A new website is the most common way a practice accidentally destroys its own visibility. Pages change URL, structured data disappears, and nobody notices for two months. Work through this before launch.
Redirects: the item that matters most
If you do only one thing, do this. Every URL that changes needs a permanent redirect to its closest equivalent.
- Export a complete list of existing URLs before the build.
- Map every old URL to a new one, one by one.
- Use permanent redirects, not temporary ones.
- Never redirect everything to the homepage. It throws away the value of every page.
- Pay particular attention to office pages, treatment pages, and clinician bios, since these are linked from your profiles and directories.
- Test every redirect after launch, not just a sample.
Pages that must exist
- One page per staffed office, at a stable URL.
- One page per treatment.
- One bio per current clinician.
- A locations index and a treatments index.
- A clinician-facing referral page.
- Contact page with all offices.
- Privacy policy and any required notices.
Data consistency
- Every office page matches the canonical record exactly: name, suite, phone, hours.
- Footer and contact page match.
- Phone numbers are the canonical ones, not tracking numbers, in both the visible page and the markup.
- Address and phone are real text, not images.
- No old practice name anywhere, including in image files and page titles.
Structured data
- MedicalClinic markup on each office page, with that office address and its own coordinates.
- No shared address across location pages, which templates do by default.
- Physician markup on bios.
- FAQ markup where genuine questions appear on the page.
- Organization markup on the homepage, with sameAs links to your profiles.
- Validated with a testing tool, page type by page type.
Technical checks
- Sitemap generated and submitted to both Google and Bing.
- Robots file not blocking anything important, and no leftover blanket disallow from the staging site. This is a classic launch disaster.
- No stray noindex tags carried over from staging.
- Canonical tags correct and self-referencing.
- HTTPS across the whole site, with HTTP redirecting.
- One consistent domain form, with the other redirecting.
- Custom 404 page linking to locations and treatments.
- Analytics and Search Console verification in place before launch.
Content and compliance
- Every treatment page reviewed by a clinician, with a reviewed-by name and date.
- No efficacy claims, success rates, guarantees, or superlatives.
- No patient testimonials without valid written authorisation.
- Trademarked product names used correctly.
- Restricted products described accurately, including the certified setting and monitoring.
- No stock photography presented as your team or premises.
Performance and access
- Images compressed and correctly sized.
- Third-party scripts minimised, and any chat widget deferred.
- Core Web Vitals in the good range on mobile for homepage, an office page, and a treatment page.
- Colour contrast adequate on body text.
- Keyboard navigable with a visible focus indicator.
- Alt text on meaningful images.
- Click-to-call numbers with large enough tap targets.
- Forms labelled, with text error messages.
Launch day and after
- Test every redirect.
- Submit the sitemap again.
- Check indexing status in Search Console after a week.
- Confirm your profile website links still resolve to the right pages, and update them if URLs changed.
- Update the website URL in your directory listings.
- Watch enquiries closely for a month, since a launch problem shows up there first.
The glossary follows.