How a Mysuru Clinic Gets More Patients From Google

This guide follows a patient's path in order, then covers the rules and the patient details you should keep out of your marketing tools. It is written for clinics of any size, including dental and Ayurveda practices. We do not promise a number of patients, and nothing here is legal advice.

How a patient chooses a clinic

Many people follow a short path. They search for the problem or the specialty, open the Maps results, look at the ratings, timings and photos, and then call or message. A clinic that is missing at any of those steps loses the patient before the conversation starts.

That is useful, because each step is something you can check. Search for your own specialty and your area the way a patient would, on a phone, and see what appears. If your clinic is not among the first few results, or the listing looks unfinished, you have found the first job.

Get the Google Business Profile right

The profile is often the first thing a patient sees. Our step-by-step checklist covers the setup in full. For a clinic, these points matter most.

• Use the clinic's real name, the one on your signboard and letterhead, with no taglines or added descriptions.
• Choose the category that names your specialty, as specifically as Google allows.
• Enter the hours patients can reach you at the clinic. Google's guidance for businesses that work strictly by appointment is to leave hours out, so use whichever describes how you really work.
• Add a phone number that is answered, and link to your website.
• List the treatments you offer in the words patients use.
• Add real photos of the entrance, the reception or waiting area and the consulting room. Photos of people need their permission.

Doctors and clinics are different profiles

Google's guidelines let a public-facing practitioner, such as a doctor or dentist, have their own profile if patients can reach them at the verified location during the stated hours. The name may include a title such as Dr. or MD. When several practitioners work in one place, the clinic should have its own separate profile, and each doctor's profile should carry only the doctor's name and not the clinic's. A single doctor should not have several profiles to cover several specialities.

Reviews, without breaking the rules

Many patients read reviews before they book. Google's policy is clear on how you may earn them.

• Do not offer anything in return for a review: no discount, no free consultation.
• Do not pressure patients to review while they are in the clinic, and do not set staff a number of reviews to collect.
• Do not review your own clinic, or have staff or people with a business link to you do it.

Asking patients for a genuine review, with no incentive, is allowed. When you reply, thank the person and keep it general. Do not confirm that someone was a patient, and do not mention their treatment. Check whether your medical council's rules limit how you use patient testimonials before you quote any on your website.

A page for each service

A patient searching for one treatment should land on a page about that treatment. For each service, write a short page that says what it is, who it is for, what to expect and how to book. Include the doctor's qualifications as registered, your location and your timings. Keep it to information. Leave out claims of cure, guarantees of results and words such as "best doctor".

Make booking easy

A patient who has found you should be able to book in one step. Put a call button and a WhatsApp link on every screen, especially on a phone, and keep any form to a name, a mobile number and the service wanted. A form should not ask for a medical history.

If you want to take bookings on WhatsApp with confirmations and reminders, our guide to WhatsApp booking for a small business explains four steps, starting free, and the opt-in rules.

When ads help

Ads help most for searches with clear intent, such as a treatment plus "near me". Someone searching that way is close to booking. Keep the ad text to information: the service, the location and how to book.

Two rules of the platforms are easy to miss.

• Health is a sensitive category for Google. For ads in a sensitive category, Google does not let advertisers use audiences built from their own data, such as customer lists or lookalike audiences. Do not upload patient lists to any ad platform.
• You must follow the law where you advertise. Google's healthcare policy expects you to know the local law for every place your ads target. It also restricts things such as unapproved treatments and prescription drug promotion, so read it before you run ads.

Meta has its own rules for health advertising. Read them too.

The rules

Medical advertising in India is regulated, and the rules differ for allopathic doctors, dentists and Ayurveda and other AYUSH practitioners. Doctors are bound by their medical council's conduct rules on advertising and soliciting patients. The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act restricts claims of cure for listed conditions. The rules change, so check the current ones with your council or a lawyer.

In practice, that means marketing that sticks to information.

• What to put in: the services you offer, doctors' qualifications as registered, timings, location, how to book and general health information.
• What to leave out: claims of cure, guarantees of results, words such as "best doctor", and patient before-and-after photos or testimonials that promise an outcome.

Ask anyone who markets a clinic which rules they follow. A guarantee of results is a sign they do not.

Keep patient details out of marketing tools

A booking form needs a name, a mobile number and the service wanted, not a medical history. Health details should not be sent to ad platforms or pasted into shared spreadsheets, and a patient list should not go into an advertising tool. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 applies to personal data, including patients', so have your lawyer confirm what applies to your practice.

An example we have published

Sri ranga Ayurveda is a client whose result we publish: a customer acquisition system across Meta and Google with WhatsApp booking automation, and a 412% increase in booked consultations. Smile Dental Care and Aarvika Wellness are also on our client list, and we have no published result for them, so we do not quote one. One result is not a promise that yours will match it. Our healthcare marketing page explains how we work with clinics.