LocalBusiness vs. Physician

[Titan552]

I have a physician who is a client and I'm wondering:  is there any advantage to having their schema.org as "LocalBusiness" vs.  Physician?

Clearly as Physician is a sublisting, it should be fine.  But I'm just curious.  Other than future-proofing is there any "real-time" advantage?

Thanks for any insight!

[MiriamEllis]

Thanks for asking such a good question. Glad to help!

[Titan552]

Well thanks for your openness and your suggestion.  I agree that it makes logical sense that if you are an MD, to go as an MD.  Many thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Titan552,

The fact of the matter is that there is little research to support a rock-solid conclusion on this. Here is a list (partial, I think) of the business types supported by specific Schema:

http://schema.org/LocalBusiness

Here is my thinking on this - if specific schema exists for your category of business, you should use it. After all, the whole point of Schema markup is to make information as explicit as possible. If it's possible to 'label' a business as being a physician, then that is more descriptive than simply calling it 'organization', 'local business'. I just recently discussed this with some colleagues and this is the conclusion we reached. This conclusion, as I've said, is not based on studies of any kind. I don't know of any that have been done. It more of a common sense approach. Hope it makes good sense to you!

[Titan552]

Thank you for your reply.  And yes, if the website doesn't come up for the Dr.'s own name in search then we've got bigger fish to fry.

But all things being equal, as an adjunct to other traditional SEO techniques, does the "physician" schema.org classification make any difference over "LocalBusiness"?

It is really a semantic difference, or does the subcategory under "LocalBusiness" really make a signifigant difference?

Then again, I would imagine that it coudn't hurt, especially if the SE's decide in the future to actually use the subcategories (physicians, lawyers, etc).

Thanks.

[WhiteboardCreations]

Titan552,

We work with many healthcare and medical providers like dentists, chiro's, eye docs, etc and find that optimizing their names like John Smith DDS or Dr John Smith is more effective than their business name/local business name. The reason being, people are more prone to search for the doctor's name or some variation of it with the city they know they are in. I would like to note that this tactic is best for single doctor facility/business. Now, when we have several doctors in one location/business, then optimizing the business name/local business is effective and would place that in the scheme.org listing.

Hope this was helpful! - Patrick