"Doctify" is searched 8,100 times a month in the UK, almost as often as "dermatologist london" (9,900). On the SERP for "dermatologist london", searched from London, the first element on the page is a "find results on" carousel of directories: Top Doctors, Doctify, Cylex, Facebook and Doklist. Only after that come the local pack and the first clinic website (DataForSEO, Google UK, September 2026).
Healthcare marketing in the UK is the job of being found while staying within strict rules on how medical services are advertised, on a first page whose top belongs to the booking and review platforms. The real choice is not whether to be on Doctify or Top Doctors: it is how many patients can reach you without going through them.
Below are the platform numbers, what the rules allow you to write and the split between channels we apply to the practices we work with.
The platforms have won the top of the page, not the trust
Doctify ranks for 72,752 keywords in the UK, 142 of them in first position, for organic traffic that would cost £547,184 a month to buy through Google Ads. Top Doctors ranks for 79,519 with 114 first positions, worth £449,541 a month (DataForSEO, Google UK, September 2026; values converted from USD at £1 = $1.3242). No single practice gets anywhere near those numbers, and none will.
In the UK, though, the platforms have not taken the whole page. On "dermatologist london" every organic result below the carousel is a provider's own site: The London Clinic, HCA Healthcare UK, the Harley Street Dermatology Clinic, a consultant's personal site (Dr Kara Heelan), The Devonshire Clinic, Guy's and St Thomas' Specialist Care and others. A well-built practice website still competes here, and that is the part of the page worth fighting for.
This does not make the platforms a mistake. It makes them a paid acquisition channel, to be counted as such: every patient who arrives that way has a cost, and the question to ask every quarter is how many of those patients already knew the practice's name. Check where the booking button on your own Google listing points: if it sends patients to a platform profile, they enter from a search for your name and land in a directory where they also see your competitors.
What the rules allow you to write
Two sets of rules apply to doctors and clinics in the UK. GMC guidance requires the information you publish about your services to be factual and verifiable, and not to exploit patients' vulnerability or lack of medical knowledge; for cosmetic interventions it also rules out financial inducements such as discounts, time-limited or two-for-one offers. The ads themselves fall under the CAP Code, enforced by the ASA, whose section on health claims requires evidence for objective claims and bans advertising prescription-only medicines to the public.
In practice, this rules out exactly the language marketing usually relies on: superlatives you cannot prove, pressure offers, promises of results, claims that a treatment is risk-free. Everything else remains, and it is also what patients are really looking for: what a procedure is, how it works, how long it takes, how much it costs, who performs it and with what qualifications.
For once, the regulatory limit and real demand point the same way. The four questions Google shows under "dermatologist london" are "How much does a dermatologist cost in London?", "Can I self refer to an NHS dermatologist?", "Is it better to go to a private dermatologist?" and "What are the signs you should see a dermatologist?". Three out of four are about price and access.
Google hides the volumes of healthcare keywords
There is a technical limit to know before setting up any plan. Of seventeen healthcare keywords we queried for the UK, eleven returned no data at all, including private dermatologist london, gynaecologist london, private gp london, private gp near me, gp near me, blood test london, private blood test and psychologist london. Google Ads hides the volume of a large share of health searches.
The ones that do return data still give the order of magnitude: "dentist near me" 246,000 searches a month with a cost per click of £3.97, "dermatologist london" 9,900 at £4.86, "nutritionist london" 1,000 at £3.74, "cardiologist london" 720 at £7.73 (DataForSEO, Google Ads UK, September 2026; CPC converted from USD at £1 = $1.3242).
The consequence is that in healthcare you don't plan on volumes, you plan on services: start from the list of services the practice delivers at a margin and build one page for each, checking interest in Search Console data afterwards, not before.
Further reading: SEO for medical practices and clinics.
The seasonality almost nobody uses
Healthcare searches have regular peaks. "Dentist near me" goes from 201,000 searches in December 2025 to 301,000 in January and March 2026, the same level as September and October 2025. "Nutritionist london" reaches 1,600 in September and November 2025 and drops to 590 between June and August 2026: people decide to get back on track after the summer and at the start of the year.
A diary that needs filling therefore has windows where acquisition costs least, January, March and September, and periods where it pays to scale back, the summer months and December. Practices that spend the same all year round pay more for the same patients.
The local pack is worth as much as a platform
The local pack for "dermatologist london" shows three listings: City Dermatology Clinic London with 4.9 stars and 794 reviews, The London Skin and Hair Clinic with 4.6 and 500, De Felipe Dermatology Clinic London with 4.9 and 507.
Those are low review counts compared with other sectors: in London's restaurant local pack the same block shows venues with 5,000 to 8,000 reviews. In healthcare a few hundred are enough, because asking a patient for a review is more delicate and almost nobody does it methodically. It means the entry threshold is within reach, and outside London it is usually lower still: building up a few hundred reviews is a matter of months of steady asking, not years.
It has to be done carefully: ask for reviews, yes, but without incentives and without selecting only satisfied patients, a practice that Google's policies prohibit and that sits badly with professional standards.
How to split the channels
The structure that works has three levels, and it should be read as a sequence in time before it is read as a budget.
The level that holds everything up is local presence: a Google listing for each site, opening hours and services kept up to date, reviews requested consistently. This is the part that brings in patients from the area and carries no commission.
The second is the website, with one page per service and its price. It serves the searches where the patient is weighing up options, and it helps you get cited by AI assistants, which on health questions prefer sources that state who wrote them and with what qualifications.
The third is paid channels, booking platforms and Google Ads, which fill empty diaries while the first two grow. They are the fastest and the most expensive: if they are still the only channel after two years, the problem lies in the other two.
Frequently asked questions
Can we publish the prices of our services?
Yes: price is information, and one of the things patients search for most. What you should avoid is presenting it as a promotion, with time-limited discounts or "this month only" offers, which GMC guidance explicitly rules out for cosmetic interventions. The line is in the tone, not in the figure.
Is it worth being on Doctify or Top Doctors?
For visibility, yes: they sit at the top of the page on most specialist searches, and Doctify alone is searched by name 8,100 times a month. The caution is about dependence: if the booking button on your Google listing leads to a platform, you may be paying a fee even on patients who were looking for you specifically.
Can an individual doctor market themselves like a clinic?
With the same rules but different levers. A clinic competes on services and locations, an individual consultant competes on their name and demonstrated expertise: publications, explained cases, signed patient information. On "dermatologist london" a single consultant's personal website ranks on the first page among hospitals and large clinics.
Does a healthcare practice need social media?
For trust, not for direct acquisition: it works as proof that there is a competent person behind the name, and patients look at it after finding you elsewhere. The same rules on healthcare communication apply there, and they are broken far more often on social media than on websites.
How do you measure return when you cannot track the patient?
You measure enquiries, not treatments: calls, online bookings and forms sent, split by channel. Patients' health data must never be sent to advertising tools, and the one question asked at reception (how did you hear about us?) is worth more than half of your analytics.
Where to start
Take your last fifty first appointments and split them by how they came in: word of mouth, platform, Google, existing patients. If the platform share is above 40%, your acquisition cost is rising without you noticing, because the fee goes through the accounts rather than the marketing budget. The first step in that case is not to spend more: it is to publish a page with price and process for each of the services that fill the diary. If you want us to look at your practice's numbers, get in touch.
