Why Google My Business Is So Important for Dental Practice Marketing
One of the first things I do for my dental practice clients at Your Perfect Patient is to optimize their Google My Business.Google My Business is Google’s free local business marketing service. It’s use in dentistry on the internet is so important that dentists should have a professional set it up. Businesses who have created a listing with Google My Business are shown on Google Maps and in the “local pack” in local search results. These are not the only reasons to create a listing with Google My Business, and it’s not the only step you should take when you use it to market your dental practice.
Having a listing in Google My Business is the very first step and the minimum of what needs to be done for your local SEO marketing efforts. The following are how you need to use Google My Business and why it’s essential for successfully marketing your dental practice online.
Complete Your Practice Profile
The profile includes your address, phone number, hours of operation, category and a business description. All of this information will be shown to existing and prospective patients when they look for information about your dental practice on google. The information needs to be accurate, or you could lose new dental patients by having them go to the wrong office, calling the wrong phone number, or trying to reach the practice when the practice is closed.
Add Relevant Photos
Tip: add photos of dental cases you want to do. For example if you want implant cases, ad lots of photos about dental implants. The photos section of Google My Business proves you are a professional and portrays the practice for what it is. It should include basic pictures of your office (interior and exterior), a photo of yourself, other dentists in the practice, and the staff. It can also include other photos, such as those of the patient rooms, waiting area, patients (with permission), etc. People want to know who you are, what you do and be introduced to the practice prior to calling, emailing and definitely prior to driving all the way out to see you.
The photos make up part of your profile that is shown on Google search results on the right side. The more attractive the photos are, the more attention they will receive with click-throughs to more information and the website. Also name the photo files with descriptive names such as “dental implants”, “Dr Jones”, etc.
Publish Google My Business Posts
Google wants Google My Business to be a social network for local businesses. To do that, they included a feature that is similar to social media in that people can publish different types of posts. Since it is tailored to local businesses, dentists can publish regular posts, offers, and events. The posts can be just text, image and text, videos and text, or just video or image. Posts only remain live for 7 days, unless they are an event or offer, which in that case, it lasts for as long as it is set.
Publishing posts on Google My Business shows you are active on the platform. People can see that you are available, and are more likely to contact you by clicking on the phone number on the profile or going to the website to contact you, which is why it is so important to make sure you post regularly on it.
Encourage People to Leave Reviews
Google reviews have two purposes:
- They show prospective patients how great you are as a dentist, which will motivate them to book an appointment with you.
- They help your business rank higher in local search results. When Google sees a dental practice receiving a lot of positive reviews, they want to show their users that practice more than others.
Google wants to serve its users in the best way possible, and that includes giving businesses more visibility when they have a positive reputation online.
Add Services
Google My Business also allows businesses to publish information about each of their services. You can upload an image and text for each service telling people what the service is and how it can help them. Here is again, where you add a lot of stuff about implants or whatever other kinds of cases you want to do.
The services are also shown as part of the profile on Google’s search results page. People who are looking for a specific dental service and see it on your profile will be more likely to call you or click-through to your website.
Use Google My Business for All It Provides
Google My Business is so important to your dental practice presence online because it tells people about your dental practice through the information you publish. Including name, address, phone number, hours of operation, business description, and services. It allows you to differentiate your practice from all the other dental offices around. It gives you a chance to show how well you treat your patients when people leave positive reviews about your dental care, and it allows you to show people you’re active online because of the posts you publish every week. Take advantage of this feature Google has given local business to increase their visibility. It’s a great way to attract new patients to your dental practice.