The Practices That Win Local Search Do These Three Things Differently

When someone types "internist near me" or "pediatrician in [city name]", Google returns two distinct result types: the map pack (three local business listings with a map) and the organic blue links below it. For most patient-acquisition queries, the map pack gets the majority of attention.

Google decides which practices appear in the map pack using three factors:

• Proximity — how close the practice is to the searcher's location at the moment of the query
• Relevance — how well your Google Business Profile and website match what the patient searched for
• Prominence — how well-known and trusted your practice appears across the web, including reviews, citations, and links

Proximity is largely outside your control. Relevance and prominence are not. That's where optimization work concentrates.

One thing many practices get wrong: they treat GBP and their website as separate efforts. Google uses signals from both together. A well-optimized GBP with a weak website will cap your ranking potential. A strong website with a neglected GBP profile will leave map pack positions to competitors who've done the basics.

The practices that hold strong local positions tend to have done the unglamorous work: accurate business information everywhere it appears online, a GBP profile that's genuinely complete (not just the required fields), and a steady cadence of patient reviews. None of this is complicated. Most practices simply haven't prioritized it systematically.

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the single highest-use asset in local SEO for a medical practice. It controls what appears when patients search your name, when they search your specialty, and when they look for doctors near them on Google Maps.

Here's what a properly optimized medical GBP includes:

• Primary and secondary categories — Your primary category should be as specific as possible (e.g., "Cardiologist" rather than "Doctor"). Secondary categories cover adjacent services patients search for.
• Business description — 750 characters that describe what you treat, who you serve, and what sets your approach apart. Avoid vague language; be specific about conditions and patient types.
• Services and service areas — List specific procedures and conditions, not just department names. Many practices leave this section empty, which costs them relevance signals.
• Photos — Exterior, interior, and team photos all contribute to engagement signals. Profiles with current, genuine photos see meaningfully higher click-through rates in our experience.
• Hours and attributes — Accurate hours matter more than most practices realize. After-hours or weekend availability attributes can differentiate you from competitors in filtered searches.
• Q&A section — Seed this section yourself with questions patients actually ask. Left unmanaged, anyone can post questions — and answer them incorrectly.

GBP posts (updates, events, offers) contribute to profile activity signals. Publishing a post once or twice per month keeps your profile fresh without requiring significant effort.

One category mistake worth calling out: selecting too broad a primary category (e.g., "Medical Clinic") when a specific specialty category exists. Google uses your primary category to match your profile to specialty-specific searches. Choosing the wrong one is a quiet ranking suppressor.

A citation is any online mention of your practice's name, address, and phone number (NAP). Citations appear in general directories like Yelp, healthcare-specific directories like Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Vitals, and WebMD, and in local business databases that feed into map applications.

Google cross-references your NAP data across these sources. When the data is consistent, it reinforces trust in your business information. When it's inconsistent — a different phone number on Healthgrades, a suite number listed on some directories but not others, an old address from a previous location — Google treats your information as less reliable.

In our experience, inconsistent citation data is one of the most common and underappreciated local ranking suppressors for medical practices. It's particularly common in practices that have moved locations, changed their name, or merged with another group.

The citation audit process involves three steps:

1. Identify all existing citations — Use a citation audit tool or manual search to find every place your practice appears online
2. Standardize your NAP format — Decide on one exact format for your name, address, and phone and apply it everywhere
3. Claim and correct priority directories — Start with healthcare-specific directories (Healthgrades, Vitals, Zocdoc, WebMD, US News Health) and then move to general directories

Beyond the major directories, specialty-specific association directories (state medical society listings, hospital staff directories, specialty board directories) carry citation authority that general directories don't. These are often overlooked and represent a genuine differentiation opportunity.

Citation management is maintenance work, not a one-time task. When your practice adds a location, changes its name, or updates its phone number, the citation audit cycle starts again.

Patient reviews do two distinct jobs in local SEO. First, they are a ranking signal — review volume, recency, and the presence of relevant keywords in review text all contribute to prominence in Google's local algorithm. Second, they are a conversion signal — patients read reviews before booking, and a practice with 12 reviews competes poorly against one with 180, regardless of where each ranks.

The review challenge for medical practices has a HIPAA dimension: you cannot reference patient-specific information in your responses, even to correct a factually inaccurate review. This doesn't mean you can't respond — it means your response must be generic, acknowledge the concern, and invite the patient to contact you privately. (For detailed guidance on HIPAA-compliant review responses, refer to your practice's compliance counsel — this page covers general SEO principles, not legal advice.)

On the generation side, the most reliable approach is a simple, systematic ask. Many practices that lack reviews aren't providing poor care — they simply never ask. A post-visit text or email with a direct link to your Google review page removes the friction that stops most patients from leaving feedback.

Key review principles for medical practices:

• Recency matters — a burst of 50 reviews two years ago carries less weight than 5 reviews per month consistently
• Google reviews have the most direct local ranking impact; Healthgrades and Zocdoc reviews matter for conversion on those platforms
• Responding to reviews (positive and negative) signals active management to both Google and prospective patients
• Never offer incentives for reviews — this violates Google's guidelines and, in healthcare, may trigger additional regulatory concerns

Industry benchmarks suggest that practices with active review generation programs reach meaningful review volume faster than those relying on organic, unsolicited reviews alone. The gap between practices that ask and those that don't tends to widen over 12-18 months.

GBP optimization gets a practice into the local conversation. Your website's local content reinforces and amplifies that signal. Google uses your website as a corroborating source — when your site's content aligns with your GBP data and targets local search terms, it strengthens your overall local authority.

For single-location practices, the most impactful on-site local SEO work includes:

• A location page that includes your full address, embedded map, parking/transit information, and locally relevant content (neighborhoods you serve, nearby landmarks)
• Title tags and H1 headings that include your specialty and city (e.g., "Rheumatologist in Austin, TX — [Practice Name]")
• Schema markup for LocalBusiness and Physician structured data — this helps Google understand your location and specialty at a machine-readable level
• Content that addresses condition and treatment queries specific to your local patient population

For multi-location practices, this becomes a more complex architecture problem. Each location needs its own dedicated page — not a single "Locations" page with all addresses listed together. Each location page should be optimized for that city or neighborhood, with location-specific content rather than copy-pasted text across locations.

Multi-location practices also need a separate, fully verified GBP profile for each physical location. Trying to serve multiple locations from a single GBP profile suppresses performance for every location involved. The doctor SEO hub includes a dedicated section on multi-location strategy for larger group practices.

One often-missed opportunity: pages targeting specific conditions or procedures combined with a city name (e.g., "knee replacement surgery in Denver"). These hyper-specific pages can rank for high-intent queries that a general homepage or even a location page won't capture.

Local SEO for medical practices is not immediate. The foundational work — GBP optimization, citation cleanup, review generation — takes time to register in Google's systems. In our experience, practices typically see meaningful map pack movement within 3-5 months of consistent, structured optimization work. That range varies based on market competition, how far the starting point is from the baseline, and how consistently the work is executed.

The metrics worth tracking on a monthly basis:

• GBP Insights — search impressions, map views, website clicks, direction requests, and phone calls originating from your profile
• Map pack position — track your ranking for 5-10 priority search queries using a local rank tracker, since rankings vary by searcher location
• Review velocity — total reviews, monthly new reviews, and average rating across platforms
• Citation consistency score — available through citation audit tools; a useful baseline to track improvement
• Local organic rankings — how your website pages rank for city + specialty and city + condition queries

One measurement trap: relying solely on Google Search Console for local performance data. GSC captures website traffic but misses a significant portion of GBP interactions (calls, direction requests, map views) that never result in a website visit. GBP Insights and a local rank tracker together give a more complete picture.

If you're evaluating whether local SEO is working, the right leading indicators are GBP impressions and map pack visibility — not booked appointments, which lag by weeks or months as patients research, compare, and decide. Appointment volume is the outcome; search visibility is what you're building toward.

For practices ready to move from strategy to execution, our local SEO services for physician practices cover GBP optimization, citation management, and local content as a coordinated program.