps, and in a crowded high street of physios, dentists and aesthetics clinics, that’s most of you.
Here’s the bit that stings: the clinics at the top are not the best clinics, they are the most visible. Google (and increasingly ChatGPT and Gemini) can only recommend what they can clearly read and understand, and most clinic websites give them almost nothing to go on.
This article covers the five website fixes we make for clinic clients, in the order we do them. None of it is guesswork and none of it requires a rebuild. Work through them yourself, or hand this to whoever looks after your website and use it as a brief.
Why your website decides your map ranking (and your AI recommendations)
Most clinic owners think their Google Business Profile (the map listing with your reviews and opening hours) lives in its own world. It doesn’t. Google links your GBP to your website, and a weak website drags the whole thing down, map pack ranking included.
It’s not just Google now either. When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini to recommend a physio, dentist or aesthetics clinic in their town, those tools read websites to work out who to suggest. A vague, generic site is invisible to them in exactly the same way it’s invisible to Google.
We did this kind of work with Hutchinson Health and they tripled their SEO reach as a result.
The link between the two matters because most clinics pour effort into their GBP (photos, posts, reviews) and leave the website untouched for years. That’s backwards.
Think of the website as the evidence and the GBP as the headline. Google checks the evidence before it trusts the headline.
Fix 1: Title tags, meta descriptions and H1s
The title tag is the blue link text in Google’s results and the tab title in a browser. The meta description is the grey summary underneath it. The H1 is the main heading a visitor actually sees on the page.
All three should say, in plain terms, what the page is and where it is.
Most clinic sites get this wrong by being too clever or too vague. “Welcome to Hertford Physio” tells Google nothing about what you treat or where. “Home” tells it even less.
Here’s a worked example for a fictional Hertford Physio home page:
Title tag (under 60 characters): Physiotherapy in Hertford | Hertford Physio
Meta description (under 155 characters): Chartered physiotherapists in Hertford treating back pain, sports injuries and post-surgery recovery. Same-week appointments available.
H1: Physiotherapy in Hertford
Notice the pattern: service, then town, then clinic name. Do this for every page, not just the home page.
Fix 2: Put your keyword and town in the content, naturally
Your target keyword and your town need to appear in the first paragraph of each page. Not buried three screens down, not stuffed in five times. Once, clearly, near the top.
Write for the patient reading it, not for a search engine scanning it. A sentence like “if you’re dealing with lower back pain in Hertford, our physiotherapists can help” does the job for both. A sentence that reads like a keyword list helps nobody and puts real people off booking.
Give each service its own page. One page for physiotherapy, one for sports massage, one for post-surgery rehab, each with its own title tag, H1 and opening paragraph. A single page trying to cover everything ranks for nothing in particular.
Aim for 400 to 600 words per service page, enough to answer the obvious questions without padding it out for the sake of it. If you’re struggling to hit that without repeating yourself, that’s usually a sign the page is trying to cover two services and should be split into two pages instead.
Fix 3: Add an FAQ section built from real patient questions
Every service page should carry an FAQ section of 4 to 6 questions. The good news is you don’t need to invent them.
Ask reception what people ask on the phone. Search your enquiry emails for recurring questions. Check Google’s “People also ask” box when you search your own service and town.
These are the exact questions real patients are typing, which makes them exactly what you should be answering.
FAQs matter more than they used to because AI engines lift answers straight from them when someone asks a question in chat. A clear question and a clear, honest answer on your page is one of the easiest ways to get quoted by ChatGPT or Gemini.
Keep the answers short and direct, two to four sentences each. A rambling answer buried in marketing language is harder for an AI engine to lift cleanly, and harder for a nervous patient to actually read.
Fix 4: Local business schema (the bit your competitors skip)
Schema is a small block of code that tells search engines and AI assistants exactly what your business is, in a format they don’t have to guess at. Most clinic websites don’t have it, which is precisely why it’s worth doing.
Your schema needs to cover your name, address and phone number, your opening hours, the treatments you offer, your review rating, and the area you serve.
You don’t need to write this by hand. Ask ChatGPT or Claude to scan your website and write local business schema covering those fields, then check it reads accurately for your clinic before you use it.
It goes in your site’s header, added through a plugin such as WPCode or your SEO plugin’s custom schema field if it has one. Once it’s live, validate it with Google’s Rich Results Test to make sure it’s been read correctly.
Fix 5: Google Search Console
Search Console is Google’s free tool for telling you what it actually sees on your site, and it takes about 10 minutes to set up.
Verify ownership of your domain, then submit your sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. From there you can see which pages are indexed (meaning Google has them in its results) and which aren’t.
Whenever you publish a new page or make a meaningful change to an existing one, use the URL inspection bar to request indexing. It doesn’t guarantee an instant crawl, but it puts your update at the front of the queue rather than waiting for Google to notice on its own.
Check back on your indexed pages every few weeks once it’s set up. It’s the clearest early warning you’ll get if something on the site has broken and Google has quietly stopped reading a page you rely on.
How long this takes and what to expect
Fixes 1 to 3 take an afternoon per page once you know the pattern. Schema and Search Console together take a couple of hours, most of it spent checking the details are right rather than doing anything complicated.
Be realistic about what happens next. Rankings move over weeks, not days. Nobody, including us, can promise a jump by next Tuesday, and anyone who does is selling you something.
This work is the foundation. The next module in this series covers citation building, which is how you get your clinic listed consistently across directories, and none of that pulls its weight if the website underneath it is weak.
Your checklist
- Write a title tag under 60 characters in the form “Service in Town | Clinic Name” for every page
- Write a meta description under 155 characters for every page
- Set one clear H1 per page that matches the title tag’s intent
- Mention your service and town in the first paragraph of each page
- Give every service its own dedicated page
- Pull 4 to 6 real patient questions from reception, enquiry emails or “People also ask”
- Add an FAQ section to every service page using those questions
- Generate local business schema covering name, address, phone, hours, treatments, rating and area served
- Add the schema to your site header and validate it with Google’s Rich Results Test
- Verify Search Console, submit your sitemap, and request indexing on new or updated pages
Do it yourself or get it done?
Straight answer: you can do all of this yourself. Nothing above requires a developer or a specialist agency, and the video walks through every step.
The real question is time. Fixes 1 to 3 have to be repeated for every single service page you run, and most clinics have more of those than they think. Multiply an afternoon by ten service pages and you’ll see why some owners hand it over rather than block out a fortnight.
Watch Part 5 for the full walkthrough: https://youtu.be/O3DOSFr9cgo
Or skip the DIY route and book a free marketing review: https://broxbourne.marketing/book-a-call/
We’ve also put together a free Local SEO Runbook you can work through at your own pace: Local SEO Runbook
Frequently asked questions
Does the meta description affect rankings?
Not directly, no. Google doesn’t use it as a ranking signal. But it’s the sales copy for your listing, and a clear, honest description that matches what someone’s searching for gets more clicks. More clicks on your result is itself something Google pays attention to.
Can I just add schema with a plugin?
Some SEO plugins generate basic schema automatically, but it’s often generic and misses treatment-specific detail. Using ChatGPT or Claude to write a tailored local business schema, then adding it via a plugin like WPCode, gets you a more accurate result worth the extra ten minutes.
How many keywords should one page target?
One main keyword per page, built around one service and one town. Trying to rank a single page for “physiotherapy,” “sports massage” and “back pain” all at once spreads it too thin and confuses Google about what the page is actually for. Give each its own page instead, and let the content naturally cover related terms.
Do I need a separate page for every treatment?
Yes, if the treatment brings in enquiries on its own. A page for physiotherapy and a separate page for sports massage will both outrank one page trying to cover both, because each can be written and structured around its own keyword and its own patient questions.
