It is Tuesday morning and the front desk has three gaps before lunch. The phone rings, but it is an existing patient moving an appointment. Meanwhile, someone two streets away has a sore back, searches "physio near me" on the bus, and books with the clinic whose booking page opened on their phone without a fight.

Most clinics do not have a quality problem. They have a being-found-and-chosen problem. New patients pick a clinic in a few minutes, based on what they see on Google, what the website says about their particular complaint, and how easy it is to book. Existing patients drift away because nobody reminds them to come back. Fix those four things, inside the rules your profession sets, and you give yourself a fair chance at the patients who are already looking.

1. Start with your college's rules, not with the marketing

If you run a dental, physiotherapy, chiropractic, massage therapy or similar practice in Canada, your profession is regulated, and your regulatory college almost certainly has rules about advertising. These often cover things like patient testimonials, before-and-after photos, claims of being the "best" or "leading" clinic, how you describe your qualifications, and what you can offer as an incentive. Some colleges also have views on asking patients for reviews.

The rules differ from college to college and province to province, and they change. So before you do anything in this guide, read your own college's current advertising guidance, and ask them if something is unclear. Treat a summary from a marketing article, including this one, as a prompt to check, never as the rule itself.

The same goes for patient information. Privacy law covers anything that identifies a patient, including the fact that someone is your patient at all. That affects what you can post, what you can put in an email list, and which tools you can use. If you are unsure, ask your college or a privacy adviser before you start.

None of this makes marketing impossible. It just means the clinics that do well online tend to win on being clear, easy and visible, rather than on bold claims.

2. Make sure Google shows the right clinic, at every location

When someone searches for a clinic nearby, the map results are usually the first thing they see. Your Google Business Profile is what appears there: your name, hours, photos, reviews and a button to call or book.

For a clinic, a few details matter more than they do for most businesses:

  • One profile per location. If you have two clinics, each needs its own profile with its own address, phone number and hours.
  • The right categories. Pick the main category that matches what you are (dentist, physiotherapist, chiropractor, massage therapist) and add the specific services you offer.
  • Practitioners, where it fits. Google sometimes allows individual practitioners to have their own profiles. That can help a patient who is searching for a specific person, but it can also split your reviews. Check Google's current guidelines and your college's rules before setting these up.
  • Hours that are true. Evening and Saturday hours are often what tips a working parent towards one clinic over another. If you have them, show them. If they change for holidays, update them.
  • A booking link that works. Point it straight at your online booking, not at your homepage.

We cover the rest of this in detail in how to get more customers from Google Maps, including photos, posts and keeping your details consistent across the web. If your clinic is not showing up at all, start with why can't I find my business on Google.

Reviews are the part to be careful with. Google's own rules ban paying or rewarding people for reviews, and your college may have its own position on whether and how you can ask. Check both before you put a "leave us a review" card at the front desk.

3. Write a page for each treatment, in your patients' words

Patients do not search for your clinic's name. They search for the thing that is bothering them, or the service they think they need: "teeth whitening Scarborough", "physio for knee pain", "prenatal massage near me", "chiropractor open Saturday".

A website with one "Services" page listing twelve treatments in a row gives Google very little to match those searches to. A separate page for each main treatment gives it a lot more, and gives the patient an answer to the question they actually have.

A good treatment page explains, in plain words:

  • what the appointment involves, from arrival to leaving
  • how long it takes and roughly what it costs, or what affects the cost
  • whether it is usually covered by workplace benefits, and whether you bill insurers directly
  • who on your team provides it, with their credentials
  • what to bring, what to wear, and whether you need a referral
  • how to book, with the button near the top

What it should not do is promise outcomes. Describe the service; do not claim what it will do for someone's health. Apart from being what most colleges expect, it is also more honest, and patients can tell.

Picture how this plays out for different clinics:

  • A dental office has separate pages for check-ups and cleaning, emergency appointments, children's dentistry and whitening, each answering the questions the front desk hears every week, such as whether the office sees children and what happens if you have a broken tooth on a Sunday.
  • A physio clinic writes pages around what people search for: after a car accident, sports injuries, after surgery. Each explains what a first visit looks like and whether patients need a doctor's note.
  • A massage therapy clinic explains the difference between the types of massage it offers in everyday terms, and is clear about receipts for benefits claims.
  • A chiropractic office answers the nervous first-timer's questions: what happens at the first appointment, how long it takes, and what it costs.

If you are wondering whether these pages also help you show up when people ask AI assistants for a clinic, they do. Those tools lean on the same clear, specific information. More on that in how to get recommended by ChatGPT.

4. Make booking work on a phone, first time

Many new patients will try to book from a phone, often outside your opening hours. If booking means a phone call during the day, you lose the person who searched at 10 p.m.

Test it yourself tonight. On your own phone, away from Wi-Fi, search for your clinic, tap through to the website and try to book a first appointment for a specific treatment. Count how many taps it takes, notice anywhere you had to zoom or scroll sideways, and see whether the confirmation email arrives.

Things to look for:

  • Can a new patient book online, or only existing ones?
  • Is it clear which practitioner or treatment to choose, in plain words rather than internal codes?
  • Does the booking page ask for more information than it needs before showing available times?
  • Is the phone number tappable, and does someone answer or call back the same day?

If booking is awkward, that is often the cheapest fix in this whole guide, because the patients are already there and leaving.

5. Bring existing patients back with reminders

The patient who came in last spring is usually far easier to see again than a stranger. Many clinics have an obvious rhythm: dental recall visits, follow-up physio sessions, regular massage. Yet plenty of patients simply forget, and nobody prompts them.

Simple, well-timed reminders do most of the work. A short email or text when a check-up is due, a note after an appointment with the link to book the next one, a seasonal reminder that benefits often reset at a certain point in the year. Keep them short, sign them from the clinic, and make booking one tap away.

Two cautions. First, the privacy point from earlier applies here more than anywhere: use a booking or reminder tool built for health practices, keep only what you need, and do not put details of someone's care in a marketing message. Second, Canada's anti-spam law applies to commercial email, so appointment reminders and marketing messages are not the same thing. Our guide on how to get past customers to come back explains permission and timing in more detail.

What to do first

  1. Read your college's current advertising guidance and note anything that affects your website, your Google profile, reviews and social posts.
  2. Search for your clinic on your phone as a new patient would, and try to book a first appointment. Fix whatever got in the way.
  3. Pick your three most common treatments and make sure each has its own clear page with cost, what to expect and a booking button.
  4. Check that recall reminders are actually going out, and that they link straight to booking.

If you would rather have someone go through it with you, our website and marketing audit reviews your Google profiles, website, booking path and reminders, and gives you a prioritised list of fixes. It is a one-time review, and we will flag anything that looks like it needs a check against your college's rules rather than guessing.