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Local SEO for clinics, medical practices and dentists means helping patients find care on the Google map, in search and in AI answers. In practice, that takes profiles for the clinic and for each professional, the right categories, reviews that follow the rules and pages of their own. SEO for dentists and dental clinics follows the same steps.
In short
- Google treats doctors and dentists as individual practitioners. So each can have a profile, but never one profile per specialty.
- When several professionals share an address, the clinic gets the location profile. Each doctor’s profile carries only that doctor’s name.
- Google’s policy bans incentives and selective review requests. A public reply, in turn, should never reveal a patient’s health data.
- On the site, build one page per location, specialty and professional, with the same data as the profile.
What changes in local SEO for clinics?
Three things change: who can have a profile, what the profile can say and how you ask for reviews. The local ranking factors are the same as for any business. In health, though, individual professionals get their own profiles, and the rules of Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine (CFM) also apply.
According to the Business Profile Help from Google, local results rely mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. In addition, you cannot pay for a better position. Prominence draws on links and reviews, and more reviews and positive ratings help the local ranking. So local SEO for clinics works on the same three factors that the local SEO guide explains in detail.
What is specific to health fits in four points:
- Profiles: the clinic and each professional can have separate profiles.
- Identification: CFM Resolution No. 2,336/2023 requires the clinic’s registration with the CRM (the regional medical council) in all promotional material, in print or online.
- Reviews: patients review a health service, and a public reply runs into professional confidentiality.
- Promises: the CFM bans guaranteeing or hinting at good treatment results.
In short, local SEO for medical and dental clinics adds each profession’s council rules to Google’s rules. The technical base of the site, from crawling to indexing, is in the SEO and AI guide.
How many profiles can a clinic and each professional have on Google?
A clinic has one profile per address, and each doctor or dentist who sees the public can have a personal profile. However, nobody should have one profile per specialty. When a professional works alone for a brand, the two share a single profile with both names.
Google’s guidelines for the Business Profile say doctors and dentists are individual practitioners. So the profile name may include a title, such as “Dr.” To get a profile, the professional must deal with the public and be reachable at the verified location during the stated hours. Support staff, in turn, should not create profiles.
| Situation | How it looks on Google |
|---|---|
| Several doctors at the same address | Clinic profile plus one profile per doctor, with only the doctor’s name |
| One doctor working for a brand | A single profile: “brand: doctor’s name” |
| Doctor with two specialties | One profile, not one per specialty |
| Hospital department with its own entrance | Its own profile, with a different name and category |
The most common mistake is the name. The doctor’s profile carries only the doctor’s name, without the clinic’s. Likewise, hospitals can have profiles for public-facing departments that work as independent units. Google’s own example is the otolaryngology department of a hospital in São Paulo.
Dentist profiles on Google: are the rules the same?
Yes. The guidelines list dentists next to doctors among individual practitioners. So SEO for dentists and dental clinics follows the same table, with one profile per address and one per dentist.
The difference lies in the council. SEO for dentists also answers to the Federal Council of Dentistry (CFO), which has its own code of ethics. Resolution CFO-118/2012 approved it, and later changes amended it. In February 2025, the CFO set up a group to review the chapter on advertising. Therefore, for SEO for dental clinics, check the CFO site for the version in force before you publish a profile or a site.
Which categories and attributes fit local SEO for clinics?
Use the most specific category that describes the core business, and as few categories as possible. Google says categories affect local ranking. Then fill in services, true attributes and the booking link, which Google offers to health and beauty businesses.
As the categories help page explains, you start with a specific option from the list, not with one category per service. The guidelines add that a category should complete the statement “This business IS a”, not “this business HAS a”. In other words, the clinic picks what it is, not each procedure it offers. Also, changing a category may require you to verify the profile again.
Categories and specialties: what does the CFM allow?
CFM Resolution No. 2,336/2023 bans a doctor without a specialty from advertising that they treat specific organs or diseases. By contrast, it lets a specialist advertise up to two specialties and the practice areas tied to them. In our reading, a specialty category on a doctor’s profile counts as advertising. So in local SEO for medical clinics, it goes only on the profile of a doctor who holds the RQE (the specialist registration number) for that specialty, and on two at most.
This reading is not legal advice. If in doubt, the resolution lets doctors consult the Codame, the CRM’s advertising committee. For SEO for dentists, the equivalent rule comes from the CFO.
Booking links, telemedicine and attributes
Local business links accept up to 10 links per category for actions such as booking an appointment. There is also a single link to a list of services, and Google gives telemedicine and virtual care as examples. However, links from third-party booking partners can appear on the profile by themselves, and the owner can remove them.
Attributes, such as an accessible entrance, can bring the clinic into searches for places with them, according to Google. So tick only what is true at each location.
What do Google and the councils allow in patient reviews?
Ask all patients for a review, with no incentive, no picking of happy patients and no suggested text. On the CFM side, a testimonial the doctor reposts becomes the doctor’s own post. In addition, repeated or systematic praise for technique and results must be investigated. A public reply, meanwhile, runs into professional confidentiality.
Google Maps’ user-generated content policy bans offering incentives, selectively asking for positive reviews and pressuring customers to review on the premises. It also bans asking staff to solicit reviews with specific content, including content that identifies a staff member. In our reading, that includes asking a patient to name the doctor. For SEO for dentists and dental clinics, the same policy applies.
At the CFM, the rule sits in Article 8 of the resolution. A patient testimonial that the doctor reposts counts as the doctor’s own post. And patient praise of technique and results, when repeated or systematic, must be investigated by the Codame, even without a repost. So in local SEO for clinics, the goal is a steady flow of honest reviews, not a praise campaign.
How do you reply to a patient without breaking confidentiality?
In our reading, reply without confirming that the person is a patient and without naming a diagnosis, treatment or date. Article 73 of the Code of Medical Ethics bans doctors from revealing facts they learn through their work, except for a just cause, a legal duty or the patient’s written consent. The sole paragraph keeps the ban even when the fact is public knowledge.
Also, the LGPD, Brazil’s data protection law, classes health data as sensitive personal data. Google, besides, asks that a reply never share the reviewer’s private information. In our reading, the care applies even when the patient told everything in the review.
So the reply thanks the patient, offers a private channel and stops there. A fictional template: “Thank you for your feedback. We want to understand what happened. Please call the clinic and talk to our coordination team.” This text is not legal advice. In a real case, ask the Codame or a lawyer.
Which pages does local SEO for clinics need: specialty, doctor or location?
All three, each with its own job. The location page backs the address profile, while the specialty page answers people who search for the service. The doctor page, in turn, backs the doctor’s profile. What does not work is near-identical pages for each city or district, with no care offered there.
| Page | What it carries | Links to |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Address, phone, hours, health plans | Clinic profile |
| Specialty | Services, doctors with RQE, questions | Doctors’ pages |
| Professional | Name, CRM or CRO, RQE, booking | The professional’s profile |
Use the same name, address, phone and hours on each page as on the profile. The CFM resolution, in turn, asks for the name, the CRM number and, if any, the specialty with RQE on the main page of sites and profiles. So write these details as text, not only in an image. For SEO for dentists and dental clinics, the professional’s page shows the CRO registration number.
City pages with no real location, however, may count as doorway pages, a type of spam, as the guide to GEO for local business shows. In structured data, Google asks for the most specific LocalBusiness subtype possible. Schema.org has, for example, MedicalClinic, Dentist and Physician.
How does AI answer “best clinic near me”?
With a local search, backed by profiles, directories and sites. Google’s generative AI guide says the Business Profile helps services appear in AI answers. So local SEO for clinics is also the base for showing up in AI answers.
According to OpenAI’s Help Center, ChatGPT uses approximate location, estimated from the IP address, to find local results. So the same question returns different clinics in each city. The word “best” in the question calls for care. The CFM resolution bans a doctor from letting their name enter lists of “best doctor” or “specialty highlight” (translated) with a promotional focus. Therefore, buying space in a city’s “best of” lists falls outside local SEO for medical clinics. For SEO for dentists, check the CFO’s rule on such lists.
When AI gets the address, the health plans or the staff wrong, follow the playbook for when ChatGPT makes up information about your company. What changes when the question is about health, with what the CFM allows, is in the guide to GEO for doctors and clinics.
Local SEO for clinics: an 8-step checklist
In short, the work follows this order: profile, site, reviews and tracking. The list below fits one location and repeats at each address of the network. Meanwhile, each step rests on a rule from Google or the council.
- Inventory: list locations, professionals, registrations, specialties, health plans and hours.
- Clinic profile: one per address, with the real name and the most specific category.
- Professional profiles: only for those who see the public, with the person’s name.
- Categories: on a doctor’s profile, in our reading, only specialties with an RQE, two at most.
- Links and attributes: booking, telemedicine and accessibility, only what is true.
- Pages: location, specialty and professional, with the same data as the profile.
- Reviews: the same request for everyone, and replies with no health data.
- Tracking: profile, site and AI answers, every month, by specialty and city.
For SEO for dentists and dental clinics, the list is the same, with the CRO in place of the CRM and the CFO’s rules. Finally, to track AI, build prompts by specialty and city, as the local business guide linked above shows.
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Main sources
- Google, guidelines for representing your business on Google, with the rules for individual practitioners (2026).
- Google, manage your business category (2026).
- Google, tips to improve your local ranking on Google (2026).
- Google, local business links (2026).
- Google Maps, user-generated content policy (2026).
- Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), CFM Resolution No. 2,336/2023, on medical advertising in Brazil (2023).
- Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), Code of Medical Ethics, CFM Resolution No. 2,217/2018 (2018).
- Planalto, Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGPD), Law No. 13,709/2018 (2018).
