Cost
What does it cost?
One flat monthly fee, quoted in writing after the free ranking check, because the fee depends on how much needs doing: a clinic with a good profile and a six-page site needs less than one with no site at all. The fee does not change with your call volume or your hearing aid sales. There is no percentage, no per-lead or per-patient charge, and no setup fee. Either side can end it with 30 days' notice. We don't publish a number here because it depends on what the check finds.
Is there a contract?
A short written agreement that says what we do, what you approve, what it costs, that everything stays in your name, and that either side can end it with 30 days' notice. No minimum term. The how we work page has a one-page summary of it.
What if we only need the two pages you said we were missing?
Then we quote the two pages. If the check finds you need a profile fix and two pages, not a monthly service, the report says so.
Timing
How long before anything moves?
Profile changes can show in the map results within days; the category, services and hours are read quickly. New pages take weeks to months to rank, longer for "hearing aids [town]" where chain location pages are already established, shorter for "hearing aid repair [town]" where nobody has a real page. Reviews work on the map over months. The monthly report says which changes are the fast kind and which are the slow kind, and plots the same eight searches each time so you can see for yourself.
Is there a best time of year to start?
Industry sales data for 2011 to 2019 (Hearing Industries Association, private sector, as analyzed by Hearing Review in 2021) shows January about 10% below the monthly average, February about 8% below, and March about 10% above, the best month of the year, with August second. Pages published in October and November have time to be indexed before the March peak. Starting in February is fine too.
Chains in your town
A manufacturer-owned clinic opened on the highway last year. Can we compete?
In the map results, often yes: in our October snapshot of 14 towns, one search each, at least two of the three map results for "hearing aids [town]" were not chain locations in 12 of them. In the web results under the map, their location pages carry a national site's authority, and we would not try to outrank them for their brand names. We would take the searches they do not build pages for: tests, repairs, real-ear measurement, earwax, tinnitus, the audiologist's own name, and the Medicare visit. The snapshot page has the full tables.
A buying group or management company already handles our marketing. Can we use you as well?
Only if they agree and we can see what they have done, so we are not undoing each other's work. If a manufacturer or chain owns the clinic, we are not the right fit.
Do you work with more than one clinic in a town?
We won't work for two competing practices in one town. Two practices compete when both offer hearing evaluations or hearing aids to patients in the same town; a practice with several locations counts as one, and so does an ENT group's audiology department. If we can't take on your town, we tell you straight away.
Should we run Local Services Ads?
Google lists Audiologist among the eligible Local Services Ads categories, with a badge it now calls Google Verified; there is no hearing aid store category, and health care verticals cannot get booking leads or run ads before the badge is granted. We do not run ads, but if your clinic has an audiologist and spare budget, it is worth a test, and we will tell you what to watch in the first month.
Data and privacy
Do you need our patient data, and what about the tracking scripts on our site?
No, and we would decline it. Review requests go out through your own system, in your name, to your patients. We write the message; your staff set it up. We never log in to your patient system. Replies to reviews are public and confirm nothing about anyone. If your website stores appointment requests, we either work without access to them or sign a business associate agreement first.
As for scripts, we remove advertising pixels and session recorders from every page that touches a condition, an appointment or a test, and we keep cookieless page counts so you can still see traffic. A federal court vacated part of HHS's online tracking guidance in June 2024 and HHS withdrew its appeal that August; its page still says it is evaluating next steps. What remains treats a booking page where someone types a reason for a visit as a disclosure to whoever receives the tracking data.
What happens to the accounts if we stop?
Nothing changes hands, because nothing left your name. You remove us as a manager from the profile and change the website password. The pages, photos and reviews are yours.
Medicare and OTC
Can our website say Medicare patients can come in without a referral?
Carefully, and your provider should sign off the sentence. Since 2023, Medicare Part B lets a beneficiary see an audiologist once every 12 months without a physician's order for non-acute hearing conditions, billed with the AB modifier; the visit cannot be for hearing aid fitting, and Medicare does not cover hearing aids. A page can say that, in those words. It should not say "free hearing test with Medicare", because Part B diagnostic exams carry 20% coinsurance after the deductible.
Medicare Advantage plans keep sending patients to a network provider. Is there anything a website can do?
KFF found that 98% of individual Medicare Advantage plans offer hearing benefits in 2026, and many of those benefits may be managed by a hearing benefit manager, and four of the five largest manufacturers run such benefit managers. A website cannot change a plan's network. It can make sure that when a member searches "hearing aids covered by my plan [town]", your page explains plainly which plans you work with, what the benefit usually covers, and that the member can ask the plan for an out-of-network option. No promises about coverage, ever; the plan decides.
Should we sell or support OTC hearing aids, and should the site say so?
That is a clinical and business decision for you. The FDA rule (21 CFR 800.30) makes OTC hearing aids a legal product for adults with perceived mild to moderate loss, sold without a licensed person; a state cannot require a license to sell them. MarkeTrak 2025 found 70% of OTC owners were first-time buyers. If you offer fitting help or checks for OTC devices, a page saying so, with the FDA's nine warning signs, is worth publishing. If you do not, the site should still explain the difference between OTC and prescription devices fairly, without disparaging either.
Reviews
Can we offer a battery pack or a discount for a review?
No. Google's policy bars incentives for reviews outright and bars asking only happy customers. The FTC rule allows some incentives as long as no particular sentiment is required, but Google's rule is stricter and it is Google's platform. Everyone gets the same request, nobody gets a gift for it.
A patient left a one-star review with details that are wrong. Can we reply with what really happened?
No. A reply that says what happened confirms the person was a patient and discloses their care, which is what the 2023 HHS settlement with a New Jersey provider ($30,000) was about. The reply says you take feedback seriously and gives a phone number for a private conversation. If the review breaks Google's rules, you can ask Google to remove it; we help with that.
Can we use patient testimonials on the website?
Only with the patient's written HIPAA authorization, kept on file, and only if the words are theirs and were not paid for. We would rather use none and let the Google reviews speak.
About us
Who actually does the work?
We do, from Austin, Texas, where Audiology Marketing Company is operated and based. The people who run the checks also write the reports and the pages and answer the email. The about page has the background.
Do you have hearing clinic clients we can call?
Not yet. Hearing care is new for us. The case study is from another field, and we don't name that business.
Why only search?
Because the map results and the page under them are where a person who has decided to act goes, and because that is the work a small clinic can afford to keep doing. Ads stop when the budget stops; a service page can keep working for years.