How Google picks the map pack
When someone searches "physio near me" or "dentist in Byron", Google shows a short list of nearby businesses with a map. Google says it ranks these local results mainly on relevance, distance and prominence: how well a listing matches the search, how far it is from the searcher, and how well known the business is, including its reviews.
Most of what holds clinics back has nothing to do with clever marketing. It is inconsistency, the kind that makes Google, and AI tools that draw on the same information, less sure about a clinic.
Say the same thing everywhere
One phone number, everywhere
A common problem: a call button that dials a different number than the page shows. Patients reach the wrong line, and Google sees conflicting information.
Check: tap every call button on your site from your phone, then compare the number with your Google profile, booking page and main directories.
The same hours on every page
Two sites showed two different sets of opening hours. A patient who drives over and finds you closed rarely comes back, and sometimes leaves a review about it.
Check: compare the hours on your homepage, contact page, footer and Google profile, and add holiday hours on Google before each long weekend.
Your real name, and nothing else
Google's guidelines say your Business Profile name should match your real-world name, the one on your sign. Stuffing in keywords like "Best Physio London" can get a listing suspended.
Check: compare your profile name with your signage and your website header.
The most specific category, and only the ones that fit
Your primary category tells Google what you are. Google asks businesses to choose as few categories as possible, so each one should describe something you really offer.
Check: make sure your primary category names your profession, then remove secondary categories you don't actually provide.
Match what patients search
A page for each service you want to be found for
Someone searching "pelvic floor physiotherapy" or "emergency dentist" wants that service. A single list of services gives Google very little to match.
Check: name the five services that bring in your best patients. Each should have its own page with a clear title.
Only the places you actually serve
Two sites we checked named towns where the practice has no clinic. It confuses patients and does nothing to fool Google.
Check: read your footer and service pages for town and neighbourhood names, and keep the ones your patients really come from.
Words that are yours
Template websites often share page copy word for word with competing practices. Search engines have little reason to rank a page that already exists somewhere else.
Check: paste a sentence from your homepage into Google inside quotation marks. If another clinic's site comes up, rewrite that page.
Earn trust
Reviews that keep coming, and a reply to each
Reviews are a big part of prominence, and AI tools draw on them when they suggest a clinic. A steady flow beats a burst. Check the review rules in your profession's Ontario advertising standard first; they differ a lot between professions. Only message patients who have agreed to hear from you, and never offer anything in exchange for a review.
Check: look at the dates of your last ten Google reviews, and whether each one has a reply.
Reviews that search engines can read
Three sites showed reviews as an image, or in a widget that loaded empty for search engines. If a crawler can't read the words, they add nothing it can use. This applies where your profession's standard allows reviews on your site; dentists and optometrists shouldn't show them at all.
Check: try to select the text of a review on your site with your cursor. If you can't, neither can Google.
Real photos, kept current
Patients want to see the space and the people before they walk in. Stock images tell them nothing.
Check: replace stock photos with your team, entrance and treatment rooms, and add new photos to your Google profile every few months.
A Book Now button on Google
Every step between finding you and booking loses patients. If you use Jane, Reserve with Google adds a Book Now button to your listing that goes straight to your Jane booking page.
Check: search your clinic's name on your phone. If there's no way to book from the listing, fix that first.
Nothing stale
Two sites still showed copyright years from 2022 and 2024. Old notices and expired offers tell patients, and search engines, that nobody is looking after the site.
Check: scan your homepage and footer for old dates, pandemic notices and offers that have ended.