Have you looked at your online listings for your medical practice lately? 98% of medical practices have old, incorrect or missing information on the internet!
Why are your online business listings important?
Customers Rely on Listing Information – Your customers are looking at your listings to obtain your phone number, location, services you provide and even looking at photos to decided whether to schedule an appointment with your practice. cal information online. Not only does it create frustration for a current or potential patient, it can also lead to lost revenue.
Consistency Equals Better Google Ranking – Google is the most popular method of searching for online information. Google decides what it displays first in large part based on consistency between all the information it finds about your practice. In other words having inconsistent information throughout the interenet can lead to your practice not showing up on page 1 or 2 of a Google search and that is bad news for your practice.
Here are a few biggest issues you might encounter:
Your patients can’t find your location(s) – Many practices find that office locations are incorrect or incomplete on search engines results found on Google. It’s especially important for practices who have ever moved to a different location to review their online listings. We recently worked with a practice who had patients going to an office location listed on SuperPages.com that hasn’t been used in over 5 years.
Your phone number is wrong or missing – You might be surprised to see how often your practice listing doesn’t include your phone number or the wrong number. If your number isn’t listed your patient may call another provider and you will lose revenue.
Incorrect or missing classifications – New patients who search online are often looking for a specialist or a specific type of physician. If your practice or physician is mis-classified, they could be missing out on new patient opportunities because patients can’t find you.
Why are your business listings wrong?
Business listings can be wrong for many reasons. The most common reasons are:
Incorrect information in national databases – This is the most common reason for inaccuracies. There are four main databases that many directory companies use to populate your information. If any of those have incorrect information, your listings may be incorrect.
Incorrect, inaccurate or old information – In many cases the information listed online may have been provided by the practice and is incomplete, old or inaccurate. These should be reviewed several times a year to ensure accuracy. Many physicians or practices have not maintained accurate information on medical sites like Vitals and Healthgrades but even more important is the accuracy of your Google My Business listing. Claiming and updating your Google listing is a must. (Learn more about Google My Business).
How do I find out if my practice listing has errors?
There are two methods to find incorrect listings. You could scour all of the top websites and manually check your listings. This takes time but it’s well worth the investment. A more efficient method is to use an online tool that checks and verifies your business listings. Reputation Health will conduct a free evaluation of your business listings and online reviews. Request your free report here.
How do I fix my online listings?
Fixing your online listings can be time consuming and expensive. But the alternative of losing business or alienating patients is even more costly. The most common ways to correct these listings are:
Claim and update listings manually – After you identify issues, claiming and updating the information can often be completed manually. This can be very time consuming and for certain sites it can take days, weeks or months to achieve the results you are looking for. Each site is a bit different so there is a learning curve.
Work with a reputation management and business listing expert – If you are not comfortable with online directory sites or do not have the time to manage and monitor this information on an ongoing basis engaging with a reputation management company might make sense. Reputation Health works exclusively with medical practices and has great solutions at a low price.
Pro Tip – There is a way to update the 4 main databases that populate many of these sites. Contact Reputation Health about their Medical Practice Listings service to see if the information in these national databases is accurate. Visit www.reputation-health.com.