A medical practice website is the site of a doctor's practice or private clinic that tells a patient within seconds which consultations and tests it offers, where, at what price or with which insurers, and how to book, together with the details regulators expect to see. We checked 29 websites of the most-reviewed medical centres and practices on Google Maps in Milan, Rome and Naples: only 3 mention the doctors' professional register on the home page and only 3 link to a price list (Visilay check, 10 November 2026).
Rebuilding a practice website looks like a branding job: photos of the consulting room, white coats, a "Specialties" page with thirty entries.
The mistakes we find most often are three:
- a phone number written out but not tappable, so on a phone the patient has to copy it by hand;
- insurers hidden in a PDF, when "do you accept my insurance?" is the first question a private patient asks;
- the required details missing: registration number, the responsible clinician, the clinic's regulatory status.
In our healthcare SEO guide we covered how patients search for a consultation. In our Google Ads guide for doctors we found that Keyword Planner shows no volume for 9 of 22 UK healthcare keywords, and that a single clinic site needs at least £30 a day to produce data you can act on.
So where does the website fit?
It is the page where both the map click and the paid click land. If the patient can't find a phone number, accepted insurers and a booking option there, you paid for that click for nothing.
Below you'll find what we found on 29 medical websites, what a practice website must show in Italy and in the UK, the pages and features that matter, when the website beats the directories and what it costs. Let's start with the data.
What we found on 29 medical websites (3 mention the professional register)
On 10 November 2026 we took, for Milan, Rome and Naples, the 10 businesses with the most Google Maps reviews in the medical centre, clinic and doctor categories, within 3 km of the city centre (DataForSEO Business Listings). We left out hospitals, public facilities, dentists, physiotherapists and shops. One of the 30 uses its MioDottore booking profile as its website; we downloaded the other 29 home pages and checked their code and text.
| What we checked on the home page | Sites out of 29 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Text prompt to book | 20 | 69% |
| Tappable phone number ("tel:" link) | 17 | 59% |
| Contact form on the home page | 17 | 59% |
| Insurers, health funds or corporate agreements mentioned | 16 | 55% |
| Direct WhatsApp link | 12 | 41% |
| Medical director named | 12 | 41% |
| Medical or local business structured data | 9 | 31% |
| At least one figure in euros (share capital excluded) | 7 | 24% |
| Link to MioDottore, Doctolib, iDoctors or Top Doctors | 4 | 14% |
| Online test results access | 4 | 14% |
| "Free" consultation or screening | 4 | 14% |
| Medical register or registration mentioned in the text | 3 | 10% |
| Link to a price list | 3 | 10% |
The standout number is the register: 3 home pages out of 29 mention it. The medical director is named on 12.
A patient, a regulator or an AI checking a site in thirty seconds looks at the home page and the footer first. One site in the sample does exactly what it should: at the bottom of the home page, next to the VAT number, it gives the medical director's name and registration number with the Milan medical association, on one line.
Second: a tappable phone number on 17 sites out of 29. In Naples, on 2 out of 9.
On a phone, a number you can't tap is a patient who goes back to Google and calls the next clinic.
Third: 16 sites out of 29 mention insurers, health funds or corporate agreements, the Italian equivalent of "insurance accepted".
And prices? 7 sites show at least one figure in euros (share capital excluded), 3 link to a price list.
What a practice website must show (Italian rules and their UK equivalents)
A doctor's or clinic's website is health advertising, so the rules come from the law, from professional ethics and from the regulator.
In Italy, paragraph 525 of Law 145/2018 limits health communications to factual information, "excluding any promotional or suggestive element", and paragraph 536 requires private health facilities to have a medical director (text in the FNOMCeO letter on health advertising). Article 56 of the Italian code of medical ethics allows information on qualifications, services and fees. Local medical associations, such as the Parma one, ask for the registration number and VAT number on the site and allow published fees.
In the UK the equivalents are different but just as specific:
- CQC-registered providers with a rating must show it on every website they maintain, with a link to the CQC page, under regulation 20A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014;
- medical claims in ads and on your site fall under section 12 of the CAP Code: objective claims must be backed by evidence;
- health data from contact forms is special category data under Article 9 of the UK GDPR.
So is it the same for a single doctor and for a clinic?
No. A single doctor shows their own registration. A clinic also shows who is clinically responsible and its regulatory status: in our Italian sample, 12 sites out of 29 name the medical director on the home page.
And "free"? 4 Italian sites out of 29 promise a free consultation or screening. In Italy that is exactly the promotional element the law excludes. Stating the price, even a low one, is information.
The pages a medical website needs (and the insurers page 13 sites skip)
Few pages, each tied to a real search, and different for a single doctor and a clinic.
Single doctor:
- home page with specialty, town or area, tappable phone number and hours above the fold;
- one page per service that brings in revenue: "urology consultation", "prostate ultrasound", not "Services";
- about me, with qualifications, registration and a real photo;
- fees and where I practise.
Clinic or multi-specialty centre:
- service, specialist and location pages, linked to one another;
- an insurers page: health insurers, company schemes, partner organisations;
- clinical governance and regulatory details in the footer.
How to build service, location and specialist pages is in our healthcare SEO guide. The page almost nobody treats as a page is the insurers page.
In the Italian sample 16 sites out of 29 mention insurers, often as a strip of logos or a PDF. Yet it is how a private patient filters: if their insurer isn't listed, they go elsewhere. An insurers page written as text (insurer name, services covered, whether pre-authorisation is needed) answers that question and searches like "clinic that accepts" plus the insurer's name.
The technical base is the same as any SEO-friendly website, but one element is often missing: only 9 sites out of 29 have medical or local business structured data, the markup that tells Google and AI tools that this address and these hours belong to this clinic.
Booking, online results and forms (and the health data they collect)
In the sample a booking prompt appears on 20 sites out of 29, a contact form on 17, WhatsApp on 12, and a link to MioDottore, Doctolib, iDoctors or Top Doctors on only 4, while 4 offer online test results.
A single doctor can rely on a booking widget connected to the site; a clinic with thirty specialists needs a proper booking system or a clearly signposted phone line.
What about online results?
That's a diagnostic centre feature. Whoever offers it is handing over health data, so access must be protected, not a PDF by email. The same applies to the contact form.
If the form asks why the patient wants an appointment, it collects health data. In practice:
- make the "reason" field optional, with a note asking people not to include clinical details;
- write a privacy notice for the practice, not the theme's default one (20 of the 29 sites run on WordPress);
- treat enquiries arriving by email as health data: who reads them, where they are kept, for how long.
The details belong with your data protection adviser. A form copied from a restaurant website, on a clinic, is a risk nobody sees until a patient makes a subject access request.
Does your clinic's website answer the questions patients ask on the phone?
On 29 websites of the most-reviewed clinics and practices in Milan, Rome and Naples, 26 don't mention the professional register on the home page and 12 have no tappable phone number. Let's review yours: required details, insurers, forms and booking.
Book a strategy callWebsite or directory? (for "medical centre" in Naples, clinic sites win 7 out of 10)
On 10 November 2026 we read the mobile results for "centro medico milano", "centro medico roma" and "centro medico napoli" (medical centre + city), geolocated in each city.
| Mobile search (Italy) | AI Overview | Map pack with 4 listings | Clinic websites in the top 10 | MioDottore and Doctolib results | Social profiles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| centro medico milano | yes | yes | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| centro medico roma | yes | yes | 6 | 3 | 1 |
| centro medico napoli | yes | yes | 7 | 2 | 1 |
For "medical centre + city", clinic websites are the majority: 6, 6 and 7 out of 10. Directories (MioDottore and Doctolib) take 2 or 3 positions, social profiles 1 or 2.
It is the opposite of what we found for dentists: in our dental practice website guide, for "dentista napoli" there wasn't a single practice site on page one.
So the directory is useless?
No, it does a different job. Directories bring bookings for single appointments; the website wins searches for the clinic and for the service. The sensible setup: the directory for booking, the website as home base, with every external profile and the Google Business Profile pointing to it. For the profile see our guides to Google Business Profile optimisation and getting Google reviews.
How much a medical practice website costs (public price lists, and what they leave out)
In Italy a website for a medical practice starts at €1,000-2,000 according to the public price list of Eezyweb, which has a page for doctors with three packages "from" (checked on 10 November 2026):
- brochure site from €1,000;
- dynamic site from €1,500;
- marketing site from €2,000.
None of the eight Italian agency pages we read on page one for "sito web per medici" publishes a price; Sitipermedici.net asks for your budget in four bands, from under €1,000 to over €2,500. For prices across sectors, our comparison of 10 price lists is in how much a website costs.
What do the price lists leave out?
Three items a medical website pays for anyway:
- the copy for service and insurer pages, which no package writes with your fees and your insurers;
- the privacy notice and cookie banner, adapted to health data;
- call and booking tracking, with no health data in it, or you won't know how many patients the site brings.
If the site exists and enquiries don't arrive, the problem is rarely the price: it is usually one of the reasons a website is not generating leads. How to turn visits into enquiries is in our guide to lead generation for doctors.
What an AI reads when a patient looks for a clinic (AI Overview on 3 searches out of 3)
Google showed an AI Overview on all three "medical centre + city" results pages we read on 10 November 2026, and also for "sito web per medici". In Naples it listed six facilities and cited Google Business Profiles, three clinic websites, a Facebook page and MioDottore as sources.
ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overview cross-check these sources. The website counts when it states verifiable facts plainly: address, services, clinicians with qualifications and registration, insurers, hours, fees. The same information regulators ask for.
Nobody can guarantee a citation. But a site without described services, named clinicians or accepted insurers gives an AI fewer reasons to name you, and more reasons to cite a directory. Our test on nine local searches is in the article on local AI visibility.
The sector numbers are in our healthcare marketing analysis. If you need to rebuild the site, that's what our web development service does: patient searches and required details first, design second. Examples of sites built to bring enquiries are in our projects.
Medical practice website FAQs
Yes. In Italy article 56 of the code of medical ethics includes fees among the information doctors can publish, and the Parma medical association allows published fees as long as the price is not the only content of the message.
Yes. In England a CQC-registered provider with a rating must display it on every website it maintains under regulation 20A, and in Italy local medical associations ask for the registration number and the medical director.
Yes, but then it collects health data, which Article 9 of the UK GDPR treats as special category data. Make the field optional, ask people not to include clinical details and write a privacy notice for the practice.
No. For medical centre plus city searches in Milan, Rome and Naples, clinic websites took 6 or 7 of the top 10 organic results and directories 2 or 3 (results read on 10 November 2026).
Medical practice websites, in short (and the check to do today)
Professional register on the home page: 3 Italian sites out of 29.
Medical director named: 12 out of 29.
Tappable phone number: 17 out of 29, in Naples 2 out of 9.
For "medical centre + city", clinic websites beat directories: 6-7 results out of 10.
The idea to take away: for a dental practice the website competes with directories and often loses; for a clinic the website can win the search, but only if it answers the questions patients ask on the phone. Insurers, fees, who the doctor is. Search for your clinic on your phone today and time how long it takes to find out whether it accepts your insurer.
