How to Choose a Healthcare SEO Consultant: 12 Questions

Questions about the people and the work

1. Who will actually do the work?

Good answer: a named person you have met, with their role in each deliverable. Red flag: a senior person sells, a junior team or unnamed subcontractor delivers.

2. What have you done in my sector?

Good answer: specific problems they have solved (a suspension, a migration, a compliance rewrite), with evidence shown under NDA. Red flag: logos with no detail, or client names shared freely, which tells you how they will treat yours.

3. How do you measure success?

Good answer: booked appointments, calls and enquiries by source, alongside search visibility. Red flag: traffic and “keyword rankings” only.

Questions about compliance and data

4. Which rules apply to my content, and how do you apply them?

Good answer: they name the regulator for your country and profession (for example the ASA and GMC in the UK, AHPRA in Australia, the provincial college in Canada, the FTC and state boards in the US) and explain how it changes testimonials, claims and before-and-after images. My compliance hub shows what that looks like. Red flag: “compliance is your legal team’s job”.

5. How do you handle patient data and tracking?

Good answer: they will not put ad pixels on booking or intake pages, they know Google won’t sign a BAA for Analytics, and they can explain how they measure without PHI. Red flag: “just install the pixel”.

6. Does any of my data go into AI tools?

Good answer: a clear no for client and patient data, or a written explanation of exactly what is shared, with whom and under what agreement. Red flag: vagueness. I don’t put client data into AI tools, and I say so in writing.

Questions about methods

7. How do you build links?

Good answer: earned mentions from research, expert commentary, local partners and professional bodies. Red flag: packages of guest posts, private blog networks or paid links. Google’s spam policies treat buying links for ranking as link spam, and a penalty on a health site takes months to recover.

8. What will you do about reviews?

Good answer: ask every patient, reply carefully without disclosing health information, never gate or incentivise without disclosure. Red flag: “review management” that filters unhappy patients away from Google.

9. How do you approach AI search?

Good answer: entity clarity, verifiable credentials, content that answers specific questions, crawler access, and preparing booking paths that AI agents can complete (what I call agentic optimisation). Red flag: a promise to “get you into ChatGPT”.

10. What happens if our Google Business Profile is suspended?

Good answer: they know Google’s appeal process and evidence requirements; see my suspension recovery guide. Red flag: they would create a new listing.

Questions about the relationship

11. Who owns the accounts, and what happens if we part ways?

Good answer: you own Search Console, analytics, every Business Profile, the domain and the website; they are added as users. Notice periods are short and handover is documented. Red flag: they hold the accounts, or content and links disappear when you leave.

12. What won’t you do?

Good answer: a clear list, such as no guaranteed rankings, no fake reviews, no link buying, no medical claims without evidence. Red flag: they will do anything you ask. My own list is on how I work.

Consultant or agency?

An independent consultant suits practices and groups that want senior, hands-on work and direct access. An agency can be the better fit if you need a large volume of content, design and paid media under one roof, or daily execution across dozens of sites. Ask the same twelve questions either way; the answers matter more than the business model.

How I would answer them

I do all the technical work myself, clients own every account, client data stays private and never goes into AI tools, and results are shown in full under NDA. You can read the reasoning on my about page and the evidence on results. If you would like to put these questions to me directly, book a strategy call.