SEO for Health & Wellbeing
Google holds health searches to a higher standard than almost anything else. Who wrote the page, what their qualifications are, and whether the claims stand up all count. That is good news if you are actually qualified, because most of your competitors are publishing anonymous pages that cannot rank.
A £1,000 deposit, then 11 monthly payments, or £5,500 for the year. That buys up to five target keywords, a named consultant, and a monthly roadmap you can read in ten minutes.
See all three packagesHow your customers search in this sector
A mix of urgent local ("physio near me") and researched condition searches. The second kind converts more slowly, but it builds the authority the first kind needs before it will rank at all.
Named, credentialled authors
Health content with no qualified name on it struggles to rank. Practitioner bios with real registration numbers are a ranking asset, not an about-page nicety.
Condition pages, carefully
Written properly they bring in exactly the right patient. Written carelessly they trip every quality signal Google applies to health content, and take the rest of the site down with them.
Two kinds of search, two kinds of page
Health and wellbeing is one of the few local sectors with a real split in search behaviour, and campaigns fail when they build for only one half.
Urgent local. "Physio near me", "emergency dentist Sheffield", "sports massage Doncaster". Short, immediate, on a phone, decided in the map pack. These convert within hours, and they need service-plus-place pages and a complete Google Business Profile.
Researched condition. "Why does my lower back hurt when I sit", "how many physio sessions for a frozen shoulder", "is chiropractic safe in pregnancy". Longer, informational, often weeks before anyone books. These convert slowly, and they are how you build the authority that lets the urgent half rank at all.
Most clinics build only the first kind and then wonder why they stall. Condition content is what separates a clinic that ranks from a clinic that is merely listed.
YMYL: this sector is held to a higher standard
Health content falls under what Google calls "Your Money or Your Life": topics where bad information can do real harm. Pages in this category are judged far more strictly on expertise, experience, authority and trust, and generic content ranks far worse here than it would in any other local sector.
In practice that means four things you have to get right:
- 01
Name the clinician and their credentials
Every condition page should carry a named person with their qualification and registration number: HCPC, GCC, GOsC, CNHC, whichever applies. An anonymous article about back pain is the weakest thing you can publish in this sector.
- 02
Link the registration
A live link to the public register entry is proof a machine can follow, and it costs nothing.
- 03
Be careful with claims
The ASA and the professional bodies both police what you may claim to treat. "Helps with" and "may relieve" are not decoration. They are the difference between a page that is compliant and a page that gets a complaint.
- 04
Date and review the content
A health page last touched in 2019 is a trust problem for the reader as well as a ranking problem for you.
Aesthetics and cosmetic: the tighter rules
If you offer injectables, prescription skincare or anything involving a prescription-only medicine, the advertising rules are far stricter than most clinics realise. You may not advertise prescription-only medicines to the public at all, and that includes botulinum toxin by brand name, on your website, your service pages and your Instagram.
This is not a technicality. It is enforced, and the pages that get clinics into trouble are usually the ones written by a marketing agency that did not know. We write around it: describe the treatment area and the outcome rather than the drug, and keep the clinical detail for the consultation.
It changes the keyword strategy too. The terms you would most like to rank for are often the ones you are not allowed to advertise against, and a campaign that ignores that is building you a liability rather than an asset.
Booking friction is where clinics lose the enquiry
Ranking a clinic is often the easier half. The harder half is that people in pain, or people nervous about a cosmetic procedure, drop out of a booking at the smallest obstacle.
What measurably helps: prices, or at least a range, on the page instead of "contact for pricing"; real availability instead of a form promising a callback; the practitioner named with a photograph so the visitor knows who they will see; and a plain description of what happens in a first appointment, because much of the hesitation is not about cost but about not knowing what they are walking into.
A clinic that answers those four things on the page converts better at position three than a competitor at position one that answers none of them.
Reviews, carefully
Reviews matter enormously for local ranking and for the decision itself, but this sector has rules others do not. Some professional bodies restrict soliciting testimonials, and patient confidentiality means you must never reply to a review in a way that confirms someone was a patient.
The safe pattern: ask everyone rather than selecting, never mention treatment details in a reply, and keep replies short and procedural. "Thank you for taking the time to leave this. Please do get in touch with the clinic directly if you would like to discuss anything" is correct and gives nothing away.
Recency still beats volume. Two a month for a year is worth more than twenty in a week, and it reads as a clinic people keep coming back to.
What a clinic campaign costs
Campaigns start at £497 a month plus VAT after a £1,000 deposit. For a single-site clinic that is usually right. A multi-site practice or a clinic with a long treatment list will outgrow five keywords quickly, and we say so up front.
The lifetime value sum works in your favour in this sector and is worth doing properly. A physiotherapy patient on a course of six sessions, or an aesthetics client returning three times a year, is worth several thousand pounds, so a sensible cost per enquiry looks very different from a one-off transaction. Fill Your Clinic is the worked example.
The practices this page covers
One hub rather than a page per profession, because the search behaviour and the content rules are the same across all of them: a mix of urgent local searches and slower condition research, governed by the higher quality bar Google applies to anything affecting health.
- 01
Musculoskeletal
Physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors and podiatrists, where "physio near me" and a named condition are two completely different searches needing two different pages.
- 02
Sight and dental
Opticians and optometrists, dentists and orthodontists. Opticians in particular have strong local intent and unusually thin competition online.
- 03
Mental health and talking therapies
Counsellors, psychotherapists and coaches, where the practitioner bio does more converting than any service page.
- 04
Clinics and aesthetics
Private clinics, aesthetics practitioners and beauticians, which sit closest to the regulated end and need the most care in how outcomes are described.
- 05
Veterinary
Veterinary practices, which behave like an urgent local trade with the trust requirements of a clinic attached.
- 06
Nutrition and wellbeing
Nutritionists and dietitians, where credentials in the byline are the difference between ranking and not.
Four steps, then round again
SEO never finishes. The work runs on a loop, and you see the report every time round, good month or bad.
- Step 1
Keyword research
We start with the terms that show buying intent, not the ones with the biggest numbers. Alongside those, lower-competition terms that rank sooner and bring early results.
- Step 2
Competitor analysis
Then we look at who outranks you and why. Once we know what they are doing, we know what it takes to beat it.
- Step 3
Implementation
The team does the work: on-page fixes, new content, links and local signals. Every item is listed in your monthly report, not buried in a dashboard.
- Step 4
Reporting & revision
Each month you see what was done and what it moved. When something is not working, we change it rather than wait for it to come good.
Three packages. Prices included.
Pick the one that matches where your customers are. Pay for the year, or a deposit and eleven monthly payments. Either way, the number on this page is the number on the invoice.
- Up to 5 keywords per campaign
- Up to 5 URLs included
- GMB post every 14 days
- 1+ new landing page or article
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 10 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 7 days
- 2+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 20 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 4 days
- 5+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
Every package includes keyword analysis, heading tags and meta description optimisation, image alt tag analysis, duplicate content checks, sitemap creation, mobile responsiveness reporting, citations, load time testing and search engine reports. All prices are subject to change. Budgeting for the website too? Here iswhat a website should actually cost.
Need something fixed this week?
Unexpected deadline, site down, or let down by another agency? Call and we will tell you straight away whether we can help.
Straight answers to the usual questions
Do you understand the advertising rules for health and wellbeing businesses?
Yes. Clinics, dentists, physios, therapists and aesthetics practices have limits on claims and on how treatments can be described, and Google treats health content as a topic where expertise matters more. Copy is written with that in mind and reviewed by you before it goes live.
How does Google treat health websites differently?
Health is one of the areas where Google looks hardest at who wrote the content and whether they are qualified. Practitioner pages with credentials, author details on advice content, and clear entity information about the practice all matter more than they would for a plumber. We build those in from the start.
Can you help a clinic get more bookings rather than just traffic?
That is the point. Most clinic sites lose people between the treatment page and the booking. We track the booking path, fix the drop-offs, and report on appointments booked, not sessions. A campaign that raises traffic without raising bookings has failed.
We have several practitioners. Should each have their own page?
Yes. Practitioner pages rank for name searches, support the expertise signals Google wants on health sites, and convert well because people choose a person, not a practice. Each one needs qualifications, treatments, a photo and a booking route.
Do you work with private healthcare only, or NHS-adjacent services too?
Mostly private: dental, aesthetics, physiotherapy, chiropractic, counselling and wellbeing businesses. The approach works for any practice that takes direct bookings.
Clients who bought this, and what they got
Named businesses, real figures, and the work that produced them.
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Ready when you are
Tell us what you are trying to rank for and we will look at the site and the search results before we reply. You get a straight answer, including if SEO is not the right spend for you yet.