Someone who needs an appointment does not search for a doctor's name. They search "cardiologist london", "private doctor near me" (5,400 searches a month in the UK), "dermatologist london" (9,900). And on the first page of Google for "private gp london" there are eight results from private clinics and one directory: no NHS page, no national chain. It is one of the few sectors where a single practice still reaches page one with its own website.
Healthcare SEO for a medical practice, a private clinic or a multi-specialty centre is the work that puts the practice on page one when a patient searches for a treatment, a specialty or a clinic in their town, and that gets it into the local pack and Google's AI answers. It differs from SEO for any other website in three ways: the pages that rank are treatment pages and location pages, the Google Business Profile carries as much weight as the site, and what you are allowed to write is governed by professional guidance and advertising rules.
Below: what we measured on UK medical SERPs in September 2026 (DataForSEO, Google UK), how a health publisher like Bupa and a clinic network like London Doctors Clinic rank, and what a practice with one or five sites can copy. Dentists and psychologists have their own guides: SEO for dentists and SEO for psychologists.
How patients search: two SERPs that behave differently
We analysed two typical searches on 26 September 2026, desktop, Google UK. They behave differently, and the difference decides where the work should go.
"cardiologist london" opens with an AI Overview, followed by a "Find results on" carousel of directories (Top Doctors, Doctify, Cylex, Doklist) and a local pack of three listings: Dr Francesco Lo Monaco on Harley Street (379 reviews, rating 5.0), London Cardiovascular Clinic (238 reviews, 5.0) and Heart Health at Welbeck (105 reviews, 4.8). Of the nine organic results only one is a directory (Top Doctors, fourth); the other eight are cardiologists, clinics and hospitals, from One Heart Clinic in first place to Cleveland Clinic London and Cromwell Hospital. Ads: none.
"private gp london" has no AI Overview. It opens with a local pack of three listings (Private Medical Clinic in Portman Square and two sites of Private GP Surgery). The nine organic results are eight private practices and one directory, Find A Private GP, in eighth place. Several of the ranking pages are service pages rather than home pages: home visits, membership plans, same-day appointments. Ads: none here either.
| Search | AI Overview | Local pack | Directories in top 10 | Individual providers | Ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cardiologist london | yes, at the top | yes, 3 listings | 1 of 9 (plus a directory carousel) | 8 of 9 | 0 |
| private gp london | no | yes, 3 listings | 1 of 9 | 8 of 9 | 0 |
Here is how to read it. For a specialist search ("specialty + town") the treatment page has to be clear enough for the AI Overview to cite it, and the directories take a whole row above the local pack. For a practice search ("private GP + town") the Google Business Profile and the service pages win. They are two different jobs. You need both.
On directories: Top Doctors and Doctify appear twice on "cardiologist london" (in the carousel and, for Top Doctors, in the organic results). The profile on those platforms is worth keeping, because many patients compare consultants there. But if the treatment page on your own site has less content than your directory profile, Google ranks the directory, and the patient who was looking for you by name books through someone else's page.
One limitation to state: these are two SERPs, on one day, on desktop, with UK-wide location. On mobile or from a specific postcode the local pack changes, and the AI Overview can appear on the second search too.
Recommended reading: how to read search intent from a SERP.
Why the Bupa model can't be copied (and the London Doctors Clinic one can)
The most common advice in healthcare marketing is "start a health blog, like the big brands do". The numbers show why it does not work for a normal practice.
Bupa.co.uk ranks for 115,336 organic keywords in the UK, with estimated traffic of 3,282,465 visits a month. Among its 50 highest-traffic keywords, 32 are informational and none is a private treatment combined with a town. The top ones are "bmi calculator" and its variants (1,000,000 searches a month each), "electrolytes" (165,000) and "lower back pain" searches (60,500), all served by the health information hub and the newsroom. The place names in its top 50 are care homes and hospital directory pages (John Radcliffe, St George's, Cromwell Hospital), not clinic pages.
That is a publisher's strategy: thousands of articles, a clinical editorial team, years of publishing and a national brand. And the person in Leeds who reads "what are electrolytes" is not going to book a consultation in London.
The realistic model is London Doctors Clinic: 2,663 organic keywords and around 49,700 estimated visits a month, sixty-six times less than Bupa. But its traffic comes from searches that end in a booking. It ranks second for "doctors near me" (49,500 searches a month) and "gp private near me" (14,800, CPC £3.89), first for "private general practitioners london" (2,900, CPC £7.41) and "private x-ray near me" (1,900). In its top 50 keywords, 19 contain "near me" or a place, and the location pages rank first for their own names: "london doctors clinic canary wharf" and "london doctors clinic london bridge" (1,600 searches each), "london doctors clinic kings cross" (1,300). It has one blog post that brings a lot of traffic ("ibuprofen vs paracetamol"), but the rest of the top 50 is service pages, blood test pages and clinic pages.
| Domain | Organic keywords | Estimated visits/month | Informational kw out of 50 | Kw with "near me" or a place out of 50 | Brand kw out of 50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bupa.co.uk | 115,336 | 3,282,465 | 32 | 11 (care homes, hospital directory) | 7 |
| londondoctorsclinic.co.uk | 2,663 | 49,672 | 32 | 19 | 4 |
London Doctors Clinic has a page for each clinic and a page for each service, and it ranks for searches that end in an appointment. It is the model for a network of clinics and, on a smaller scale, for a practice with a single site.
Recommended reading: how company size changes SEO strategy.
Which keywords to target, and why Keyword Planner misleads you here
Healthcare has an obstacle that other sectors do not: Google Ads does not return volume or CPC for many medical keywords.
We checked 20 treatment, specialty and practice keywords for the UK ("cardiologist london", "private gp london", "private blood test london", "dermatologist near me" and similar): 12 have volume and CPC, 8 come back empty, including "private cardiologist london", "private gp london", "private gp near me" and "private ultrasound london". Yet "gp private near me", a word-order variant, shows up in the London Doctors Clinic data with 14,800 searches a month. Anyone doing keyword research for a medical practice from Keyword Planner alone concludes that nobody looks for a private GP in London. That is false: a SERP with a local pack, eight clinics and a directory does not exist without demand.
| Keyword | Searches/month | CPC |
|---|---|---|
| dermatologist near me | 33,100 | £2.33 |
| dermatologist london | 9,900 | £4.86 |
| private doctor near me | 5,400 | £4.19 |
| book gp appointment online | 5,400 | £2.29 |
| medical centre near me | 4,400 | £1.90 |
| private clinic near me | 2,400 | £4.48 |
| trichologist near me | 2,400 | £3.60 |
| nutritionist london | 1,000 | £3.74 |
| private clinic london | 880 | £9.90 |
| cardiologist london | 720 | £7.73 |
| orthopaedic surgeon london | 210 | £4.43 |
| sports medicine doctor london | 170 | £4.57 |
| private cardiologist london, private dermatologist london, private gp london, private gp near me, private blood test london, private ultrasound london | no data | no data |
Instead of Keyword Planner, three sources work. The queries report in Google Search Console, with the real searches the site already appears for. The reception desk: the words patients use to ask for a treatment on the phone are the queries. And the related searches on the SERP, which for "cardiologist london" include "Cardiologist London NHS", "Private cardiologist london prices", "Best private cardiologist London" and "Cardiologist London Harley Street": they are about price, about NHS versus private, and about location.
The same gap appears outside London: for many "private + specialty + town" combinations the planner has no figure at all, and demand has to be estimated from Search Console and from the phone.
The pages that rank: treatment, location, clinician
A medical website that works has three types of page. Almost every site we audit has only one, usually the list of specialties.
The treatment page
One page for each bookable service: cardiology consultation, echocardiogram, dermatology consultation, abdominal ultrasound. Not a "Cardiology" page with a list. The People also ask boxes set the content: for "cardiologist london" they are "How much does it cost to see a cardiologist in the UK?" and "Can you go straight to a cardiologist?"; for "private gp london" three out of four are about price ("How much does a private GP cost in London?", "How much is private GP per month?", "Is it worth paying for a private GP?"). Some clinics already answer in the snippet: Mayfield Clinic shows "30 minutes | £220" in the result for "private gp london".
The page that ranks says: what is included, how long it takes, how much it costs, how to prepare, when the report arrives, at which site, who performs it, whether a GP referral is needed, how to book. That is the kind of information AI Overviews pull from treatment pages. Two lines and a phone number are not enough.
The location page
One page for each physical site: address, opening hours, parking or nearest station, services available there and clinicians who work there. It captures "brand + place" and "clinic + neighbourhood" searches. London Doctors Clinic's location pages rank first for "london doctors clinic canary wharf", "london bridge" and "kings cross", and second for "clinic victoria" (2,900 searches a month). If you have one site, this page is the home page.
The clinician page
One page for each doctor: name, specialty, GMC number, services, sites and days. It captures searches for the name (patients look up the consultant their GP referred them to) and gives the treatment page a verifiable author, which is what Google asks of health content in its quality rater guidelines. We explain it in what E-E-A-T means and how to demonstrate it.
The three pages link to each other: the treatment page links to the sites where it is offered and the doctors who perform it, the location page to its services, the doctor to theirs. This network of internal links is the structure of the site; Schema markup (MedicalClinic, Physician, MedicalProcedure) makes it readable for Google and AI assistants.
Recommended reading: how to build an SEO-friendly website.
Google Business Profile: the listing counts as much as the site
In the local pack for "cardiologist london" the reviews do not follow a simple rule: Heart Health at Welbeck is in with 105 reviews and 4.8, alongside two individual cardiologists with 379 and 238. Proximity to the searcher, the listing's category and how well the name and services match the query count, then reviews. A clinic with 40 genuine reviews and the right category beats one with 300 and the generic category "Doctor".
The working rules, drawn from the listings we see in the pack.
- One listing for each site, with the correct primary category ("Medical clinic", "Private hospital", "Medical diagnostic imaging centre") and secondary categories for the specialties.
- A working booking link: it turns the listing into an appointment without going through the site.
- Services added as "services", with the price where you choose to show it.
- Replies to every review, never mentioning the treatment received or any clinical detail.
- Photos of the rooms and entrances, not stock images.
Listings also feed the organic results: on "private gp london" Private GP Surgery takes two of the three local pack slots with two separate sites, each with its own listing.
Recommended reading: how to optimise your Google Business Profile and the local SEO guide.
What you can write: GMC guidance and the CAP Code
Medical SEO has a constraint that restaurant marketing does not: the content is regulated. Two references to read before writing a page.
The first is the GMC's Good medical practice, domain 4. Paragraph 89: any information a doctor communicates must be accurate, not false or misleading; doctors must take reasonable steps to check it, must not leave out relevant information, must not minimise risks of harm and must not present opinion as established fact. Paragraph 90, which covers advertising your services: you must declare conflicts of interest and must not exploit people's vulnerability or lack of medical knowledge.
The second is section 12 of the CAP Code, which the Advertising Standards Authority applies to marketing for treatments and health services, websites included. Rule 12.1: objective claims must be backed by evidence, where relevant trials on people. Rule 12.2: marketers must not discourage essential treatment for conditions that need medical supervision. Claims that a treatment is guaranteed to work or free of side effects need proof, and in practice are very hard to support. Complaints go to the ASA, which publishes its rulings.
Translated into web pages. You can write "cardiology consultation with ECG, 45 minutes, £250, report the same day, Dr Smith, our Harley Street clinic": that is information. You should not write "London's best heart clinic", "unbeatable prices", "guaranteed results" or "offer ends this month". You can show the price, and for SEO it pays to, but it should be the full cost, not a base fee with extras added later. Glowing testimonials on treatment pages are what we see challenged most often; Google reviews written by patients are a different matter.
We are not lawyers: on borderline cases the word belongs to the regulator and to your professional body. Clinics in England also register with the CQC; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own regulators (Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, RQIA).
For SEO the constraint helps. The pages Google and AI Overviews reward are informative ones: what is included, how much it costs, who does it. They coincide with what the rules allow.
AI Overviews: how to get a treatment page cited
The AI Overview on "cardiologist london" loads asynchronously and the crawler did not return its sources. In the Italian SERP we analysed for the equivalent search ("visita cardiologica milano"), the AI Overview cited no home pages: it cited treatment pages from three hospital groups, plus one clinic's Facebook profile. Pages that answer "how much, what is included, where" with full sentences and numbers, not with a list of specialties.
To be cited you need three things, doable in a week for your ten most requested services: a direct answer sentence under each H2 ("A cardiology consultation at clinic X costs £250 and includes a resting ECG and a consultation with the cardiologist"), a medical author with name and GMC number, and a genuine last-updated date. We list the rest in what determines presence in AI Overviews.
A warning. On condition searches ("thyroiditis symptoms", "what to do about high cholesterol") the AI Overview answers by itself and clicks drop. These are the searches that bring Bupa millions of visits, and one more reason a clinic should not target them. Treatment searches with a town still get clicked, because they end in a booking.
Recommended reading: how AI Overviews work and our SEO for AI search service.
How to measure: bookings, not visits
Traffic on a medical site is a misleading number: Bupa has an estimated 3.3 million visits a month and most of them are not looking for an appointment. The KPI for a practice is the number of bookings and calls from organic search, broken down by page.
In practice: one event for the booking form, one for taps on the phone number on mobile, one for clicks to the external booking system. In Google Search Console the queries report filtered by page shows which services bring clicks and which are stuck in positions 8-20, where the work pays off first. The AI features report, available since June 2026, shows which pages appear in AI Overviews.
One constraint of the sector: an event called "booking_oncology_consultation" tied to a user identifier is health data. Better a generic "booking" event with the page as a dimension. It is the same principle Google applies to advertising, and we cover it in the companion article.
Recommended reading: which SEO KPIs to track.
SEO or Google Ads for a medical practice?
In the two medical SERPs the crawler found no ads, and in the DataForSEO database Bupa has 3 paid keywords and London Doctors Clinic 2. That does not mean the auction is cheap: Google Ads data puts competition at "high" for "cardiologist london" and "private doctor near me", with CPCs of £7.73 and £4.19, and £9.90 on "private clinic london". Absent ads in a single national snapshot often mean campaigns targeted by postcode or schedule that a UK-wide crawler does not see.
The answer is: both, in sequence. Google Ads brings bookings from day one on "treatment + town" while the treatment pages climb, and then stays on the high-value services. SEO takes months but has no cost per click and does not switch off. How to set up the paid side is in Google Ads for medical practices and clinics; how the two channels help each other, in SEO and Google Ads together.
For paid search in mental health there are specific constraints: Google's personalised advertising policy does not allow remarketing based on health, and professional guidance limits what ad copy can say. We explain them, with CPCs and budgets, in Google Ads for psychologists.
Frequently asked questions
How much does SEO cost for a medical practice?
It depends on the number of sites and services to cover: one site with twenty services is a different project from five sites with two hundred. The orders of magnitude, and what a serious quote includes, are in how much SEO costs.
How long before I see results?
On the Google Business Profile changes show within a few weeks. On treatment pages with a town the first movements come in three to six months, because the competition is other clinics with similar pages.
Can I publish consultation prices on the site?
Yes, if you show the full cost, with no promotional tone and no comparisons with other clinics. Several London clinics already put the price in the snippet ("30 minutes | £220", "appointments from £89"). For SEO it is an advantage: three out of four People also ask questions on "private gp london" are about price.
Do I need a health blog?
Not to bring in bookings. Thirty treatment pages do more than thirty articles on conditions, which AI Overviews summarise without a click. An article makes sense when it answers a question that comes before the booking, such as "how to prepare for a colonoscopy".
Does this also apply to dentists, psychologists and physiotherapists?
In part. For dentists the local pack is decided largely by reviews and the chains rank mostly on their brand; for psychologists the SERP is split between online platforms and individual practitioners. The dedicated guides: SEO for dentists and SEO for psychologists, which also covers nutritionists, physiotherapists and osteopaths.
Recommended reading: how to split marketing channels in a healthcare practice.
Where to start
Take the ten services your reception books most often and search for each on Google with the name of your town, on your phone. Note whether the AI Overview appears, whether there is a local pack, who is in it, and whether your site has a dedicated page with price, duration and clinician. In the clinics we see, the answer to the last question is no for eight services out of ten. Those eight pages are the first quarter of work, and writing them needs neither a blog nor an advertising budget.
If you want us to look at the SERPs for your services together, get in touch: we do the first analysis on your own Search Console data.
