The SEO Foundation Most Clinics Get Wrong: Site Structure

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Every clinic owner wants more new patients from Google. Most think the answer is "more blogs" or "better keywords." But if your site structure is wrong, Google literally can't understand who you help, what you treat, or where you treat—and no amount of content will fix it. In this episode, Jeremy breaks down the exact website architecture Patch uses to rank clinics in 2025 and 2026.

📌 Episode Topics

• Why Most Clinic SEO Fails: Great content on a foundation Google can't read.
• What Google Actually Cares About: Who you help, what you treat, where you treat.
• The Services + Locations Blueprint: The site map structure that consistently ranks.
• Internal Linking 101: How to connect pages so Google "gets" your clinic.
• Owning Your Website: Why you must control your own site to build real enterprise value.

💡 Big Idea

SEO isn't "write more blogs." SEO starts with architecture. Until your site is structured around your locations and services, Google will keep sending patients to the clinic across the street—not because they're better, but because their site is easier to understand.

🔍 What Google Sees (That You Don't)

Google doesn't care about pretty colors, brand photos, or how "nice" your homepage feels. It cares about:

• Who you help (types of patients and problems),
• What you treat (services and conditions),
• Where you treat them (cities, neighborhoods, regions).

If your site can't answer those three questions clearly and cleanly, it drops you down the rankings and rewards clinics with better structure.

🏗 The Site Structure Blueprint

Most clinics only have a handful of pages: Home, About, Contact, maybe a generic "Physical Therapy" page. That's not enough. Jeremy walks through the structure Patch uses for hundreds of clinics:

1️⃣ Core Pages

• Homepage: Who you are, who you help, what you do, and clear next steps.
• About: Your story, team, and why patients should trust you.
• Contact: Forms, phone, booking links (discovery call, eval, etc.).
• Privacy Policy: Critical for compliant SMS, forms, and ad platforms.

2️⃣ Locations Folder (Where You Treat)

Create a /locations/ hub with a separate page for every area people actually search:

• City-level (e.g., Charleston),
• Neighborhoods (e.g., Daniel Island, Mount Pleasant),
• Feeder towns within your 5–20 mile radius.

If you only have "Charleston" but people search "physical therapist Mount Pleasant," Google has no reason to show you without a dedicated Mount Pleasant page.

3️⃣ Services Folder (How You Help)

Create a /services/ hub with a page for every major offer, such as:

• Physical Therapy
• Running PT
• ACL Rehab
• Back Pain, Shoulder Pain, Neck Pain
• Pre/Post-Op Rehab
• Dry Needling, BFR, Sports Massage, Pelvic Health, etc.

Each service page should:

• Explain who it's for and what problems it solves,
• Outline your approach or 3-step process,
• Link to relevant location pages (e.g., "Physical Therapy in Charleston, Daniel Island, Mount Pleasant, Charlotte").

4️⃣ Condition / Problem Pages & Blogs

Once your services and locations are in place, you can layer in:

• Condition pages: Back pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, etc.
• Blog categories: Grouped to support core services (e.g., "Running PT," "ACL Rehab," "Pelvic Health").

These pages should internally link back to your service and location pages so Google can see the full web of relevance.

🔗 Why Internal Linking Matters

Internal links are how you tell Google, "We do this service in this place for this problem."

For example:

• Your Physical Therapy page links to: Charleston, Daniel Island, Mount Pleasant, Charlotte location pages.
• Your Back Pain page links to: Physical Therapy + your key locations.

Now when someone searches "back pain physical therapist in Charlotte," Google can connect all three: problem + service + location. That's how you start ranking for high-intent searches that actually turn into patients.

🏦 Own Your Website (Or You Don't Own the Asset)

One of the biggest red flags Jeremy sees: clinics who don't even have access to their own site because an agency controls it.

If you don't own your site, you:

• Can't fix your structure or SEO without permission,
• Can't reliably scale or pivot your marketing,
• Can't truly sell the business someday—because you don't own a key asset.

You should always have full access to your website, hosting, and DNS so changes to structure, pages, and content can be made as your clinic evolves.

🚀 What to Do Next

Use this episode as a checklist against your current site:

• Do you have a Services hub with a page for each main service?
• Do you have a Locations hub with a page for each city/neighborhood you actually draw from?
• Are services and locations internally linked in both directions?
• Do your condition and blog pages support those same services and locations?
• Do you own and control your own website platform and hosting?

📣 Share This Episode

Know a clinic owner posting nonstop content with no SEO payoff? Send them this episode. Their traffic problem might not be content—it might be site structure.

📱 Next Steps with Patch

Want a professional set of eyes on your current site and rankings?
👉 Get a Free Local SEO & Website Audit

Want Patch to build the full SEO-ready site structure and systems for you?
👉 Book a Patch Demo and see how we're rebuilding clinic sites to win in 2025–2026.

Fix the foundation first. Once your site is structured the way Google thinks, every piece of content you create starts working 10x harder for you.