Audit your podiatry website with these 47 verifiable checks

This checklist is for a podiatrist, practice manager, marketing lead, or agency reviewer who needs a repeatable way to verify the website rather than accept a generic SEO status report. It fits practices with 1-4 providers while remaining usable for a larger group when each genuine location and practitioner is checked against its own facts.

Run it when organic visibility is unclear, when an agency deliverable needs quality assurance, before approving a new content plan, or when a competitor comparison suggests gaps but does not explain their cause. For every checkpoint, keep the same audit record: evidence required, the page, profile, report, screenshot, or source record you inspected; pass or fail, the observable condition that decides the result; severity, how strongly the failure affects discoverability, accuracy, privacy, or the inquiry path; owner, the person who can actually correct it; corrective action, the specific change to make; and validation, the check that proves the change is live and still accurate.

Pass example: the practice name, address, and phone shown on the site match the corresponding verified business information that the practice intends patients to use. Fail example: a retired phone number or an old location remains visible on an important page or profile. The correction owner may be the practice manager, site editor, or local listings owner, and validation means reopening the live source and confirming the corrected information.

Use the related podiatry SEO research page when you need to reconcile the checklist with its existing evidence set. This checklist is a control document for finding and verifying gaps. It is not a substitute for a technical implementer, privacy review, advertising review, or professional judgment about medical content.

The 47 checks can be run as five implementation domains. Start with domain 1 when access, crawling, or core site behavior is uncertain; review 2 and 3 next because page quality and local practice information are directly visible to searchers; use 4 and 5 to verify authority evidence, reputation workflows, privacy, and advertising controls without treating any of them as a guaranteed ranking mechanism.

Domain 1: Technical foundation (12 points). Evidence can include live URL inspection, crawl output, indexation reports, rendered mobile pages, page performance diagnostics, HTTPS behavior, sitemap status, canonical handling, and internal-link paths. Pass only when the inspected item behaves as intended on the live site. Mark blocking crawl or indexation failures as critical; assign implementation to the developer or technical SEO owner; correct the underlying configuration; then rerun the same test and retain the new evidence.

Domain 2: Procedure and condition pages (15 points). Review title and heading accuracy, intent coverage, medical-content clarity, local relevance where genuine, navigation, calls to action, media text alternatives, and whether claims are supportable. Pass when the page accurately represents what the practice offers, answers the decision need it targets, and does not rely on unsupported outcome language. Content or medical-review owners correct gaps, and validation compares the published page with the approved source material and search presentation.

Domain 3: Local practice information and citations (12 points). Compare Google Business Profile and applicable directory records with the practice's current name, address, phone, hours, practitioner details, and services. A pass requires material facts to agree and genuine locations to be represented accurately. High-severity failures are records that can send a patient to the wrong place or phone number. The local listings owner corrects the authoritative record and then rechecks each affected live profile.

Domain 4: Authority and review controls (5 points). Inspect practitioner attribution, editorial ownership, source quality where claims need support, internal topic connections, and the review-request process. Pass when the evidence is visible, accurate, and not manufactured. Ask eligible patients consistently for honest feedback without incentives, discouraging negative feedback, or selecting only satisfied patients. The owner validates by reviewing the live page, workflow, and sample request language.

Domain 5: Privacy and healthcare advertising review (3 points). Inspect forms, testimonials, images, claims, disclosures, and the path by which patient information is collected or published. Pass only after the responsible reviewer confirms the implementation is appropriate for the practice and jurisdiction. SEO content cannot guarantee compliance, and responsible legal, medical, or regulatory reviewers remain required. Corrective work belongs with the practice, counsel, compliance owner, clinician, and developer as appropriate, followed by documented re-review.

A podiatry site can have pages for bunions, plantar fasciitis, heel pain, diabetic foot care, and other foot and ankle concerns while still failing the audit. The question is not whether a page exists. The question is whether the page is accurate, useful for the reader's decision stage, connected to the actual practice, and easy to validate.

Evidence required: the live page, the approved service scope, practitioner or clinical review where needed, Search Console query and page data when available, and the conversion path visible on mobile. Pass or fail: pass when the page clearly identifies the topic, explains what the practice can evaluate or provide without overstating outcomes, addresses common decision questions, and gives a working contact path. Severity: mark factual medical errors, unsupported outcome claims, or broken appointment paths higher than a minor formatting issue. Owner: content owner for structure, clinician or medical reviewer for medical accuracy, developer for technical defects. Corrective action: rewrite only the deficient part, correct the claim or navigation, and preserve the page's real scope. Validation: review the published page on desktop and mobile, test links or forms, and confirm approved wording is intact.

The source's existing 6-part page outline can be retained as an editorial QA sequence, not as a Google requirement: (1) define the condition or service in plain language; (2) explain signs or circumstances that may lead someone to seek professional evaluation without diagnosing the reader; (3) describe relevant care pathways the practice actually offers and acknowledge alternatives where appropriate; (4) explain what a consultation, treatment, or procedure may involve at a factual level; (5) set expectations about follow-up or recovery only when the practice has reviewed the wording; (6) explain practitioner, location, access, and next-step information that helps the reader decide whether to contact the practice. The source used 150-300 words as an operating range for each section. Treat that range as an editorial planning reference, not a ranking target; use the amount of copy needed to answer the question accurately and avoid padding.

For search-intent validation, compare the page with the actual queries and tasks it is meant to serve: understanding a condition, evaluating whether to seek care, comparing care options, finding a nearby podiatrist, or checking a specific practice. Do not manufacture local pages for nominal markets. Create a dedicated location page only for a genuine practice location with useful location-specific information.

Testimonials are optional evidence, not a required page component. If the practice publishes patient feedback, confirm the permission, privacy, editing, and advertising treatment with the responsible reviewers. Do not assume that removing names alone makes a testimonial compliant, and do not describe a particular outcome as typical unless the claim is properly supported.

Structured data should describe information that is already true and visible on the page. It is useful when it helps machines interpret the practice, practitioner, location, or other eligible content, but it should not be presented as a healthcare trust requirement, a direct ranking guarantee, or a special requirement for Google AI Overviews or other Google AI features.

Evidence required: the rendered page, the JSON-LD or other structured data actually delivered, the applicable schema vocabulary, and validation output. Pass or fail: pass when the markup matches visible content, uses a suitable type and properties, contains no fabricated reviews or credentials, and validates without material errors for the intended implementation. Severity: fabricated or materially inconsistent entities are high severity; an unused optional property is lower severity. Owner: developer or technical SEO owner, with practice or clinician review for factual identity and credential data. Corrective action: remove unsupported properties, correct mismatched values, or replace an unsuitable type. Validation: test the live version after deployment and compare parsed values with the page.

Common schema vocabulary that may be relevant includes Organization, MedicalBusiness, LocalBusiness, and review-related properties, but applicability depends on the page and current search-engine eligibility rules. The source previously stated a 10+ review threshold for star display. Treat that as an historical claim requiring source reconciliation, not as a current Google guarantee or implementation target. Do not add AggregateRating merely to seek stars, and do not mark up self-created or otherwise ineligible review information as though it qualifies for a search feature.

If the practice uses WordPress, implementation can be handled through (1) a plugin configuration that exposes the needed controls, (2) developer-managed markup, or (3) generated markup that a developer reviews and deploys. Whichever route is used, the pass condition is the same: the live code must represent the visible facts accurately and be testable after deployment.

FAQ content can still be useful to patients, but do not add or promote FAQPage markup as a route to a Google FAQ rich result. The former search feature is no longer something this checklist should promise. Keep the schema layer unchanged unless the site's separate technical process authorizes a change.

This section is an operational review aid, not legal, medical, or regulatory advice. Whether a specific website, form, testimonial, image, tracking setup, or advertising claim is compliant depends on the facts, the entities involved, applicable law, contracts, consent, and jurisdiction. The checklist can surface evidence for review, but it cannot determine legal status on its own.

The source used testimonial examples containing 6 weeks and April 15, 2023. Do not treat either wording pattern as automatically safe or unsafe. A health detail, date, image, identifier, or combination of details can require a context-specific privacy and authorization review. Likewise, advertising rules can differ across jurisdictions and professions, so a site-wide ban or permission should not be inferred from a generic example.

Checklist controls:

• (1) Patient stories and testimonials. Evidence: the published text, source authorization, editing history, and approval record. Pass: the responsible reviewer confirms the publication and wording are permitted and accurate. Severity: critical when protected or unauthorized information may be exposed. Owner: practice compliance or legal reviewer with the content owner. Corrective action: remove, redact, or revise the material as instructed. Validation: re-open the public page and confirm only the approved version remains.
• (2) Before-and-after or clinical images. Evidence: the image, consent or authorization record, caption, context, and claim language. Pass: the responsible reviewer confirms the use, labeling, and surrounding claims are appropriate. Severity: critical for unauthorized patient material. Owner: practice and compliance reviewer. Corrective action: remove or replace the asset and associated copy. Validation: inspect the live page and cached or syndicated copies under the practice's control.
• (3) Outcome and superiority claims. Evidence: each material claim and its substantiation or approved source. Pass: the claim is supportable, appropriately qualified, and approved for the applicable jurisdiction. Severity: high for guarantees, cure language, or unsupported superiority. Owner: medical, legal, or regulatory reviewer with marketing. Corrective action: revise or remove the claim. Validation: compare the live wording with the approved record.
• (4) Forms and patient data handling. Evidence: every form field, privacy notice, vendor flow, analytics or tracking behavior, storage path, and access control relevant to the submission. Pass: the responsible privacy and security reviewers approve the workflow. Severity: critical when sensitive information may be collected or disclosed improperly. Owner: practice privacy or security owner and developer. Corrective action: change fields, vendors, notices, routing, or tracking as directed. Validation: submit a controlled test and verify the expected data path.
• (5) Review requests and moderation. Evidence: request templates, recipient rules, incentives, routing, and moderation practice. Pass: eligible patients are asked consistently for honest feedback without incentives, discouraging negative feedback, or selecting only satisfied patients. Severity: high for review gating or manipulated review collection. Owner: practice manager or reputation owner. Corrective action: remove gating and standardize the request process. Validation: audit sample requests and the workflow after the change.

These checks support safer publishing and clearer governance, but they do not guarantee compliance. Responsible legal, medical, or regulatory reviewers remain required for the practice's actual implementation.

The checklist contains 47 items, but remediation should follow dependency and severity rather than a blanket publishing schedule. Start with failures that can prevent discovery, misdirect patients, publish inaccurate medical or practice information, expose privacy risk, or break the contact path. Lower-severity enhancements can follow after those controls pass.

Immediate triage:

• Practice identity and Google Business Profile. Evidence: verified profile and current practice records. Pass: material business facts match. Owner: practice or local listings manager. Corrective action: update the authoritative source and dependent citations. Validation: recheck the live profile and affected directories.
• Mobile task completion. Evidence: rendered pages on representative devices. Pass: users can read key content, open navigation, tap phone or appointment controls, and complete the intended contact action. Owner: developer. Corrective action: fix layout, interaction, or rendering defects. Validation: repeat the same tasks after deployment.
• Performance diagnostics. Evidence: current lab and field data where available. The source used 3+ seconds as an example threshold; treat it as an historical operating trigger, not an official ranking cutoff. Pass: material performance problems identified by the chosen diagnostic are resolved or documented. Owner: developer. Corrective action: address the measured bottleneck. Validation: rerun the same diagnostic under comparable conditions.
• Procedure-page opportunity. Evidence: query data, page inventory, service scope, and inquiry path. The source previously cited a 2-3x conversion comparison for certain procedure traffic. Preserve it only as an internal historical example requiring source reconciliation, not as a forecast for this practice. Pass: priority pages are selected from actual demand and practice relevance rather than the unsupported benchmark. Owner: SEO and content leads. Corrective action: improve the selected pages. Validation: inspect indexation, query coverage, engagement, and inquiry quality over an appropriate observation period.
• Directory accuracy. Evidence: Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Vitals, and other applicable records. Pass: the profiles the practice controls or can correct show current material information. Owner: listings manager. Corrective action: claim, update, or request corrections. Validation: verify the live records.

Planned remediation: use the source's 6-part procedure-page sequence as a content QA aid, validate structured data, review internal links, and standardize review requests. These tasks should have named owners and completion evidence rather than being marked done because a plugin or agency report says they exist.

Expansion after the foundation passes: competitive research, authoritative supporting content, and relevant link development can be planned from demonstrated gaps. The source suggested 10-15 supporting posts as a planning range. Do not treat that range as a publishing quota or ranking rule; scope content to genuine patient questions, practitioner expertise, and information the practice can maintain accurately.