<b>The physio whose customers used the wrong words</b>

<b>The physio whose customers used the wrong words</b>

Meet a physiotherapist in Dublin who ranked well for 'physiotherapist' but vanished for the searches that matched her real specialty — 'sports injury rehab,' 'sciatica treatment,' 'post-surgery physio.' She did all of those, expertly. Google just didn't know.

We read through her reviews. Lovely, all of them. And almost identical: 'so professional,' 'really helped me,' 'highly recommend.' Warm, generic, and empty of the specific terms she needed associated with her listing.

Review text is a relevance signal — Google reads the words your customers use and ties them to your business, even surfacing them as justifications. If every review says 'professional' and none says 'sciatica,' you can't rank for sciatica through reviews.

We changed the ask. Instead of 'please leave a review,' staff prompted: 'It'd help us if you mention what we treated you for.' Gentle nudge, customer's own words.

For a few weeks the new reviews trickled in slowly and nothing shifted.

Then the specific terms accumulated. Reviews naming 'sciatica' and 'sports injury' pulled her into those searches; she began surfacing for 'sciatica treatment Dublin.' New patients rose from 14 to 29 a month, skewed toward her higher-value specialties.

The lesson: guide reviewers to name what you actually did — the words your customers write become the searches you can rank for.