The intake
Doctors work in St Louis
St Louis patients search for care by neighbourhood, by insurance and by symptom, and the searches cluster around the places people live and work. The metro is split across the city and St Louis County, with independent practices, hospital affiliated groups and urgent care chains all publishing pages for the same terms. Search demand for doctors here follows population density, so the strongest volume sits in the central corridor and the inner ring suburbs, with steady long tail demand out through the county. Paid search in this market is competitive for primary care and specialty terms, which tells you people are actively looking rather than browsing. The practices holding those searches are a mix of owner operators with one or two locations and larger groups running several sites, and both compete on the same neighbourhood level queries.
