SEO for a multi-location medical practice: profiles, location pages and structured data

A second or third office changes local search more than most practice owners expect. Each location needs its own Google Business Profile, its own page on the website and its own consistent details across the web, and every change, from new hours to a provider who moves between offices, now has to be made in several places. When those details drift apart, patients call the wrong office, drive to an old address or book with a provider who no longer works there.

This guide covers how Google expects a group practice to represent its locations, how to structure location pages without creating doorway pages, how to mark up each location for search engines, and what to do when a location opens, moves or closes. No one can promise a ranking position for any location; the aim is accurate, consistent information that Google and patients can trust. For setting up a single profile and handling provider profiles, see our Google Business Profile guide for doctors. Keeping each location consistent on directories and the records the law asks you to update is covered in directory listings and local citations for practices.

One profile per location, with the same name and category

Google’s guidelines say not to create more than one Business Profile for each location of a business, in a single account or across several accounts. For a practice with three offices, that means three profiles, one for each address where patients are seen. If the locations are franchised to different owners, our guide to healthcare franchise marketing adds the rules for brand ads, reviews and patient data.

Google also has rules specifically for businesses with several locations, which it calls chains and brands:

• Same name everywhere. All locations within the same country must use the same name, unless a location’s real-world name consistently differs on its signage, website and stationery. Google’s example: every Home Depot uses “The Home Depot”, not “The Home Depot at Springfield”. For a practice, that means no city or neighborhood added to the profile name unless the sign on the building says it.
• Same primary category for the same service. All locations must share the one category that best represents the business if they provide the same service. Sub-brands and departments are judged within their own group.
• A local phone number for each office. Google asks for a phone number that connects to the individual location, or a website that represents it, and recommends a local number instead of a central call center number wherever possible.

A shared scheduling line is common in group practices, and it is a judgment call. Google’s guidance leans toward a number that reaches the specific office. If calls are answered centrally, make sure each location’s number still routes to someone who can answer questions about that office. Our guide to call tracking for medical practices covers tracking numbers on profiles without breaking consistency.

Departments and providers inside a location

Google allows separate profiles for publicly facing departments that operate as distinct entities. According to its guidelines, such a department’s name must differ from the main business and from other departments, it should have a distinct category, and it typically has a separate customer entrance. Its hours may differ from those of the main business. Google’s own healthcare example is a hospital dermatology department with its own profile.

For a typical private practice, a separate department profile is the exception. An imaging suite or a lab draw station with its own entrance, hours and category may qualify. A treatment room down the hall does not. Where you do add department profiles, Google asks for each department’s hours on its own profile and the main business hours on the main profile.

Doctors and dentists are individual practitioners under Google’s guidelines, and a public-facing practitioner who can be contacted at the verified location may have a profile. Where several public-facing practitioners work at a location, the organization keeps its own profile for that location, and each practitioner’s profile carries only their own name. A provider who works across several offices is a planning question for a group practice: decide which location each provider profile represents based on where they can actually be reached, and keep it accurate when schedules change.

Managing many profiles: business groups and bulk verification

Two Google tools matter once a practice grows past a handful of offices:

• Business groups. Google describes business groups as a shared folder for profiles and a more secure way to share access with co-workers than sharing one account’s password. Both owners and managers of a group can create, edit and delete profiles within it, so decide who in the practice is an owner and who only needs manager access.
• Bulk verification. Google offers bulk verification when a business has 10 or more locations of the same business. According to its help page, agencies that hold more than one business in one account cannot bulk verify. For a bulk verified account, Google says new locations added to the dashboard that are not owned by someone else will show on Google.

Whatever the size, keep ownership of every profile with the practice itself. An outside agency or marketing contractor should be a manager, not the owner, so the practice keeps control if the relationship ends.

Dental groups supported by a dental service organization have an extra layer: the brand on the profile and the practice that provides care can be different entities. How to name the practice and the treating dentists across a shared brand is covered in our guide to DSO marketing.

Location pages, not doorway pages

Each office needs a page on your website that a patient would actually use: the address, a map, parking and accessibility details, hours, phone number, the providers who see patients there and the services offered at that office. Link each Business Profile to its own location page, not to the home page, so the profile and the page describe the same place.

The trap is the opposite: pages built for towns where you have no office. Google’s spam policies describe doorway abuse as pages created to rank for specific, similar search queries that lead users to intermediate pages less useful than the final destination. Their examples include multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page, and substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browsable hierarchy.

• One page per real office, each with details that are true only for that office.
• No city pages for places you do not practice. If patients travel from nearby towns, say so on the real location page.
• A clear hierarchy. A locations index page that links to each office page, and each office page linking back to the services offered there.
• Keep shared content shared. Service descriptions belong on service pages. Copying the same three paragraphs onto every location page and swapping the city name is the pattern the doorway policy describes.

Illustration: a dental group with offices in two neighboring suburbs builds two location pages, each naming the dentists who work there, the hours, the parking and which office offers sedation. It does not build ten more pages for nearby suburbs that both offices happen to draw patients from.

Structured data for each location

Google’s Local Business structured data documentation recommends marking up each business location as a LocalBusiness type, using the most specific subtype possible. LocalBusiness is a subtype of Organization, and Google recommends following the Organization fields as well. The address property is required, and Google supports properties such as telephone, opening hours and geographic coordinates. For a business with departments that have their own hours or phone numbers, the documentation shows a department property with an element for each department.

• Put the markup on each location page, describing that office only, with the same name, address and phone number as its Business Profile.
• Choose the most specific type that is accurate. Schema.org includes medical types such as Dentist and MedicalClinic. Use what fits the office, and do not add types for services you do not offer.
• Keep it in sync. Markup that shows old hours or a closed office is worse than none. Change it in the same step as the profile and the page.

Structured data helps Google read your pages; it does not guarantee any rich result or ranking. Google’s documentation describes what is eligible for display, not what will be shown.

When a location opens, moves or closes

1. Opening a new office. Add the location to the existing account or business group, publish its location page, and verify the profile. Use the same name and primary category as your other locations.
2. Moving an office. Edit the address on the existing profile rather than creating a new one. Google’s help page says that if you move your business to a new address after it is verified, you must verify it again. Update the location page, the structured data and your directory listings in the same week.
3. Closing temporarily. Google offers a temporarily closed status for a business closed for more than 7 days, for the off-season or indefinitely. For 7 days or less, Google points to special hours instead. Google notes that for broad queries, temporarily closed businesses can rank after open ones.
4. Closing for good. Mark the profile permanently closed. Google says a permanently closed profile may still appear for people who search for it and clearly shows that it is closed. Keep the old location page live with a notice that points patients to your nearest office, rather than letting it return an error.
5. A provider changes offices. Update the location pages for both offices, the provider’s own profile if they have one, and any booking links.

A monthly consistency check

Most multi-location problems are not penalties; they are details that drifted. A short monthly check catches them:

1. Profiles. Name, category, address, phone, hours and holiday hours match reality for every office.
2. Location pages. Same details as the profile, current provider list, correct services.
3. Structured data. Matches the page and the profile.
4. Major directories and insurer listings. Same name, address and phone for each office.
5. Access. The practice is the owner of every profile, and former staff or contractors no longer have access.

Reviews belong to each location’s profile, and the rules for asking and replying are the same at every office. Our guides on patient review replies and what to do when a Google Business Profile is suspended cover both.

In our healthcare SEO work, we manage a practice’s locations as a group: one profile, one location page and one set of citations per office, with the practice as owner of every profile and us as a manager. We do not promise rankings. For other guides on marketing rules for practices, see our healthcare marketing rules guide.

Sources

• Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google
• Google Business Profile Help: Create and manage business groups
• Google Business Profile Help: Verify Business Profiles in bulk
• Google Business Profile Help: Edit your Business Profile
• Google Business Profile Help: Mark your business as closed
• Google Search: Spam policies for Google web search (doorway abuse)
• Google Search Central: Local Business structured data
• Schema.org: MedicalClinic
• Schema.org: Dentist

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