Every field worth setting, ordered by impact. Work top to bottom and stop when you run out of time, since the sequence puts the consequential items first.
Tier 1: the fields that gate everything
- Ownership. Practice-controlled account, at least two owners, agencies as managers only.
- Verification. Complete it. An unverified profile is barely visible.
- Business name. Real-world name matching signage, no treatment or location keywords.
- Address. Full, including suite, matching the door and your canonical record.
- Primary category. The single most consequential choice. Psychiatrist for a physician-led clinic, mental health clinic for a larger facility.
- Phone. Canonical practice number, local area code, not a tracking number.
- No duplicates. One profile per staffed office.
Tier 2: relevance
- Secondary categories. Three to five accurate ones.
- Services. One entry per treatment, each with a description covering process and logistics. The most under-used field on the profile and the main place to name your modalities.
- Website URL. The page for this specific office, never the homepage in a multi-location practice.
- Hours. When someone actually answers, plus holiday hours.
- Business description. Process, access, and who you help. No efficacy claims, no superlatives.
- Opening date.
Tier 3: attributes
Set every one that is accurate, and none that is not:
- Accessibility: wheelchair accessible entrance, parking, restroom.
- Health and care: online care and telehealth indicators where offered.
- Appointments: appointment required, accepts new patients, online booking.
- Payments and insurance acceptance, where the attribute exists.
- Amenities: restroom, wifi, gender-neutral restroom.
- Planning: whether a referral is needed.
- Identity attributes, where accurate and where you wish to display them.
Tier 4: visual
- Logo and a strong cover photo.
- Exterior with signage. The most useful photo you own.
- Entrance, parking, and interior wayfinding.
- Reception and treatment rooms.
- Team photos, with consent.
- No patients visible, no screens or paperwork in frame, no stock photography, no text overlays.
Tier 5: engagement
- Q&A seeded with the questions patients actually ask, answered factually. Monitor monthly, since anyone can answer.
- Posts for availability, insurance changes, closures, and practical logistics. Not a ranking lever, so do not chase a cadence.
- Booking or appointment link, where you have one.
- Messaging, only if you can genuinely monitor it and keep responses free of clinical detail.
Tier 6: ongoing
- Reviews: ask consistently, respond to all of them using the approved patterns.
- Monitor for unauthorised edits, since anyone can suggest a change.
- Check for patient-uploaded photos and report anything inappropriate.
- Export performance data monthly.
- Review search terms quarterly and feed them into your services list and page plan.
The five most common gaps
- Services list empty. Almost universal, and the biggest single miss.
- Website pointing at the homepage instead of the office page.
- Attributes untouched.
- Q&A empty, leaving the space to strangers.
- Keywords in the business name, risking the entire listing.
A pre-launch website checklist is next.