Here’s something most doctors don’t realize: the way patients found you five years ago is completely different from how they’re finding you today.
Insurance directories used to be the go-to resource. Your colleagues’ referrals mattered most. A physical phone book listing actually meant something. Those days are over.
Today, 77% of patients use search engines before booking a medical appointment, and 71% of those patients choose a doctor they found through search results. If you’re not showing up in the right places online, you’re not getting found by the patients who need you most.
Let’s break down exactly how patients are finding doctors in 2025, which platforms matter most, and what this means for your practice’s online strategy.
The Modern Patient Journey: It Starts with Google
When someone needs a doctor, their journey almost always begins the same way: they open Google and search.
The most common patient searches fall into three categories. First, there’s the specialty search—patients type in “dermatologist near me” or “orthopedic surgeon Denver.” These searches make up about 45% of all medical searches. Second, there’s the treatment search—”knee replacement specialist” or “Botox for migraines.” These account for roughly 35% of searches and typically indicate higher intent. Third, there’s the symptom search—”persistent knee pain” or “best treatment for acne scars.” While these represent 20% of searches, they’re often early in the patient journey.
What matters here is understanding where your practice needs to appear for each type of search. Generic specialty terms are highly competitive but necessary. Treatment-specific terms are your sweet spot—lower competition with patients who know exactly what they need. Symptom-based searches require educational content that builds trust before conversion.
Platform Breakdown: Where Patients Actually Look
Google Search and Local Results
Google dominates medical searches, capturing 92% of all healthcare-related queries. Within Google, two areas matter most for practices.
The Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) appears in the local pack—those three business listings that show up with a map when someone searches for a local service. Getting into this local pack isn’t optional; it’s essential. Practices appearing in the local pack receive 42% of all clicks for local medical searches.
Organic search results below the local pack still matter significantly. If you’re not in the top five organic results, you’re missing out on 75% of potential patient clicks. The data is clear: position one gets 27% of clicks, position two gets 15%, position three gets 11%. After position five, click-through rates drop below 5%.
Healthcare Review Platforms
After Google, patients turn to specialized healthcare review sites. The platform hierarchy matters, and it varies significantly by specialty.
Healthgrades receives 100 million monthly visitors and ranks as the top platform for finding specialists. Patients searching for orthopedic surgeons, cardiologists, and other specialists typically start here. The platform’s doctor comparison features make it particularly influential for high-stakes medical decisions.
Vitals attracts 10 million monthly visitors and has strong credibility among patients researching primary care physicians and general practitioners. Its detailed insurance information makes it valuable for patients concerned about coverage.
ZocDoc handles 8 million monthly users and dominates the online scheduling space. Patients use it less for research and more for booking appointments with doctors who accept their insurance and have immediate availability. For practices in major metropolitan areas, having a ZocDoc presence is increasingly expected.
WebMD’s physician directory gets traffic from patients already researching health conditions on the site. While it’s not primarily a doctor-finding platform, patients often transition from reading about their symptoms to looking for local doctors who can treat them.
Google Reviews and Social Proof
Google reviews have become the most influential factor in patient decision-making. A practice with a 4.8-star rating and 200+ reviews will consistently outperform a practice with a 5.0-star rating but only 15 reviews. Patients trust volume and recency over perfection.
The numbers tell the story: 94% of patients use online reviews to evaluate doctors, and 84% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. More striking, 60% of patients would go out of their network to see a doctor with excellent reviews.
Response rates matter too. Practices that respond to reviews—especially negative ones—see a 12% higher conversion rate than practices that ignore feedback. Patients want to see that you’re engaged and care about their experience.
What Patients Actually Look For When Choosing a Doctor
Understanding search behavior is one thing. Understanding what makes patients click “book appointment” versus moving to the next result is another.
The Make-or-Break Factors
Online reviews and ratings rank as the number one deciding factor for 72% of patients. They’re not just glancing at your star rating—they’re reading reviews to understand your bedside manner, wait times, office staff friendliness, and how you handle complications.
Proximity matters more than most doctors think. 68% of patients prefer a doctor within 15 minutes of their home or workplace, even if it means compromising on other factors. Convenience wins, especially for routine care.
Insurance acceptance is a deal-breaker for 64% of patients. If they can’t quickly determine whether you accept their insurance, they’re moving to the next result. This information needs to be prominently displayed and up-to-date.
Availability and online scheduling capabilities influence 58% of patient decisions. Younger patients especially expect to book appointments online without making a phone call. Practices offering online scheduling see 35% more new patient bookings.
Specialty and procedure-specific experience matters to 54% of patients. When someone needs ACL reconstruction, they want to see that you regularly perform that specific surgery, not just that you’re an orthopedic surgeon.
The Website Evaluation Process
Once patients land on your website, you have about 15 seconds to convince them to stay. Here’s what they’re evaluating immediately.
Professional photos of you and your office build trust. Stock photos of generic doctors in white coats do the opposite. Patients want to see the actual person they’ll be visiting and the environment they’ll be in.
Clear information about services and specialties needs to be accessible without hunting through multiple pages. If a patient can’t quickly confirm you provide the treatment they need, they’ll leave.
Insurance and payment information should be visible and comprehensive. Nothing frustrates patients more than going through your entire website only to discover you don’t accept their insurance.
Easy-to-find contact information and appointment booking options are non-negotiable. Phone numbers should be clickable on mobile devices. Online booking forms should be simple and fast.
Load speed matters more than aesthetics. A beautifully designed website that takes 5 seconds to load will lose patients to a basic but fast-loading competitor site.
Mobile Search: The Majority of Your Traffic
Here’s a stat that should change how you think about your online presence: 63% of all medical searches now happen on mobile devices. For “near me” searches, that number jumps to 82%.
Mobile users behave differently than desktop users. They’re often searching in the moment—sitting in their car trying to find a walk-in clinic, or at home with a sick child looking for pediatricians with same-day appointments. Mobile searches have 2.5 times higher intent to book an appointment compared to desktop searches.
Your Google Business Profile becomes even more critical on mobile. The “call” button on your GBP listing receives 40% more clicks on mobile than desktop. The “directions” feature gets used 3.7 times more often on mobile.
If your website isn’t mobile-optimized, you’re losing patients by default. 52% of mobile users will immediately leave a medical website if it doesn’t load properly or isn’t easy to navigate on their phone.
The Trust Gap: Why Some Doctors Get Clicks and Others Don’t
Two dermatologists with identical credentials, similar locations, and comparable services will get vastly different numbers of new patient bookings. The difference usually comes down to online trust signals.
Profile completeness is one of the most overlooked factors. Google Business Profiles that are 100% complete receive 7 times more clicks than incomplete profiles. “Complete” means having your hours, services, photos, attributes, and Q&A sections filled out.
Regular updates signal an active practice. Practices that post updates to their Google Business Profile at least twice per month see 45% more engagement. These posts don’t need to be elaborate—updates about seasonal hours, new services, or health tips work well.
Professional photography matters significantly. Practices with professional photos of their office, staff, and doctor receive 42% more appointment requests than those using generic stock photos or no photos at all.
Website authority plays a subtle but important role. Patients can’t consciously evaluate your domain authority or backlink profile, but they can sense when a website feels professional and trustworthy versus outdated or suspicious. Modern design, fast loading, and clear information all contribute to perceived authority.
The Local SEO Difference for Medical Practices
This is where many practices miss massive opportunities. Medical practices don’t compete nationally—you compete within a 15-mile radius of your office. That changes everything about your SEO strategy.
Geographic targeting should be precise and intentional. If you’re an orthopedic surgeon in Denver, you’re not just optimizing for “orthopedic surgeon”—you’re targeting “orthopedic surgeon Denver,” “orthopedic surgeon Highlands Ranch,” “ACL surgery Denver,” and “knee replacement specialist Cherry Creek.”
Citation consistency across the web matters more than most realize. Your practice name, address, and phone number need to be identical across every platform—Google, Healthgrades, Vitals, ZocDoc, Yelp, Facebook, and any other directories. Inconsistencies confuse search engines and hurt your rankings.
Service area optimization allows you to rank in multiple nearby cities without multiple office locations. If you’re in Aurora but willing to see patients from Denver, Centennial, and Parker, your website content needs to reflect that you serve these areas.
What This Means for Your Practice
The data makes one thing clear: if patients can’t find you online, you don’t exist to them.
Your online presence isn’t separate from your practice—it is your practice’s front door. More patients will see your Google Business Profile, read your reviews, and visit your website than will ever see your physical office signage.
The practices winning the patient acquisition game in 2026 are doing three things consistently. First, they’re optimized for local search with complete, accurate, and regularly updated Google Business Profiles. Second, they’re actively managing their online reputation with strategies to generate positive reviews and respond to all feedback. Third, they have modern, mobile-friendly websites that quickly communicate their services, accept online bookings, and build trust within seconds.
The good news? None of this is mysterious or out of reach. It’s a systematic process of making sure patients can find you when they’re searching, trust you when they land on your profiles, and easily take the next step to book an appointment.
Key Takeaways
- 77% of patients use search engines before booking appointments, with Google dominating 92% of healthcare searches
- Getting into Google’s local pack results in 42% of all clicks for local medical searches
- 94% of patients use online reviews to evaluate doctors, and practices with 200+ reviews consistently outperform those with fewer reviews regardless of star rating
- 63% of all medical searches happen on mobile devices, making mobile optimization critical for patient acquisition
- Patients evaluate practices based on reviews (72%), proximity (68%), insurance acceptance (64%), and online scheduling availability (58%)
- Complete and regularly updated Google Business Profiles receive 7 times more clicks than incomplete profiles
Ready to improve how patients find your practice online? Our Local SEO service helps medical practices dominate local search results and attract more qualified patients. We handle everything from Google Business Profile optimization to citation management and review generation—so you can focus on patient care while we handle patient acquisition.