There’s no secret way to rank on Google, and Google says so in its own guide. A regenerative medicine clinic has two rankings to earn, the map results and the regular results, and they don’t work the same way. Here’s what Google says about each one, and the order I’d do the work in.
TLDR: If you want your clinic to rank on Google, start by asking which ranking you mean. There are two, the map results and the regular results. You can’t pay for a better spot on the map, and nobody can promise you a position in either one. What you can do is the work. I’ll show you the six steps in order, and then how to measure the work honestly.
Important Note
This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, medical, or regulatory advice. Marketing strategies discussed should be reviewed by qualified legal counsel before implementation, particularly regarding FDA, FTC, and state-specific advertising regulations. Regen Portal is a marketing and consulting company, not a law firm.
On a first call with a practice owner, the first three questions nearly always revolve around the same things: customer flow, growth goals, and understanding the process. Customer flow is the one I want to talk about here. Where are the patients going to come from?
Let’s say you’re out of town and you’re in the mood for Italian food. What’s the first thing we do? We grab our phones and we put Italian food near me. That is how patients look for a provider. So it all goes back to being on Google.
So how do you get your clinic to rank on Google? I’ll give you the short answer first, and then the order I’d do the work in.
The Short Answer: No Secret, Two Rankings, One Order of Work
To rank on Google, a clinic has two different rankings to earn, and neither one has a secret. One is the map results, and the other is the regular results. You work on both in one order.
So is there a trick? Google answers that one itself. Its SEO Starter Guide says, “There are no secrets here that’ll automatically rank your site first in Google (sorry!).”
Sorry. That’s Google’s word, in Google’s own guide. And so when somebody tells you they have the secret, I have one question. Where does Google say that?
So what are you trying to earn? Here are the two, side by side.
| Ranking | Where It Shows | What Google Says It’s Based On |
|---|---|---|
| Map results | The map and the business listings | Mainly relevance, distance and prominence |
| Regular results | The list of website pages | Helpful, reliable content made for people |
What this means for your practice: These are two different jobs, and so when somebody tells you your clinic ranks, ask them which one they mean.
How Do the Map Results Decide Who Shows Up?
Google calls the map results local results, and it says they’re based mainly on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Your Business Profile is where you start, and you can’t pay for a better spot.
That’s all on Google’s page about how to improve your local ranking.
Relevance first. Google’s words: “Relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.”
So what does your profile say you are? It starts with the category, and which category to choose is one of the most common questions owners have about the profile. If the profile doesn’t say what you do, how would Google match you to the person looking for it?
Then distance. You can’t move the building, and so I wouldn’t lose sleep over that one.
Then prominence. Google again: “Prominence means how well-known a business is.”
That one you earn, and you can’t buy it. Google says, “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”
So when somebody offers to sell you a better spot on the map, what are they selling you?
What’s left is the work. On the map it comes down to profile, review and proximity signals, and proximity is the one you don’t control. So you work on the other two.
What It Takes to Rank on Google in the Regular Results
The regular results ask for helpful content, written from first-hand experience, by somebody the reader can identify. And on health topics, Google says trust weighs even more. A clinic’s site is a health topic.
Google has a page on helpful, people-first content, last updated in October 2026. It names four things it calls E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Then it says, “Of these aspects, trust is most important.”
There’s one more line on that page, and it’s about you. Google says its systems “give even more weight” to content with strong E-E-A-T on topics that could significantly impact people’s health.
Then the page gives you two questions. Does your content “clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge”? And is it “self-evident to your visitors who authored your content”?
So is E-E-A-T a ranking factor? No. Google’s starter guide says it isn’t. I know that sounds odd next to the line about weight, and both are Google’s own words. So I treat it as a list of questions to answer on the page.
And what does helpful look like? It answers the question somebody typed. I watch that on our own site, because the questions people type into Google before they land on regenportal.com come in a fixed order.
First, whether exosome products are FDA approved. (The FDA’s consumer alert says there are currently no FDA-approved exosome products.) Then 361 versus 351, the two labels people put on tissue products, and then whether stem cell therapy is legal in the US. Then the ad rules on Google and Meta, and then state laws.
That’s what my readers type. What do your patients type? The list starts in Google Search Console and in the consult room, and keyword research with a compliance filter turns it into a map of pages.
The Order of Work, Step by Step
Do the work in this order: the site, the Business Profile, the service pages, who’s behind them, the links between them, and then measurement. Each step leans on the one before it, and so I wouldn’t skip ahead.
- Can Google read the site? Check which of your pages Google has indexed, and which old ones it still has.
- The Business Profile. Fill it in so it matches what you really do.
- Service pages that answer the questions people type. One service, one page, plain words. Exosomes are the exception: education only, with the FDA status on the page and no offer.
- Proof of who’s behind the page. A name and a reason to trust that person, where the reader can see it.
- Links between your own pages. Every service page should be easy to reach from the others.
- Measurement. One short routine, the same way every month.
Take step four. Is a byline a ranking factor? I won’t tell you it is. What Google asks is whether your visitors can tell who wrote the page, and an author page that names the person answers it in one click.
And step five sounds small. But the links between your own pages decide where your site’s authority flows, and so a service page nobody links to is out there on its own.
Why not start with the service pages? Because a page Google never reads can’t answer anybody’s question. Site first. Then the profile. Then you write.
What We Find on Clinic Sites, and What to Skip
What I find is drift. Words that crept in, and pages nobody remembers. And there are three things I’d skip, because Google has already spoken on them.
So what does drift look like? Of all the exposure we turn up in clinic marketing, almost none of it was planned by anybody. A word changes, and then another. “Being studied for” becomes “helps”, then “helps” becomes “treats”, and now the page is making a claim it shouldn’t. And where does it happen? Usually in a subheading, the one line nobody on the team thinks of as copy.
The rest sits outside the copy. Testimonials published without the material-connection disclosure. Intake forms that collect symptom detail nobody needs to book. Tracking scripts on condition pages, and old landing pages that are still indexed.
What does that have to do with ranking? Go back to Google’s line, that trust is most important. Will fixing one word move your position? I can’t tell you that. But I’d read every page twice, once for what Google can read and once for what the page claims.
Now, what would I skip? Two of the three are in the starter guide, and the third is in Google’s guide to optimizing for its AI features, last updated in July 2026. It says, “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search.”
| Skip This | What Google Says |
|---|---|
| The keywords meta tag | Google Search doesn’t use it |
| Stuffing keywords into a page | It’s against Google’s spam policies |
| Special files made for AI | You don’t need them to appear in Google Search |
The bottom line: If it isn’t one of the six steps, I’d ask who told you to do it, and where Google says so.
How Long Does It Take, and How Do You Measure It Honestly?
I can’t tell you when you’ll rank on Google, and neither can anybody else. Google gives a range, and it’s a wide one. So you measure once a month, the same way every time, and you treat any promised date as a guess.
Google’s starter guide gives a range for how long a change takes to show up: “Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months.”
A few hours to several months. And what about a position? Google’s own hiring guide says no one can promise a number one ranking, and to be wary of anyone who claims a special relationship with Google. I don’t promise one either.
And what does once a month look like? It can be a short monthly routine in Google Search Console: read clicks first, then find the pages with high impressions but few clicks, then check indexing.
Why clicks first? Because a click is a person who came to your site. And then write down what you changed and when, so that when a number moves you know what you did.
And if you do all six steps and you still don’t show up? That’s a different question, and I’ve written about why a clinic doesn’t show up and what the top-performing practices do differently.
Think of a Practice That Does the Work in Order
Think of a practice with three physicians, where one of them built the website and still updates it at night. They’ve offered regenerative services for four years. This scenario is illustrative and does not describe any Regen Portal client.
The Challenge: That physician types the main service and the city into Google and doesn’t see the practice. Not on the map, and not in the regular results. And nobody can say which one to work on first.
The Approach: They take the six steps in order, and so they look at what Google has indexed first. They find old landing pages nobody remembered. Then the Business Profile gets filled in, and each service page gets rebuilt around the questions patients ask in the consult room.
The Compliance Check: Before a page goes back up, somebody reads every subheading for a word that drifted. Anything clinical gets read by one of the other two physicians before it goes up, and counsel gets the questions about what the practice may say.
What Changed: The physicians know which ranking they’re asking about, and there’s a monthly routine where there used to be a guess. Does that practice rank on Google now? I can’t tell you that, and nobody can. But Google can read the site, and a reader can tell who’s behind it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Long Does It Take to Rank on Google?
There’s no set time, and Google doesn’t give one. The range in its starter guide runs from a few hours for some changes to several months for others. So I’d check once a month. And when somebody hands you a date, ask where they got it.
Can I Pay Google to Rank Higher?
No. Google’s page on local ranking says there’s no way to request or pay for a better spot in the local results. And its hiring guide says to be wary of anyone who claims a special relationship with Google. Ads are a separate system with their own policies.
Do I Need a Blog to Rank on Google?
No, not a blog by name. Google’s starter guide points to content people find “compelling and useful”, and it says that will likely influence your presence in search more than its other suggestions. That content can sit on a service page, and a blog is where the rest of the questions go.
Does AI-Written Content Hurt Rankings?
It can, if the pages add nothing for the reader. Google’s spam policies call it scaled content abuse when many pages are generated to manipulate rankings and not to help users. Google’s own examples include generative AI turning out page after page with no value for the reader. So AI can give you a starting point, and a person finishes it.
Do I Need to Do Something Different for AI Answers?
No, not according to Google. The guide Google wrote for its AI features says the usual SEO work still applies, because those features “are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems.” And it says you don’t need new machine readable files or AI text files, and so it’s the same six steps.
Key Takeaways
- There’s no secret way to rank on Google, and Google says so itself.
- The map results run mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and you can’t pay for a better spot.
- The regular results ask for helpful, first-hand content from somebody a reader can identify.
- Do the six steps in order, starting with whether Google can read your site.
- Skip the keywords meta tag and special files made for AI.
- Measure once a month, and be careful with anybody who promises a position.
Want Us to Handle This?
When a clinic hands this to us, I look at the site and its Business Profile first, and I find which of the six steps is missing. Then my team handles the search engine optimization work from there.
Do you know which of the two rankings you’re missing? That question comes before any of the six steps.
PS: Type your main service and your city into Google, and write down what you see on the map and under it. Send it to me and I’ll take a look.
Email: hello@regenportal.com
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About Regen Portal
Regen Portal is a marketing and consulting company built for the regenerative medicine industry. We handle practice consulting, marketing compliance, search engine optimization, content creation, social media management, paid advertising, website development, branding, and AI and ops consulting for clinics, manufacturers, distributors, and independent providers. For more on me and how we work, visit Regen Portal and contact us.
About the Author
Oscar Tellez is the founder of Regen Portal, a marketing and consulting company built for the regenerative medicine industry. He has been in this industry since 2015. He started in medical sales and has worked with PRP since 2016. He has reached hundreds of practices and over 200 doctors through sales, teaching and marketing. He holds a B.S. in Exercise Science and Health Promotion from Florida Atlantic University.
