Fifty-seven percent of people searching for a new doctor start that search online, not with a referral from a friend or a transfer from their old provider's office.
That figure comes from Search Engine Journal's guide to local SEO for doctors and dentists, and it reframes what a healthcare local SEO case study actually has to prove.
The question isn't whether visibility matters. It's which specific pieces of a profile move someone from a search result to a booked appointment.
What a healthcare local SEO case study needs to show first
Most of that decision happens before anyone dials the phone. In a Software Advice survey of patients who'd recently searched for a new provider, nine in ten said they rely on online reviews when sizing one up.
Most treat that step as the very first move, ahead of a referral or a directory search. Asked which single platform they turn to most for that research, patients named Google reviews more than any other site.
That puts weight on two things a practice actually controls: how many reviews it has, and how it answers them. A profile with no reviews reads as unknown. One with reviews and no replies reads as unattended instead.
Where a Google Business Profile earns the click, or loses it
A listing does real work once someone finds it. In that same guide, Search Engine Journal described a case where one digital marketing firm added a direct booking link to a Google Business Profile and saw a practice's appointment volume rise 44%.
That's one firm's result, not a guarantee, but it points at a mechanic worth using: booking straight from the search result, without a detour through the practice's website.
Booking through Google isn't universal, though.
Google's own setup guidance notes that a new booking link typically takes about a week to start showing on a profile, and eligibility still runs by business category and country, the same mechanics we've covered for Google Business Profile eligibility rules in other industries.
Where it's available, it removes a step between the search and the appointment.
Answering profile messages and review replies quickly matters for the same reason speed matters on a phone line. Patients comparing two providers rarely wait for the slower one to catch up.
Some of that response work now runs through the same kind of AI and automation that already handles other repetitive front-desk tasks, which keeps a profile answered outside office hours too.
What to fix this week
None of this replaces a practice's website or its ad spend. It's one piece of a healthcare digital growth stack, and usually the first place digital marketing and growth work for a healthcare client actually starts.
Start with what's already broken: an out-of-date phone number, a category that doesn't match what the practice actually treats, reviews sitting unanswered for months. Those cost nothing to fix, and a patient sees them before they ever load the website.
Cover photo by Tessy Agbonome on Pexels
Sources
- 10 Local SEO Strategies For Doctors And Dentists — Search Engine Journal
- How Patients Use Online Reviews — Software Advice
