· 4 min
A doctor’s website has one job: to answer, calmly and precisely, the questions a patient asks before calling — who you are, what you treat, how, where and when you can be seen. It must stay informational rather than promotional, respect the ethics rules of your medical council, and be structured so that Google Maps and AI assistants describe your practice correctly.
- Patients decide on facts: specialty, credentials, procedures, languages, address, hours and how to book.
- Information is allowed, advertising is not: promises of results, comparisons and patient testimonials are generally prohibited.
- A consistent name, address and phone number everywhere, plus schema.org medical data, let AI assistants describe you correctly.
- Sobriety is a feature: a medical website earns trust as much by what it does not say.
Contents
Before calling a specialist, a patient now does what a colleague would do: they check. Is this doctor qualified for my problem? Does she perform the procedure I need? Can I reach the practice, park, speak my language? A growing share of those checks no longer happens on Google’s results page but in a conversation with an AI assistant, which answers with one or two names.
A medical website is therefore not a brochure. It is a dossier — and the patient, like the assistant, reads it looking for facts.
The eight things patients check
- Specialty and sub-specialty, stated in the patient’s words (“heart rhythm disorders”) as well as yours (“rhythmology”).
- Credentials: training, diplomas, hospital positions, memberships of learned societies.
- Procedures performed at the practice, each explained in a few sober lines: what it is for, how it goes, how long it takes.
- Where: address, map, access, parking, accessibility for reduced mobility.
- When: opening hours, emergencies, typical wait for a first appointment.
- How to book: phone, online booking, what to bring to a first consultation.
- Languages spoken — decisive in multilingual cities such as Fès, Casablanca, Brussels or Montreal.
- Fees and coverage, as far as your rules allow: agreements with insurers, third-party payment.
Informing without advertising: the ethical line
Medicine is not a market like any other, and its ethics codes say so. In France, a decree of 22 December 2020 amended the code of medical ethics to allow doctors to give the public factual information about their skills and practice, provided it is fair, honest and not commercial. In Morocco, Law 131-13 on the practice of medicine and the code of ethics likewise forbid practising medicine as a trade.
In practice, that rules out what most web agencies sell by reflex: promises of results, before-and-after galleries, comparisons with colleagues and, in most jurisdictions, patient testimonials. What remains — precise, verifiable information — is exactly what patients and AI assistants value most. Check the current guidance of your own council before publishing: rules differ between countries and are regularly revised.
How Google Maps and AI assistants describe your practice
When someone asks an assistant for a cardiologist in their city, the answer is assembled from a few sources: your website, your Google Business Profile, medical directories and press mentions. If these sources disagree — a different address, an outdated specialty, old opening hours — the assistant either hesitates or repeats the wrong version.
- Use exactly the same name, address and phone number on your site, your Google Business Profile and every directory.
- Describe the practice in structured data: schema.org offers Physician and MedicalClinic types that state explicitly who you are and what you treat.
- Give each major procedure its own section with a clear heading — assistants quote passages, not whole sites.
- Keep a dated “last updated” mention on practical pages: hours and fees change, and freshness is a trust signal.
A structure that works for a specialist practice
For most specialists, five pages are enough:
- Home: who you are, what you treat, where — in the first three lines.
- The doctor: training, positions, publications, languages.
- Procedures: one short section per act, in plain language.
- The practice: address, map, access, hours, team.
- Appointments: how to book, what to bring, fee information.
Add a short FAQ with the questions your secretariat answers ten times a day. It relieves the phone line — and it is precisely the format AI assistants quote.
Five mistakes we see on doctors’ websites
- A homepage that opens on a stock photo and a slogan instead of the specialty and the city.
- Procedures listed as jargon without a single sentence of explanation.
- A PDF of the CV instead of text that search engines can read.
- An address that differs from the Google profile.
- No mobile version worthy of the name — while most patients search from their phone.
Questions readers ask
Is a doctor allowed to have a website?
Yes, in France, Morocco and most countries, provided the content is informational and complies with the code of medical ethics: factual information about qualifications, practice and access, without advertising or promises of results.
Can I publish patient reviews on my medical website?
Generally not. Most medical councils treat patient testimonials as advertising. Reviews left on independent platforms are a different matter, but you should neither reproduce nor solicit them on your own site. Check your council’s current guidance.
Do I still need a website if I am on Doctolib or a similar platform?
A booking platform lists you among hundreds of colleagues on a page it controls. Your own site is the only place where your expertise, procedures and approach are presented in full — and the source AI assistants use to describe you beyond a name and an address.
How long does it take to build a doctor’s website?
With your information ready — CV, procedures, practical details — a five-page medical site takes about two weeks at The Abstract, including one review round before publication.
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