In short: Someone looking for a dentist, a builder or an accountant is deciding three things at once: do you do exactly this, do you cover their area, and can they trust you. The site that answers all three gets the call. So each service gets its own page, the service area and opening hours are visible without hunting, the phone number dials with one tap and the form is short. Then you measure calls, form submissions and bookings, not visits.
This article is for a business that sells a service with a site visit, a quote or a booked appointment: a dental or medical practice, a building and refurbishment firm, an installer, an accounting or law practice. The rules for appearing on maps come from Google’s help centre, and the requirements for healthcare and construction businesses come from laws in force, with the article and the source named. None of it is legal advice: check your own case with a lawyer.
What is your visitor deciding before they contact you?
Visitors almost never read a site. They scan it for answers to questions already in their heads.
- Do you do this? Someone with a broken tooth is not looking for “dental medicine”, they are looking for an emergency dentist. A service described in the language of the profession is a service they do not recognise.
- Do you come to me? For work done on site, the service area is the first filter. Its absence reads as “no”.
- When? Opening hours, a free slot this week, a lead time for a survey. A vague answer costs a call.
- How much? Not an exact figure, but an order of magnitude and how it is worked out.
- Who are you? Real photos, names, qualifications, previous work.
- How do I reach you now? Phone, form or booking, with no hunting.
This is the difference between a site that looks good and a site that produces enquiries. What every company site needs as a baseline is covered in our article on the essentials of a business website.
Which pages and elements turn a visit into an enquiry?
The rule is simple: one page for every service a person would type into a search box on its own. A single “Services” page with a bulleted list neither ranks nor convinces.
- A page for each main service: what it covers, who it is for, how it runs, how long it takes, what happens next.
- Service area: the towns and districts you cover, written as text and not only shown on a map.
- Real photos: your team, your site, your practice. Stock photography is recognised and it costs trust.
- Qualifications and registrations: where the sector requires them, a registration number is an argument, not a formality.
- A tappable phone number: on a phone the number should dial with one tap, not be copied out by hand.
- A short form: name, phone and one free text line. Every extra field costs submissions.
- Booking or a call back: where the diary allows it, online booking catches the people who arrive out of hours.
- How to find you: address, a landmark, parking, which floor.
| Element | Which question it answers | How to check it |
|---|---|---|
| A page per service | Do you do this? | Search for your service as a customer writes it |
| Service area | Do you come to me? | Is the area visible without scrolling |
| Price or how it is formed | How much? | Is there an answer, or only a form |
| Photos of real work | Who are you? | Is there one photo from your own job |
| Tappable phone number | How do I reach you? | Does it dial with one tap on a phone |
| A form with three fields | Will this take long? | Count the required fields |
ScaleLab tip: Open your own site on a phone, on mobile data, standing up. Try to find the price, the service area and the phone number in 20 seconds. Whatever you cannot find moves up the page. This test settles most design arguments.
How do you talk about price when it depends on a site visit?
Saying nothing about price does not protect your quote. It puts people off and fills the phone with enquiries that will never become customers. Three approaches work.
- A starting price: a “from” figure for the typical job, with what is included made clear.
- A range by case: two or three typical jobs with an order of magnitude.
- How the price is formed: which factors move it, such as floor area, materials, number of appointments, complexity.
For medical establishments this is not a choice at all. The Medical Establishments Act, article 98(3), requires them to display the type and the price of all medical and other services provided and how they are paid for, and states that this information is published on the establishment’s website as well.
What does Google require for your business profile on maps?
For a business that works locally, a Google Business Profile often brings more calls than the site itself. Google has specific rules, though, and they are worth following exactly.
- Eligibility: Google states that to qualify, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours. Online-only operations do not qualify.
- Businesses that travel to customers: they keep one profile for the central office with a designated service area. Google advises hiding the address if you work from a residential one, and says the service area should not extend more than about 2 hours of driving time from your base.
- Profile name: the real-world business name as used on your storefront, website and stationery. Marketing taglines, hours, phone numbers and service descriptions do not belong in the name.
- Doctors and dentists: Google treats them as individual practitioners. Where several practise at one address, the organisation has its own profile, and a practitioner’s profile carries only the practitioner’s name.
- Verification: without a verified profile you can neither edit the details nor reply to reviews.
Google describes local results as resting on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. It also states plainly that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Separately, in its guidance on generative AI features, Google says a Business Profile helps your services appear both in AI responses and in ordinary search results.
The rules on reviews are strict in both directions. Google prohibits fake engagement, paid reviews and offering discounts or gifts in exchange for a review, as well as selectively soliciting only positive ones. The Consumer Protection Act likewise treats submitting fake reviews, and claiming reviews come from real customers without reasonable steps to verify it, as an unfair commercial practice.
ScaleLab tip: Do not mark up your own testimonials in structured data hoping for stars in the results. Google states that where the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, its pages using LocalBusiness or Organization structured data are ineligible for the star review feature. Keep testimonials as text on the site, and let the stars come from your maps profile.
What do you measure when the enquiry is a phone call?
Visits are not a result. For a business built on surveys and booked appointments the result takes three forms, and all three need counting separately.
- Calls: taps on the phone number on the site, and calls from the maps profile.
- Form submissions: confirmed on a thank you page, not on the click of a button.
- Bookings: from your booking system, if you have one.
Then comes the hard part: the call ends at reception, where nobody asks how the person found you. One question when answering and one field in the diary close that gap. If out-of-hours calls are frequent, an automatic reply helps too, but watch what it promises: when a chat assistant helps enquiries and when it hurts them is covered in our article on AI chat assistants for enquiries.
What changes from sector to sector?
Healthcare and dental practices
Here the boundaries are set by law. The Health Act, article 190(2), states that medical specialists and medical establishments may not use commercial advertising for their activity. The Medicinal Products in Human Medicine Act also bars a medical specialist from direct or indirect advertising of medicinal products on the internet, and prohibits internet advertising of prescription-only products outright.
In practice this means a site that informs: services, team, qualifications, prices as the law requires, how treatment proceeds. It does not mean promotional messaging and promises of outcomes. How ads get through review in sectors like this is covered in our article on advertising in regulated industries, and what changes across the whole of a practice’s marketing is on our dental clinic marketing page.
Data is a separate matter. Data concerning health is a special category of personal data and processing it is prohibited as a general rule, unless a specific exception applies, such as explicit consent. The conclusion for the site is simple: the form should not ask for symptoms, diagnoses or photographs. A name, a phone number and a reason for contact are enough, and the detail belongs in the surgery.
Construction and trades
Trust here is built with photographs and references, but there is also something a customer can verify. The Chamber of Builders Act, article 3(2), requires builders carrying out works of categories one to five, or separate types of construction and assembly works, to be entered in the Central Professional Register of Builders. Article 16(1) makes that register public and published on the chamber’s website.
If you are entered in it, the number and group belong on your site. A customer can check them, and that beats any adjective. The rest is the work itself: before and after photographs, job by job, with a short note on what was done, how long it took and what the problem was.
Professional services
An accounting, law or consulting firm sells judgement rather than a product. So pages by practice area, and the people behind them, do the job that photographs do in other sectors. The form should not push someone to describe their case in detail before they have spoken to anyone. What changes across the marketing of an expertise business is on our professional services marketing page.
A site that does all of this is not prettier than the others. It is organised around one action. That is how we approach website development too: the path to an enquiry is designed for the phone first, and tracking is set up before launch so you can see how many visitors reach an enquiry.
Frequently asked questions
Should I publish prices if every job is different?
For medical establishments it is an obligation: the Medical Establishments Act requires the type and price of services to be published on the website as well. For everyone else it is a choice, but silence usually brings more unsuitable enquiries. A starting price, or an explanation of how the price is formed, does the job.
Do I need a Google Business Profile if I have a website?
If you make in-person contact with customers, the profile is the main way people find you nearby. Google also says a profile helps your services appear in generative AI responses. Profile and site do not replace each other: the profile brings the call, the site makes the case.
Can I write promotional copy on a dental clinic’s website?
The Health Act states that medical specialists and medical establishments may not use commercial advertising for their activity. So the site is written as information about services, team and prices. Where the line falls in your own case is a question for a lawyer.
How do I collect reviews without breaking the rules?
Ask every customer, not only the happy ones, and do not offer a discount or a gift in exchange. Google prohibits paid and incentivised reviews, and the Consumer Protection Act treats fake reviews as an unfair commercial practice.
How many fields should the enquiry form have?
As many as you need to call the person back: name, phone and one free text line. Fields for an address, an identity number or case details get in the way, and with health data they carry additional risk.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help: Business eligibility and ownership guidelines
- Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google
- Google Business Profile Help: Verify your business on Google
- Google Business Profile Help: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google
- Google Maps User Generated Content Policy Help: Prohibited and restricted content
- Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search (updated 10 July 2026)
- Google Search Central: Local business structured data (updated 8 September 2026)
- Google Search Central: Review snippet structured data (updated 8 September 2026)
- Ministry of Health: Health Act, article 190(2)
- Ministry of Health: Medical Establishments Act, article 98(3)
- Ministry of Health: Medicinal Products in Human Medicine Act, articles 246 and 248a
- Commission for Consumer Protection: Consumer Protection Act, articles 68e and 68zh
- Chamber of Builders: Chamber of Builders Act, articles 3 and 16
- Central Professional Register of Builders
- European Commission: Under what conditions can my company or organisation process sensitive data
- EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), articles 4(15) and 9