Six Visibility Mistakes I’m Seeing on Nearly Every Clinic Website

I’ve been running visibility assessments on physio, osteopathy, and chiropractic websites for the past few months, and I keep seeing the same mistakes crop up. These aren’t small technical issues that only matter to search nerds, they’re costing you bookings and making it harder for AI search tools to recommend you.

Here’s what I’m finding, and more importantly, what you can do about it.

1. Your Booking Journey Has Too Much Friction

I was looking at Physio Remedies’ website recently, and their booking process is a perfect example of what not to do. You click “Book Appointment” and immediately hit a big client login button. Then there’s a testimonial screen (why?), then you finally get to “select one of the options below”, Physio, Massage, AXA, Bupa, or Biomechanical Assessments.

Choose Physio and you’re faced with another decision: Clinic appointments, Virtual appointments, or Lansdowne members appointments. There’s a “Phone us” button buried at the bottom.

If I’m a new patient with a sore back who just wants to book an appointment, I’ve made five decisions before I’ve even seen a calendar. That’s too many. Most people will give up and ring someone else.

What to do: Map out your booking journey as if you’re a new patient who knows nothing about your services. Every extra click is a chance for them to leave. If you offer multiple services, start with the most common one (probably standard physio) and make everything else secondary options.

2. You’re Using Review Sites That Aren’t Google

I’m not saying don’t use Trustpilot, Feefo, or Facebook reviews. Use them if you like. But if you’re neglecting Google Reviews, you’re missing the point entirely.

Google Reviews show up in Google Maps, which is where most people find local healthcare providers. When someone searches “physiotherapist near me,” your star rating and review count appear right there in the map results. AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity also pull heavily from Google Reviews when recommending clinics.

If you’ve got 200 glowing reviews on Trustpilot but only 12 on Google, you’re essentially invisible where it matters most.

What to do: Aim for at least 50 Google Reviews. Make it your primary review platform. By all means collect reviews on other sites as well, but Google should be your focus. Set up a simple system to ask patients for Google Reviews after their treatment.

3. Your Reviews Are Embedded as Widgets

Those nice review widgets that rotate through customer testimonials? They’re causing visibility problems.

AI crawlers and search engines struggle to read content that’s embedded in widgets. The information is technically on your page, but it’s not as accessible as plain text. This means those reviews might not count towards your credibility when AI tools are assessing your site.

What to do: Display your reviews as actual text on the page, not just within a widget. You can still use a widget if you like the look, but also include some reviews written directly in your page’s HTML. Even better, link directly to your Google Reviews so AI tools and visitors can verify they’re genuine.

4. Your Testimonials Are Just Screenshots

I see this constantly: beautiful testimonial graphics with quotes overlaid on branded backgrounds. They look professional, but here’s the problem, anyone can make those up.

A screenshot doesn’t link back to a real person or a verified review platform. AI tools can’t verify it’s genuine. From a trust perspective, it’s worth very little because there’s no way to confirm it’s real.

What to do: Link your testimonials to the original review source. Whether that’s Google, Facebook, or another platform, the link proves the review is genuine. If you want to use graphics for aesthetic reasons that’s fine, but make sure the source is linked and verifiable.

5. Your Professional Registration Number Isn’t in Text Form

This one surprises people, but it’s crucial. Your HCPC, RCCP, or other professional registration number needs to be on your homepage in actual text, not just as an image of your badge.

Why? Because AI tools are looking for these credentials to verify you’re a legitimate, registered practitioner. If your registration number is only in an image, they can’t read it. They’ll find it harder to confirm your credentials, which means you’re less likely to be recommended.

What to do: Put your registration number in plain text somewhere on your homepage. Having an image of your professional badge is good, it looks professional, but the text version is what AI tools can actually read and verify. Both is better than either alone.

6. You Don’t Have Medical Schema Markup

This is the big one that almost everyone is missing. Medical schema is structured data that tells search engines and AI tools exactly what you do, where you practice, what conditions you treat, and your professional credentials.

Without it, AI tools have to guess at this information by reading your website copy. With schema markup, you’re explicitly labelling everything, making it much easier for these tools to understand and recommend you.

What to do: This one’s more technical, so if you’re not comfortable with website code, get your web developer to add schema markup. Specifically, you want MedicalBusiness schema and Physician schema. If your developer doesn’t know what that means, point them to schema.org/MedicalBusiness.

The Common Thread

All of these mistakes share something in common: they make it harder for people and AI tools to trust and choose you. Whether it’s too much booking friction, unverifiable reviews, or invisible credentials, you’re adding unnecessary barriers between potential patients and your clinic.

The good news is these are all fixable. You don’t need a website rebuild or a massive budget. You just need to make your existing credibility more visible and your booking process less complicated.

Start with the registration number and Google Reviews, they’re the quickest wins. Then work through the rest as you have time. Your future patients (and the AI tools that recommend you) will thank you for it.