Why are Google Reviews so important for your Healthcare Practice?
Google reviews are imperative to the success of your practice!
Welcome to Practice Treatment Plan’s Weekly New Patient Marketing Tips! Today’s tip is part one of a 5 part series in October all about Google Reviews. Here is a quick preview of what is coming up.
TODAY……Importance of Google Reviews
Oct 8th…….Three Ways to get Google Reviews
Oct 15th…..Three MORE ways to get Google Reviews
Oct 22th…..How to handle bad reviews
Oct 29th…..What about other review sites?
What are Google Reviews?
Google Reviews are housed on free Google+ Business pages. It is imperative to the success of your dental practice that you create one of these pages and get your patients to post reviews of your practice right there. The only way to get reviews on your Google+ Business page is to get patients to go there and give you a review via their own personal Google accounts.
Why are Google Reviews so important?
Google is still the king of search engines, processing 70% of all internet searches. It is the most important place that you want to be found!
As of 2015, there are more searches done on mobile phones than there are on desktop computers.
When someone searches on a mobile phone, the Google Map is one of the first thing they will see. The more reviews you have, the more likely you will be one of the first practices on the map!
Google reviews are considered “certified”, so potential new patients will be more likely to trust those reviews than the ones that they see on your website.
Having more positive reviews can positively affect your search engine position. Google lists the number of reviews and your star rating right under your organic search engine results. The more reviews you have, the more likely potential new patients will choose to click on your link.
Our healthcare marketing agency listens to hundreds of new patient phone calls for our clients every month, and one of the most common things we hear patients say is “I called you because you have so many good reviews.”
According to a BrightLocal 2014 survey, 88% of consumers read online reviews to determine the quality of a local business. 85% of those consumers read up to 10 online reviews. (Just having one or two reviews is not going to cut it!)
It’s easy (and FREE) to set up a Google+ Business Page for your practice!
The market for new patients is incredibly competitive. If you are not using the free tools that Google has made available, you are missing out on innumerable opportunities. Setting up your Google+ Business page is easy (https://www.google.com/business) and can be completed in just a few steps!
Got questions? We have answers! Email me at ben@practicetreatmentplan.com.
Next week we will discuss ways to encourage your patients to post reviews to your Google+ Business page!
Practice Success,
Benjamin Suggs
Chief Healthcare Marketing Strategist
Practice Treatment Plan, Inc.
Practice Treatment Plan
6340 Sugarloaf Pkwy #200
Duluth, GA 30097
888.412.8820
practicetreatmentplan.com
