Until quite recently, our decision on which doctor to visit for our healthcare needs would have been driven largely by feedback from our immediate friends, family and, perhaps, our co-workers while gathered around the office water cooler.
Today, advancements in digital technologies have brought us an explosion of customer review platforms and comparative information websites. These provide us with a wider audience for peer reviews and visibility on service level ratings for medical service providers.
If you run a medical practice, you’d be wise to take steps towards verifying, claiming and managing how patients view and interact with your business online. If you haven’t already done so, creating a Google My Business listing for your practice is an important first step.
If, however, you have tried to claim your Google My Business listing, you may have seen how complex it can be, especially for businesses like medical practices. You may have had questions like: “How do I represent multiple locations for my practice?” or “Why can’t people can’t find me when they type my address into their GPS on their phone?”.
Here’s a bit more information.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business provides a platform for your business to be displayed in search results, reviews, maps and Google+ profiles. Google is the most popular search engine and over time it has made many changes to how it displays search results for patients looking for information, giving preference to healthcare providers located closest to the searcher’s physical location.
What are the key benefits of listing my business?
Apart from the obvious benefit of making it easier to find you, an up-to-date business listing will also allow medical practitioners to:
· Claim and manage how their business is displayed online
· Interact with their patients and find better ways to serve them
· Attract and convert new patients searching for services in their area
This results in new business and higher revenue!
What are the costs?
It’s free!
What do I need to do?
The four key steps are listed below, each with its own tasks
1. CREATE a business Gmail account (not under your personal Gmail account)
2. VERIFY that you are the owner or in charge of the page (google.com/business)
3. OPTIMIZE the page (aka fill it out 100%)
4. POST 1-2 times per month on the page
What else should I know?
Each step is well supported in Google’s support pages that can be found at https://support.google.com/business.
Once you’re up and running there’ll be a commitment to maintaining your profile, checking and responding to reviews, as well as posting regular updates - but we’ll get to that next time!
Google is constantly evolving the platform and is now beginning to roll out changes for a broader range of businesses including doctors and other medical professionals, that allow you to place an appointment URL (link) directly on Google Maps. This is very similar to listing your main website URL, but it enables you to link directly to an appointment request or booking system. The new URL appears right below the phone number on the maps listing.
Get your Google My Business listing done today and start maximising your business opportunities!
If you’re in need of personalised and professional advice go help you establish your online presence, promote your medical practice and grow more revenue,get in touch with me at barbara@ideabridge.co.za