Local SEO and Google Business Profile plan for a Cape Town clinic

Atlantic Seaboard Physiotherapy has three physiotherapists and a receptionist in Sea Point. It sees about 420 patient visits a month, mostly sports injuries, back pain and post-surgery rehab. Most new patients used to come from doctor referrals, but referrals have fallen and two newer clinics in Green Point and Camps Bay now appear above it on Google Maps. A consultation costs about R650, and an average new patient comes for five sessions.

The practice manager, Leila Petersen, set up the Google Business Profile years ago and has not touched it since. It has 23 reviews, the opening hours are wrong on public holidays, and the category is "Medical clinic" rather than physiotherapy. The website has one page for all services. The clinic’s name, address and phone number appear differently on three directories.

Leila has asked for a 90-day local SEO plan: - a measured baseline of where the clinic appears for 10 local searches across Sea Point, Green Point, Camps Bay and the City Bowl; - a Business Profile audit and an optimised set-up: categories, services, hours, photos, posts and Q&A; - a citations audit and a list of fixes for directories and medical listings; - content: a service page plan and two finished pages written for patients; - a review programme that asks happy patients for reviews fairly, follows Google’s policies and respects POPIA when contacting patients, and replies to every review; - a simple monthly report.

The clinic is fictional, so you will audit real local competitors and the real search results, and build the clinic’s own baseline as a realistic starting point. Health practitioners have advertising rules, so check what the HPCSA expects before writing claims. Done looks like a baseline, a profile set-up, a citations sheet, two pages, a review programme and a report.