Clinic websites: what patients check before they book

Before booking, patients check a clinic website for five things: who the doctor is, if you treat their problem, when you're open, how to get there, and how to book. They're usually doing it on a phone, sometimes in pain or worried about a parent, so the site has to load fast and put those answers where a thumb can reach them.

None of that needs flashy design. It needs accurate, up-to-date information, and it has to stay within the rules, because doctors in India can't promote themselves the way a shop can. The best clinic sites read like a well-run reception desk: calm, factual and helpful.

Here's what to put on a clinic or dental clinic website, what to leave off, and how to keep it quick on mobile.

Patients choose a doctor first and a clinic second, so give every doctor a proper profile, and keep it factual:

• Full name and a real, recent photo, not a stock image of someone in a white coat
• Degrees with specialisation, such as MBBS, MD (Dermatology) or BDS, MDS (Orthodontics), and where they studied
• Registration number with the state medical or dental council
• Years in practice and previous hospitals, if you want to mention them
• Languages spoken. In Hyderabad, ‘Telugu, Hindi, Urdu and English’ tells patients they'll be understood.
• The days and hours each doctor is in, including visiting consultants

List what you treat in the words patients type into Google. On a dental clinic website that's ‘root canal treatment’, ‘teeth cleaning’, ‘braces and aligners’ and ‘wisdom tooth removal’; elsewhere it might be ‘hair fall’, ‘thyroid’ or ‘diabetes check-up’. Add the medical term beside the everyday one where it helps.

For each service, a short factual note is enough: what it involves, roughly how many visits, and what to bring (old prescriptions, reports, X-rays). ‘Done under local anaesthesia’ is information. ‘100% painless’ and ‘permanent cure’ are promises, and promises don't belong on a clinic site.

Put your consultation fee on the site. Patients want it before they travel, and it saves your reception a lot of calls. Where treatment cost depends on the case, say so, and explain that the doctor gives an estimate after examining the patient.

Clinic timings are more complicated than a shop's, so spell them out: morning and evening OP hours, lunch break, Sunday hours, which doctor is in on which day, and what to do in an emergency when you're closed.

Then make sure they match your Google listing exactly. If the website says 6 to 9 pm and Google says closed, patients don't call to check; they go to the next clinic. Our local SEO checklist covers keeping details consistent everywhere.

Say you run a dental clinic in Dilsukhnagar. A map pin alone won't get an elderly patient to your chair, so add:

• A landmark people know, like the nearest metro station, pillar number or a well-known shop
• Which floor you're on, and if there's a lift. A first-floor clinic with only stairs should say so.
• Parking for cars and two-wheelers, or the nearest place to park

Yes, especially those with corporate health cover, which in Hyderabad includes a lot of IT staff from Gachibowli and Madhapur. Leave this out and every insured patient has to call. Cover:

• The insurers or TPAs whose cashless network you're in, kept up to date
• If you're not cashless, that you give itemised bills and reports for reimbursement claims
• Payment methods: UPI, cards, cash
• EMI for longer treatments like aligners or implants, if you offer it through a finance partner
• Corporate or gated-community tie-ups, if you have any

Most clinics do best with two clear buttons on every page: ‘Call the clinic’ and ‘WhatsApp us’. Someone who needs to be seen today will call. Someone booking a cleaning for next week is happy to message.

If you add a form, keep it short: name, phone, preferred doctor, day and time. Don't collect symptoms or reports through a basic website form. Health details are sensitive, and once they're sitting in an inbox, keeping them safe is your job.

Only show a slot as confirmed when a person has confirmed it. ‘We'll call you within two hours to confirm’ beats an automatic ‘Booked!’ for a time when the doctor is in surgery. Already on Practo or a similar app? Link to it instead of running two calendars, and keep your own number on the page.

In India, how doctors publicise themselves falls under the professional conduct rules of the National Medical Commission. Those rules limit self-promotion and change from time to time, so check the current version, or ask your association, before publishing anything that feels like advertising. Dentists come under the Dental Council of India and its own code of ethics, but the safe approach is the same: stay factual.

So leave out claims of cures or guaranteed results, before-and-after photos presented as what a patient can expect, patient testimonials about outcomes, ‘best’ or ‘No. 1’ titles, and festive ‘offers’ on treatment.

What you can show is plenty: qualifications and registration numbers, memberships of professional bodies, real photos of the clinic and equipment, your sterilisation process (a real worry for dental patients), fees and timings. That's what makes a clinic feel trustworthy anyway.

Reviews will sit on your Google listing either way. Reply politely, and never confirm someone is your patient or mention their treatment, even when a review is unfair. Patient confidentiality applies online too; our Google Business Profile guide has more on replying to reviews.

Fast enough that it opens before a worried parent gives up and calls someone else. Test it on an ordinary Android phone on mobile data, not on the clinic Wi-Fi.

Google's free PageSpeed Insights shows how the site does on mobile and what's slowing it down. You don't need a perfect score, just a page that opens quickly and makes sense on a small screen. The usual fixes:

• Compress photos and use WebP; a clinic site rarely needs any image over a few hundred KB
• Drop sliders, autoplay videos and pop-ups
• Keep the phone number as text, so it can be tapped
• Put timings, address and the call button within the first scroll

A few hours of checking fixes most clinic sites:

• Compare your website, Google listing and any Practo profile, and make the timings and phone number match
• Write a factual profile for each doctor: degrees, registration number, languages and days available
• List your services in plain words and add your consultation fee
• Remove cure claims, outcome testimonials and ‘best in Hyderabad’ lines
• Open the site on your own phone, on mobile data, and see how long it takes
• Then, if you'd like help, read how we work and ask us for a free working preview of a clean, factual site for your clinic. You see it before deciding anything, and there's no obligation.