Summary of this blog
- Clinic directory listings are the places across the web that repeat your name, address and phone number. Google’s own help page says prominence draws on information about a business from across the web, including directories, so a consistent set still supports your map pack position.
- A handful of listings matter. Google Business Profile, the map apps on patients’ phones, two or three directories patients in your field use, and the insurer and professional listings they check before booking.
- Hundreds of others waste a morning. Generic directories nobody searches, paid “premium” placements that send nobody, and copies that lift your details from elsewhere and get the number wrong.
- Six rules, in order. Know what counts, keep the short list, skip the long one, hold one record, use the listing’s reviews and its link, and read the report.
- The outcome is the patient who finds the right number first time, a map pack position that a consistent set of listings supports, and a Saturday morning you keep.
Clinic directory listings are the mentions of your name, address and phone number on websites you do not own. Some of them still carry weight with Google and with patients. Many carry none. The outcome of getting this right is plain. The patient who looks you up finds the right number first time and rings it. Your map pack position rests on a consistent set of listings instead of a contradictory one. And the Saturday morning you would have spent filling in directory forms stays yours.
Google’s help page on improving local ranking says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. Prominence draws on the information Google has about a business from across the web, and the page names links, articles and directories. The same page says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. That one sentence is the whole argument against the paid premium placement. A directory earns its place by being somewhere patients look, and by repeating your details correctly. A clinic directory listings plan is built on those two tests and nothing else.
The word citation means a mention. A citation is any page that states your clinic’s name, address and phone number, with or without a link back to you. The directory page, the insurer’s find-a-provider tool, the map app entry and the local paper’s health listing are all citations. When they agree, Google reads one clinic with one address. When they disagree, Google reads doubt and the patient reads an old number. That is why clinic directory listings still matter, and why a long list of them matters less than a short list kept right.
This guide sets out six rules for an owner with one address and no spare morning. That might be a med spa, a dental practice or a private clinic. Our pillar on health and wellness marketing covers the whole plan that clinic directory listings sit inside. Our guide to private healthcare marketing covers the trust a clinic competes on once the patient has found it. Our guides to local SEO for clinics and to Google Business Profile for clinics cover the profile in full. This article covers everything that repeats it.
Clinic directory listings follow one rule: a listing earns its place by being somewhere a patient looks and by repeating your details word for word. Everything else is a morning spent filling in forms for nobody.
The wrong-number test
Search your clinic’s name with the word “phone” and read the first ten results the way a patient would. Write down every number that appears and the address beside it. A clinic with its clinic directory listings in order shows one number and one address ten times over. A clinic that moved, or changed its number, three years ago shows two of each. The old pair tends to sit on directories filled in once and never opened again. Ring the old number and listen. Dead line, a stranger, or the voicemail of a practice that closed. Ten results, five minutes, and the owner knows whether a patient ringing today reaches reception or rings the next name on the map.
1. What a citation is, and why Google still counts it
A citation is a page somewhere on the web that names your clinic, your address and your phone number. Google’s local ranking page says prominence is based on how well known a business is, and that Google draws on information from across the web to judge it. Directories are named there alongside links and articles. A set of pages that all agree about your clinic is one thing Google reads when it picks the three names in the map pack. The point for an owner is narrow. Google counts the agreement and never the length of the list. Twenty pages that match beat two hundred that contradict. Clinic directory listings are worth a morning a quarter, and no longer.
What good looks like: ten pages, one clinic
Picture a dental practice whose first ten search results all say the same thing. The same practice name as the sign above the door. One street address, written the same way, down to the suite number. A phone number that rings reception during opening hours. Hours that match the door, including the early Tuesday. Google reads those ten pages and sees one practice with nothing to doubt. The patient reads any one of them and reaches the right desk. What changes is small and steady: the profile holds its map pack place because nothing across the web argues with it. Clinic directory listings done this way insure the profile against a stray old number undoing the work done on it.
The signal in owner language
An owner does not need the vocabulary. Three ideas cover it. Relevance is whether your listing says what the patient typed, so a med spa listed as a salon loses the treatment search. Distance is how far the patient stands from your door, which no listing changes. Prominence is how well known the clinic is across the web, and that is where listings sit. Each consistent mention is a small vote that this clinic exists where it says it does. Each contradictory mention is a vote against. The patient runs a cruder check: the number on the insurer’s site matches the map, so she trusts both. A clinic directory listings plan wins every one of those small votes.
2. The listings that matter
The short list is shorter than most owners expect. First is the Google Business Profile, because the map pack is drawn from it and every other listing is judged by it. Second are the map apps patients’ phones already carry, which hold their own entry for your address. Third are the two or three directories patients in your field use to compare clinics, and those differ for a dentist, a med spa and a physiotherapist. Fourth are the insurer directories and professional registers a patient checks before booking, because a wrong entry ends the enquiry. That is the whole of the clinic directory listings a specialist keeps current. Good looks like the same name, number and hours on every one.
A worked example: the med spa’s short list
Picture a med spa with one address and a strong profile. Its short list runs to a dozen clinic directory listings. The profile, two map apps, the two directories its patients compare treatments on, the professional register, and the local pages that already mention it. Each carries the same name, number and hours, a link to the right page, and a description in the patient’s words that names the town. A specialist checks every claim and image on those listings before it goes live. What changes is that the patient on a map app and the one on a treatment directory both reach the right page and number. Our guide to medical spa marketing covers the rest of her path.
What good looks like: the same hours everywhere
Hours are where the short list most often slips. The profile says the clinic opens at eight on Tuesdays. A map app says nine. The insurer’s directory says nothing. A patient who rings at half past eight and gets voicemail rings the next clinic. Good looks like the hours on every listing matching the hours on the door, including the half day and the late evening. The same goes for the name, number and address. At Healthora, we have seen that clinics which keep a short list of clinic directory listings and check it every quarter tend to spend far less time chasing wrong numbers, and a larger share of their enquiries arrive on the number that rings reception.
3. The listings that waste a morning
The long list is where the morning goes. Hundreds of generic directories will accept your details, and almost none is somewhere a patient looks for a dentist. Some exist only to sell a paid upgrade. Some copy your details from another directory, which copied them from a third, and the error travels with them. A few hold the number of the clinic that had your address before you. None of them sends a patient, because no patient searches there. The test for every directory on the long list is one question. Would a patient in your town ever find you there? Clinic directory listings that fail it are corrected once if wrong and otherwise left alone.
The patient test for clinic directory listings
Run one question on any directory that emails you: would a patient ever find you there? Open it on your phone and search for your main treatment in your town. A directory patients use shows clinics with reviews, photos and a way to book. A directory nobody uses shows a thin page, an advert and a form asking you to claim your listing. Good looks like a short list where every entry passed and carries the same details as the profile. What changes is the morning. The owner who stops claiming listings nobody searches gets that time back, and the dozen that remain get checked. Clinic directory listings are judged by the patient at the end of them.
What the premium listing buys
The paid upgrade promises a higher position in a directory and a badge beside the name. The question is whether any patient is there to see it. Google’s local ranking page is plain: there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. A higher position on a page nobody visits is worth nothing. Good looks like a clinic that pays for clinic directory listings only where its own patients have said they found it, and asks each new patient where she found it. At Healthora, we have seen that clinics which ask that one question at the first appointment tend to cut directory spend to the two or three places that send a patient.
A specialist’s view on your listings
Want to know which of your clinic directory listings still carry an old number?
A clinic with a wrong number on three directories is paying for patients who ring a dead line. The test that shows it takes five minutes. Want more patients finding you locally? Book a free growth consultation. We will run the wrong-number test on your clinic and show you every listing that contradicts your profile. Then we will sort your clinic directory listings into the dozen that matter and the hundreds that do not. You keep the list, whether you decide to work with us or not. Healthora specialises in health.
Book a free growth consultation4. One name, one address, one number
Every listing copies one record, and the record is the profile. Google’s guidelines for representing your business say the name must match the real-world name on the storefront, website and stationery, with no taglines, phone numbers or extra words added. The same page asks for a phone number that connects to your individual business location, a local number instead of a central call centre number wherever possible, and consistent names and categories across all of a business’s locations. We call the discipline the One Record Rule: the name on the sign, the address on the door and the number that rings reception, written once and copied everywhere. Clinic directory listings that follow the record agree without anyone checking.
What good looks like: the name on the signage
Walk outside and read your sign. That is the name. Good looks like that exact name on the profile, every map app, each directory and the insurer’s page, with the same punctuation and word order. A med spa called Harbour Aesthetics on the sign is Harbour Aesthetics on every listing. Nobody adds the town, the treatment or the practitioner’s name to the front of it, because a name stuffed with keywords matches nothing in the real world and breaks the agreement across the web. The address is written the same way everywhere, down to the postcode. What changes is quiet. Google stops guessing whether two differently named entries are one clinic, and the clinic directory listings pull with the profile.
The old number from the move three years ago
Three years ago the clinic moved across town and changed its number. Its profile was updated that week, its website that month. Four clinic directory listings were never updated, because nobody remembered claiming them, and a map app copies from one of them. So a patient who taps that number reaches a dead line, or the business in the old premises, and books elsewhere. Good looks like a single record held by the clinic, and a list of every page that copied it, checked each quarter. A move then means a morning of corrections instead of three years of lost calls. Our guide to health clinic website copy covers the location page those listings should point to.
5. The listing’s reviews and the link back
Two things on a listing work beyond repeating the record. The first is the listing’s own reviews. Google’s local ranking page says prominence also draws on the number and rating of a business’s reviews, and a directory with reviews of its own is one more place the patient reads proof before she rings. The second is the link, which should point to the location or treatment page and never to a dead one. Pew Research Center’s 2016 report on online reviews found that 82% of American adults at least sometimes read online reviews before buying something for the first time, and 40% always or almost always do. Clinic directory listings with a review feed deserve the attention the profile gets.
What the reply desk does on every listing
Our guide to patient reviews covers the ask, reply and rhythm. Its short version: every review gets a reply within a few days, in the clinic’s voice. Good looks like the directory’s feed reading like the profile’s: recent, answered and signed. Where a reply could touch a patient’s care, a specialist drafts it to protect the patient and the clinic. This article is marketing guidance and never medical advice. The same Pew report found that 51% of people who read reviews say they give an accurate picture of what is being bought. The patient who finds you on a directory then reads the same proof as the one on the map. Clinic directory listings become one more front desk.
A worked example: the dental clinic after a rebrand
At Healthora, we have seen a dental clinic grow bookings by 20% after a rebrand and website optimisation. A rebrand changes the sign and the website, and the record with them. Every listing that carries the old name, or links to a page that no longer exists, sends the patient to a clinic that has gone. Good looks like every entry on the short list updated in the same week as the sign, with the new name as written on the storefront and a link to the new location page. Clinic directory listings are part of the rebrand for that reason. A new name on six listings and the old one on four is a brand half launched.
6. What a managed set of clinic directory listings changes in 90 days
A plan for the next 90 days contains the following. One record, held by the clinic, with the name on the sign, the address on the door and the number that rings reception. A list of every page that mentions the clinic, sorted into the dozen that matter and the rest. Each entry on the short list corrected to the record, with hours, photos and a link to the right page. The old number chased off every page that still carries it. A reply desk for the listings with reviews. And a monthly report that counts enquiries and bookings by where the patient found you. That is clinic directory listings as an owner needs to understand them.
What day 90 looks like
By day 90 the first ten results for the clinic’s name agree with each other and with the sign. The old number has gone from every page the clinic can reach. The map apps, the directories patients use and the insurer’s page all link to the location page, and the location page names the same address back. Reviews on the listings are answered. The report shows which listings sent an enquiry and which sent none, so the owner stops paying for the latter. Clinic directory listings managed by a specialist reach that picture in a quarter. Done on Saturday mornings between other jobs, the same work tends to take a year, and the old number rings on the whole time.
What a morning on the wrong directories costs
The morning looks like this. Thirty generic directories claimed, each with a slightly different name typed in by hand. Two of them with the old number, copied from an old email. A paid upgrade on one that nobody in the town has ever opened. By the end, the clinic has more contradictions across the web than it started with, and a receipt. Each month in that state costs twice. Once in the patient who rang the wrong number and booked elsewhere, and once in the map pack place lost to a clinic whose listings agree. The question for an owner is what those months cost against a clinic directory listings plan. Our services page describes what the plan contains.
Clinic directory listings in practice: what a plan contains
Clinic directory listings in practice begin with the wrong-number test. Then comes an audit of every page that mentions the clinic, each marked as a place patients look or one they never will. Next, the record is written from the sign, the door and the reception phone. The short list is corrected to the record in a fortnight, and the long list where it can be. Reviews on the listings go to the reply desk. The report at the end of each month counts enquiries and bookings by where the patient said she found the clinic. A med spa, a dental practice and a physiotherapy clinic get the same six rules. What differs is which directories make the short list.
The six rules, in order
- Know what a citation is. A mention of the name, address and number that Google reads as a vote for the clinic. Agreement counts, length does not.
- Keep the short list. The profile, the map apps, the two or three directories patients use and the insurer and professional listings. The clinic directory listings a specialist keeps current.
- Skip the long list. Generic directories, paid upgrades and copied entries. One question for each: would a patient ever find you there?
- Hold one record. The name on the sign, the address on the door and the number that rings reception, written once and copied everywhere.
- Use the reviews and the link. Every review answered, every link pointing to the right page. Clinic directory listings as one more front desk.
- Read the report. Enquiries and bookings by where the patient found you, every month, so the clinic directory listings that send nobody stop costing a morning.
Why a specialist gets there faster
The six clinic directory listings rules can be followed by the clinic’s own team, by a specialist, or both. The difference is time and knowledge of which directories a patient in your field opens. A specialist has sorted enough lists to know which dozen matter for a dentist and which for a med spa before the audit starts. The corrections are made in a fortnight while the owner sees patients. Our services and case studies show what the local work looks like in engagements we have run.
A specialist in health understands that the patient reading a directory entry is choosing someone to trust with her body, and that a wrong number reads as carelessness. She wants the clinic that answers. One record, a short list kept true, the reviews answered and the link pointing home. Then clinic directory listings are the reason the right number rings first time, and the map pack place holds.
Ready for every listing to send the patient to the right desk?
HEALTHORA SPECIALISES IN HEALTH
An old number on a directory costs the clinic a patient a week, and the owner never sees the call that did not come. The plan to change that fits on a page. Want more patients finding you locally? Book a free growth consultation. We will run the wrong-number test on your clinic and show you every listing that contradicts your profile. Then we will set out the six clinic directory listings rules in the order that suits your field. You leave with fixes you can apply immediately, whether you decide to work with us or not. Forty minutes, no pitch.
Book a free growth consultationFrequently asked questions
What are clinic directory listings?
Clinic directory listings are the pages across the web that state a clinic’s name, address and phone number, with or without a link. The Google Business Profile, the map apps on a patient’s phone, treatment directories, insurer find-a-provider tools and professional registers are all listings. Each one is a citation, which is simply a mention. When they agree, Google reads one clinic with one address and the patient reaches the right desk.
Do clinic directory listings still affect local ranking?
Yes, as one part of prominence. Google’s help page on local ranking says prominence draws on information about a business from across the web, and it names directories alongside links and articles. Agreement is what counts. A short set of clinic directory listings that match the profile supports the map pack position. A long set that contradicts it does the opposite. The same page says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
Which directories matter for a clinic?
The Google Business Profile first, because the map pack is drawn from it. Then the map apps patients’ phones already use, which hold their own entry for the address. Next, the two or three directories patients in your field compare clinics on, which differ for a dentist, a med spa and a physiotherapist. Last, the insurer directories and professional registers a patient checks before booking. That short list is the whole of the clinic directory listings a specialist keeps current.
Should a clinic pay for a premium directory listing?
Only where the clinic’s own patients have said they found it there. Paid clinic directory listings buy a higher position inside that directory, which is worth nothing if no patient in your town opens it. Ask every new patient where she found the clinic, and pay only for the places that come up. Google’s own local ranking cannot be bought, and the help page says so plainly.
What happens when a listing shows an old phone number?
The patient who taps it reaches a dead line, or the business that took the old premises, and books elsewhere. Her call never reaches the owner, who never knows it was lost. The fix is one record held by the clinic, a list of every page that copied it, and a check against the record every quarter. A move or a new number then means a morning of corrections. The wrong-number test in this article shows whether the old number still sits on any of your clinic directory listings.
How many clinic directory listings does a clinic need?
Usually about a dozen, all correct, rather than hundreds. The profile, the map apps, the two or three directories patients in your field use, the insurer and professional listings, and the handful of local pages that already mention you. Clinic directory listings beyond that short list are corrected once where they are wrong and otherwise left alone. The test for any addition is whether a patient would ever find you there.
What does managing clinic directory listings cost with Healthora?
Fees depend on scope. A clinic with one address and a clean profile needs a different plan from a practice that moved twice and rebranded once. The scope is set after the free growth consultation. That includes the wrong-number test and the sorted list of listings that matter, whether or not you work with us. Healthora specialises in health.
Keep reading
The six clinic directory listings rules above apply to any clinic with an address. Two of the guides below show the wider marketing plan for a dental practice and an aesthetic clinic, where the short list of directories differs most. The third covers the search work a clinic’s website does once the listings have sent the patient to it.