Harness the Power of Google

Kelly Larson, a media specialist who works in Minneapolis with my good friend Bill Rossi of Advanced Practice Management, recently authored a great article on the importance of online patient reviews. In the article,  she references a Nielson study that suggests that people will click on the website listing with the most reviews even if it is further down in the search results. This information is especially relevant for practices in larger metropolitan areas where competition is tougher than in small towns. Organic ranking is sometimes influenced by certain factors that you can’t control about your competition. The number one factor for high-ranking is the number of years you’ve had a website. Someone who was web savvy 10 to 15 years ago will have a big advantage over someone starting now. Secondly, some dental practices may choose to spend $600-$800 a month or more on a major steroid-like program to boost SEO. So accumulating a number of great reviews is a terrific way to level the playing field.

Obviously, the first mission is to get your website to show up as high as possible on the local Google business map because Google totally dominates the search business. Those of you who read my blogs know how often I write about the importance of SEO techniques that will get your website positioning higher on the map. Since Google is moving more and more towards applying social reviews to a company’s overall SEO credit, the second mission is to accumulate a good number of patient reviews. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Many dental practices report that even with a concerted push by both the staff and the doctor  to obtain reviews, patients with good intentions still get distracted and do not follow through on a promise.

I want to share two ideas that have worked very well for some of my clients. One idea is to raffle off some high-quality tickets to a sporting event. Here in New England, we have been very blessed in the last decade with our professional sports teams. The Patriots, Bruins, Celtics, and Red Sox, have all performed at a very high level, and enjoy great popularity. Here is a link to a beautifully crafted Demand Force e-mail blast written by Dr. Jini Shetty in Merrimac, NH. In a period of three weeks, her review total went from 6 to 19!!

Another client, Dr. Michael Putt of Wayland, MA has created a wonderful appointment card. The front of the card is the usual format – patient’s name with the time for the appointment. But on the back of the card he has printed the url for his website along with the branded  familiar logos for Google and Yelp and Facebook with a request to post a review online. On his website he has buttons for these review sites, so that with one click of the mouse, the patient can easily post a review. The magic is that his front desk staff suggests to every patient when they hand them their appointment card that if they had a great experience – and feel so inclined – how much they would appreciate a review. In a short period of time, his Google review totals have gone from 5 to 13!

An additional benefit with Google is that if you have five or more reviews, your listing will stand out in the search results with the stars highlighted in yellow. So please go ahead and try these ideas. I’d love to hear your results.