The Same Six Services, Applied Differently Per Specialty
SEO, ads, website and reputation don't run the same way for a dermatology practice as they do for a physical therapy clinic. Here's what specifically changes, specialty by specialty.
What Actually Changes, Not a List With the Name Swapped
For each specialty: how patients search, how much reviews actually decide the booking, where referrals come from, and how urgent the decision usually is.
General Practice
Search is broad and local — "doctor near me," "GP accepting new patients" — so a complete, accurate Google Business listing usually does more work than any single ad. Referrals run both ways: a GP sends patients out to specialists and receives them from pharmacies, schools and workplaces, so that referral network is worth marketing to directly, not just patients. Booking urgency swings from same-day illness to routine annual checkups, which means the phone has to be answered fast and the online booking flow has to work for someone who isn't in a rush.
Dental
Two very different searches happen side by side: urgent ("emergency dentist near me," toothache at 11pm) and elective, heavily comparison-shopped work like implants or cosmetic dentistry, where reviews and before-and-after visuals decide the shortlist more than almost any other specialty here. Referrals matter for specialist work — a general dentist sending a patient to an orthodontist or oral surgeon — so those relationships deserve their own attention alongside patient-facing marketing.
Dermatology
Splits sharply into medical (a concerning mole, a rash that won't clear, usually a GP referral) and cosmetic (Botox, laser, comparison-shopped on Instagram and reviews well before a call happens). The cosmetic side lives or dies on visual proof and recent, specific reviews — a five-star rating with no detail carries less weight here than in most specialties. The medical side is more urgency-driven and less price-sensitive, and the two need genuinely different pages, not one blended services list.
Physical Therapy & Chiropractic
A large share of demand starts as a referral — from an orthopedist, a physician, or an insurer's network list — rather than a cold search, so those referral relationships are worth cultivating as deliberately as SEO. Search that does happen is urgent and condition-specific ("back pain physical therapist near me") right after an injury. The number that matters most usually isn't the first booking; it's whether that patient rebooks for the full course of visits, which is a retention problem as much as an acquisition one.
Mental Health & Counselling
Search and booking both happen quietly, often on a personal device outside working hours, and a public star-rating culture matters far less here than credentials, specialisation and a bio that reads as genuinely relevant to the patient's situation — many patients are uncomfortable leaving a public review at all. A contact form or a private booking request usually outperforms a phone call as the preferred first step. Referrals come heavily from GPs and psychiatrists, and privacy expectations shape everything from ad targeting to how a thank-you page is worded.
Eye Care
Two demand patterns run in parallel: routine, calendar-driven annual exams, and urgent same-day searches for sudden vision changes or an injury. There's also a retail layer — glasses and contact lenses — that behaves more like ecommerce search than medical search, with price and brand comparisons involved. Referrals arrive from GPs and, for children, school vision-screening programs, and demand for children's exams clusters sharply around the back-to-school period.
The Reporting Discipline Is the Same Across All Six
The channel mix and the messaging shift by specialty. What we measure against doesn't.
One Number, Every Specialty
Booked appointments, not rankings or impressions, regardless of whether the practice is a solo dermatologist or a five-location physical therapy group.
No Health Claims, Ever
We don't write or approve clinical claims, outcome promises, or anything that reads as medical advice — that's your domain, not ours, on every specialty page we build.
Ordinary Marketing Data Only
We track which page or ad produced a call or a form fill. We never see, request or store patient health information, on any specialty listed above.
Questions About Your Specialty
My specialty isn't listed here. Do you still work with practices like mine?
Usually, yes. These six come up most often, but the underlying method — find where patients actually search, fix what's stopping them booking, measure against appointments — applies across general and specialty medicine. Tell us your specialty on a call and we'll say plainly whether we're a fit.
Does the price change depending on our specialty?
Less than you'd expect. What actually moves the number is how competitive your local market is and how many channels you need running together, not the specialty itself. See pricing for what drives the bands.
We have more than one location. Does that change how you work?
Yes — each location needs its own Google Business listing, its own local search visibility and its own review flow, rather than one listing covering all of them. We scope this properly during the audit rather than treating a multi-location group like a single practice.
Do you work with telehealth or hybrid practices?
Yes. The search behaviour differs — a telehealth service usually draws from a wider geography than a walk-in clinic — and the site and campaigns get built around that instead of a purely local radius.
Is any part of this handling patient health information?
No. We're a marketing agency, not a healthcare provider, and we don't practice medicine or handle protected health information. Everything we track is ordinary business marketing data — which page or ad produced a call or a form fill, not anything about a patient's condition.
Tell Us Your Specialty and Your Market
The free audit is specific to your situation, not a generic template with your specialty's name dropped in.