What do practice priorities actually do?

Sound familiar?

"I named priority topics during onboarding, what happened to them?" "What's the difference between a priority and a specialism?" "Do my priorities actually change the plan or are they just noted somewhere?" They change the plan in three concrete, visible ways. Here is the full mechanics.

What's happening

Your practice can declare up to three practice priority topics: the things you most want your clinic to be known for. They live in the Practice Priority Topics section of your Clinic Profile page at https://content.co-kinetic.com/my-clinic/clinic-profile (first set during onboarding), and they are one of the strongest inputs you control. Locked topics show their unlock date; an unlocked slot can be edited or added to right there — save, then press Confirm and start research. There is also a "Focus my content plan on these priorities only" switch on the same panel if you want the plan to concentrate entirely on your priorities for a while.

Declaring a priority does three things:

The topic gets research treatment. It is properly researched for your practice, and it activates the matching topic area for your clinic, or reinforces it if a clinician's declared expertise had already activated it. From that point the topic area can produce plan actions: a hub page, its supporting pages, the lot.
It gets a genuine ranking boost. Every candidate piece on your plan is scored on measured evidence, and a declared priority lifts every piece belonging to that topic in the scoring.
A confirmed priority gets a reserved slot. If a confirmed priority is not already covered by the plan, it gets its own plan item, shown with a priority badge, whenever an eligible piece exists 🎯.

Why it works this way

The plan is built from measured evidence, and most of that evidence is collected about you: your site, your team, your local search demand. Priorities are the one input that is pure intent: where you want the practice to go, not just where it is today. The platform treats that intent seriously (research, boost, reserved slot) but does not let it silently outrank the evidence, because a plan that ignored real demand and real gaps would cost you visibility. That balance is the whole design.

How priorities differ from niches. Both activate topic areas, but they come from different places and do different jobs:

A priority is declared by the practice: "we want to be known for this." Capped at three, gets the ranking boost and the reserved slot.
A niche is declared by a clinician in their profile: "this is what I actually treat." Niches are what qualify your clinic to publish on a topic at all: the plan cannot recommend content nobody on your team is qualified to author.

The strongest position for a topic is both at once: a declared priority that a clinician also carries as declared expertise. The full niche story is in "What are niches and primary niches, and how do they shape my plan?"

What to do now

Open the Practice Priority Topics section at https://content.co-kinetic.com/my-clinic/clinic-profile and choose thoughtfully: pick the topics you genuinely want the practice known for, not just current volume. Use the professional term for the specialism, the way you would describe it to another clinician.
Save, then press Confirm and start research — confirming is what starts the research and the 90-day lock 💬.
Open your plan at https://content.co-kinetic.com/my-clinic/plan and look for the priority badge: that is your reserved slot at work. The "Why this action?" expander on those items will show the priority in the reasoning.
Make sure a clinician's profile backs each priority up (see the niches article): a priority your team visibly carries expertise in is a priority AI search can verify.

The Practice Priority Topics section on the Clinic Profile page: a locked topic with its unlock date, an editable slot, and the Confirm and start research button

The question behind the question

"Why only three?" Because AI likes depth, not breadth — which is exactly why the platform narrows the focus. A priority is a claim about focus, and focus divided fifteen ways is not focus: three topics, each properly researched, boosted and guaranteed a slot, will move your visibility further than a long list of half-priorities ever could. And three is not forever: when a priority's 90-day lock expires you can change it, so over a year you can build deep, lasting clusters on a whole series of topics 🙂.

The next question is usually...

How do I push a topic up my content plan?
What are niches and primary niches, and how do they shape my plan?
How is my content plan organised, and how does it decide what goes where?

Still stuck? This usually means...

You cannot see a priority badge anywhere on the plan. Check the priority was actually confirmed (not just typed during onboarding); if it was and no badge shows after a regeneration, tell us in the chat with the topic name.
You want to change a priority. They lock for 90 days while their cluster is built — "Why are my practice priority topics locked for 90 days?" explains, including the admin-override route if one is genuinely wrong.
Your priority topic still is not producing content. Make sure a clinician's profile carries the expertise: a priority nobody is qualified to author can hold a slot but cannot fill it.