SEO audits for pharmacies

Pharmacies answer some of the most practical questions in local search, open now, after hours, vaccinations, and their websites are the least likely of any trade we measure at scale to state those facts in a form machines can read.

Note: this is one of our smaller samples. The figures indicate a direction rather than a precise measurement.

What we found

Across 44 pharmacy websites found by searches for 'pharmacy', the average was 78.7 and half scored 82 or better; 5 scored under 60. Of the ten trades we have 40 or more sites for, pharmacies sit in the lower half, ahead of restaurants, beauty salons and cafes.

No structured data and a weak title tag tie as the most common faults, each on 20 of the 44 sites. That is the highest rate of missing structured data among those ten trades, and for a pharmacy it is the costliest gap: opening hours, after-hours availability and services such as vaccinations are exactly what people ask a search engine or assistant.

Pharmacies also lead those trades on missing Open Graph tags (15 sites) and on pages with more than one H1 (11), the kind of gaps a template leaves when nobody configures it.

Every fault, and how often

Half the sites scored 82 or more. By band: 59.1% scored 80 to 100, 29.5% 60 to 79, 9.1% 40 to 59 and 2.3% under 40. Of the businesses these searches found, 27.6% had no website at all.

Measured October 2026 from ppclift's own audits of sites found by searches for ‘pharmacy’, each website counted once however many searches found it; sites that could not be read are left out, the same way as the research post. Points are out of the 100-point score.

Sample finding

Of the 14 pharmacy sites with no meta description, 10 also had no Open Graph tags, against 15 of the 44 overall. Both are the short summaries other software uses to describe a page, one for search results and one for shared links, and a site missing one tends to be missing the other: nobody wrote the summary at all.

What a typical site is missing

The median pharmacy site scores 82. The likely gaps are structured data (8 points, 20 of 44 sites), the title tag (4 points, 20 sites) and Open Graph tags or alt text (4 and 6 points, 15 sites each). Structured data is the one to lead with: Pharmacy markup with opening hours, including late and weekend hours, is what lets a search engine answer 'pharmacy open now' from the pharmacy's own site rather than from a directory.

How to pitch it

• Lead with opening hours. 'Pharmacy open now' and 'late night chemist' are searches made with a need, and hours a search engine can read are how a pharmacy gets that visit.
• Service pages are the opportunity: vaccinations, medication reviews and compounding are each searched for in their own right.
• Mind the advertising rules. Pharmacy services are health services, so keep pitch copy factual and avoid anything that reads as a therapeutic claim.

Questions about pharmacies

Do independent pharmacies need their own website if they belong to a banner group?

The banner group's site ranks for the banner. A store page on a group site can carry little more than an address; the pharmacy's own pages are where its hours, services and staff can be stated properly. 27.6% of the pharmacies these searches found had no website of their own.

Which structured data matters for a pharmacy?

Pharmacy markup with the address, phone number and opening hours, including any late or weekend hours, plus the services offered. 20 of the 44 sites had no structured data of any kind.

Why do so many pharmacy pages have more than one H1?

Template sites often style the store name, a promotion banner and the page title all as top-level headings. 11 of the 44 sites did this, which leaves search engines unsure what each page is about. It costs 3 points in our scoring and takes minutes to fix.

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