A promised position or date
Nobody controls Google's results. A company that sells a number one position or a date has either misunderstood search or is hoping you will not check.
For practice owners shopping for help
Functional Medicine SEO: What to Ask Before You Hire Anyone
Choosing a company for functional medicine SEO is harder than choosing for most trades, and SEO for functional medicine practices has to be judged on different terms than SEO for a hardware store. Your pages describe health topics that regulators and search engines both watch closely, many patients pay out of pocket and take their time, and a careless writer can put your license at risk. This page gives you the questions, the answers worth trusting and the warning signs.
Know the field first
What Makes Functional Medicine Search Different
Patients rarely begin with the phrase "functional medicine". They begin with symptoms they have lived with for a long time: exhaustion that sleep does not fix, digestive trouble, a thyroid number a conventional visit called normal, hormone changes, an autoimmune diagnosis they want to understand better. Searches such as "why am I tired all the time" or "gut health specialist near me" come first, and the practice name arrives later. A good plan has pages that meet people at the symptom, then at the approach, then at the booking.
The business model matters too. Most functional medicine practices are cash-pay or membership based, with longer first visits and lab work. Searchers therefore ask about cost, whether insurance covers anything, how this differs from a regular doctor and what a first visit involves. Telehealth adds a further layer, since licensure usually depends on where the patient is located, which affects which cities and states a site can honestly say it serves.
Then there is the rulebook. State medical boards, advertising law and platform health policies all have views on claims about conditions, treatments and supplements. Testimonials, "reversal" language, and statements about unproven testing can all cause trouble. Any company you hire must show how it handles that, because a site full of aggressive health claims might rank briefly and then cost you far more than it earned.
It helps to know what the finished site should look like, so you can judge proposals against it. Expect a page for each condition area you truly treat, written in the words patients use; a page about how a first visit works, including how long it lasts and which labs may be discussed; a clear explanation of fees, memberships and what insurance may or may not reimburse; a profile for each clinician with credentials stated exactly as they are held; and a map listing that matches your license and location. If you offer telehealth, a page that states plainly which states you can see patients in.
Finally, ask how success will be judged. In this field the honest measures are calls, consult requests, new patient bookings and the questions patients say they searched before arriving. Rankings are a means, never the goal, and a company that cannot connect its work to the front desk's numbers is selling activity. Local SEO and search engine optimization more broadly are only worth buying if they feed the front desk.
Vetting a company
What to Ask, What Good Sounds Like, What Bad Sounds Like
| Question to ask | A good answer | A bad answer |
|---|---|---|
| How do you handle health claims? | Describes a review step where your clinician approves every condition or treatment statement, and writes conservatively around outcomes | Says they write whatever converts, or that claims are your problem |
| Who writes the medical content and who checks it? | Names the writer's experience in health topics, shows that a licensed provider on your side signs off, and cites reputable sources inside the content | Uses unnamed freelancers or generic text spun for many clinics |
| What will you change on my site first? | Specific, based on an audit of your actual pages, listing and tracking | A generic checklist or the same package for every client |
| How do you treat privacy on forms and tracking? | Asks whether your intake and scheduling tools collect health details, recommends counsel review, and limits what analytics tools receive | Has never considered it, or tags everything with ad pixels by default |
| What do you report each month? | Calls, form requests, map actions and visits by page, tied to services, plus what was done | Keyword ranking screenshots only, or a traffic number with no context |
| Do you promise rankings or timelines? | Says no one can, explains typical stages, and describes how progress is judged | Offers a position or date, or says they have a secret method |
| How do you build links and mentions? | Local organizations, professional bodies, community partners and real publications, all of which you could explain to your board | Buys links in bulk, uses networks of blogs or will not say where links come from |
| Who owns the website, listing and content? | You do, in writing, and you can leave with everything | The agency controls the logins or the listing and charges to hand them over |
| What are the contract terms? | Month to month, clear scope, no long lock-in | A long minimum term with penalties for ending early |
Questions to settle
Practical Questions About Hiring for Functional Medicine SEO
How much does functional medicine SEO cost?
Our search engine optimization plans are $495 a month for RankGuarantee™ landing pages and $1,495, $2,495 or $3,495 a month for Organic Growth, which adds on-page and technical work, map listing management, citations, reviews, AI search and reporting. There is no setup fee or contract. Compare any quote by what is delivered each month, not by the size of the number.
Should we hire a general SEO firm or one that only does healthcare?
Experience with health topics matters more than the label. Ask for the process they use to handle claims, privacy and clinical review, and ask how they would approach a practice like yours. A general company that shows a careful process can outperform a specialist whose pages read like every other clinic's.
Can SEO bring in patients from outside our city?
For in-person care, searchers want proximity, so local SEO, meaning the map listing and city pages, matters most. For telehealth you may reach more places, but only where your clinicians are licensed to treat. We describe service areas truthfully and let you decide which states belong on the site.
Do we need a blog?
Educational articles about functional medicine can reach people who are researching symptoms and approaches before they book, and they give your clinicians a place to show how they think. They must be accurate, reviewed and written without outcome promises. A few well-built articles beat dozens of thin ones.
How do reviews fit in?
Reviews influence map visibility and patient confidence. Ask satisfied patients for feedback through an ordinary process and keep replies general, because confirming someone is a patient can raise privacy problems. Board rules on testimonials differ by state, so ask counsel what you may display or quote.
What about selling supplements online?
Product pages carry their own claim risks, because statements about what a supplement does are regulated. We can structure the pages so products are findable, but your counsel or compliance advisor decides the wording. Some practices keep products on a separate store to keep clinical pages clean.
Will AI search tools recommend our practice?
No one controls that, and we do not promise it. What helps is a site that states plainly who you are, where you practice, who your providers are and what you offer, with the same facts in your listings. Clear, consistent information is what AI answers draw on.
How soon should we expect results?
Timing depends on your market, current site and the speed of clinical review. Map listing fixes can show progress sooner than new content. We report calls and consult requests monthly. We do not promise rankings or a date, and we caution against any company that does.
What if we already have an agency?
Ask them the questions in the table above and compare the answers. Request a copy of your listing and site access if you do not already hold it. If you decide to change, a good company will hand everything over without friction, and so should we if we ever part ways.
Walk away if you hear this
Red Flags When Hiring a Functional Medicine SEO Company
Health claims written to convert
Language such as cure, reverse or detox that implies outcomes can attract board attention and platform penalties. Ask to see their approval process first.
Mass-produced content
Near-identical articles used across many functional medicine clinics are easy for search engines to recognize and offer patients nothing a clinician would stand behind.
Link buying and hidden networks
Paid link packages and blog networks can lead to penalties that take months to recover from. If they will not name where links come from, assume the worst.
Control of your assets
If the agency holds the website logins, the map listing or your domain, you are renting your own presence. Insist on ownership in writing.
Silence about privacy
Forms, scheduling tools and ad pixels can pass health details to outside companies. A firm that has no view on this is not ready for medical work.
Reports with no business meaning
Visits and keyword charts without calls, forms or booked consults tell you little. Ask for the numbers a front desk would recognize.
If you decide to proceed
How to Run a Selection Process
Write down what you want
List the functional medicine services you most want to grow, the towns or states you can serve and the patient types you want more of. A clear target makes proposals comparable.
Ask each company the same questions
Use the table above, and request answers by email so you can compare them later. Include your clinical lead or counsel for the privacy and claims questions.
Review real work, not a pitch
Ask for examples of health-related pages, the review steps behind them and a sample monthly report. Judge them as you would a clinical colleague's notes.
Start with an audit and a small scope
A month-to-month start lets you see how the company communicates and how fast it moves, before a larger commitment.
Check references in regulated work
Ask for a conversation with a current client in a health field, and ask how the company reacted when a claim had to be softened or removed. The answer shows whether the process is real.
Confirm ownership and access
Make sure the site, the listing, analytics and Search Console accounts are in your name from the first day.
Nearby trades
SEO Guides You Might Want Next
Want the paid side or the lead side too? See getting more leads, buying leads, lead generation programs, and Google Ads for functional medicine.
Get in Touch
Ask Us the Hard Questions
Bring this page's questions to a call. Reach us at 610-825-4363 or hello@getphound.com and we will answer them about our own work. We are not a medical or legal advisor, so your clinicians and counsel still decide what your site is allowed to say.