Every business wants to gain online visibility and build their online presence, and you can do that very quickly with paid ads on Google and the other search engines. You’ll very quickly get placed at the top of the search results and start getting traffic and leads through quite likely on the same day. But for businesses thinking long term, who still want to be around in thirty, forty, or more years, it’s also a good idea to do what you can to organically build your online presence. Yes, it takes longer, but it doesn’t cost anything other than time, and it is more sustainable and likely to also build your online reputation. One further advantage of doing things that way is that you’re also likely to appear in the Google Map Pack and gain further visibility if you do things correctly.
Here’s the thing about the Google Map Pack: it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got to throw at advertising. It doesn’t matter what your budget is. Because the Map Pack displays listings regardless of ads. You have to do the work. That levels the playing field and whether you’re part of a giant group of plastic surgeries or a solo clinic, you can still achieve this if you know what you’re doing.
And that’s where we come in with our Google Map Pack strategies for plastic surgeons. We’ll talk you through what the Map Pack is, why it matters, and what you can do to get listed.
Understanding the Google Map Pack
When you search for “plastic surgeon” in your local area on Google, what you’ll see is any sponsored ads either just above, just below, or just to the side of the map. The map will show the nearest clinics to you, tagged with small red markers to show their location.
Just underneath that, you’ll see several listings set apart from the organic search results. These are the local Map Pack, and what Google considers to be the best plastic surgeons in the local area, which is why you can’t buy your way into the Map Pack. These listings are Google’s choice alone, based on the quality of each clinic’s online presence.
The organic search results then continue underneath.
You can see that being listed in the Map Pack sets you apart and gives you great visibility. Many people won’t even scroll down to look past the Map Pack, giving you the best possible chance of gaining quality traffic and leads that are ready to consult you.
What you’ll also notice is that there are far more details on these Map Pack listings than you get if you’re simply present in the organic listings. At most, in the organic listings, you’ll get your company name, a website link, a large title in blue, which is also hyperlinked, and a short, two-line description.
In the Map Pack results, however, you get your company name, which is hyperlinked to even more information, your address, phone number, opening hours, website, directions, your star rating, and sometimes you’ll get a snippet from your reviews, too.
When someone clicks on your name in the Map Pack, they get more information straight from your Google Business Profile (GBP). This could include images, number of reviews, a button to call you straight from the listing, Q&A, a review summary and snippets, with links to more of your reviews.
As you can see, a Map Pack listing gives potential patients so much information that they don’t even need to visit your website to make a decision and choose to get in touch. If you can get into the Map Pack, it really is well worth the time and effort.
If you’re already listed in the Map Pack, congratulations! You’ve obviously done a lot of great work on your online presence. However, it’s still worth reading the rest of this article for tips on making sure you stay listed, and perhaps even grab the coveted number one spot.
How do you improve your ranking in Google’s Map Pack?
Gaining your place in the Map Pack and perhaps moving up to number one is all about building and constantly improving your online presence. Here are our top Google Map Pack strategies for plastic surgeons:
1. Optimized Google Business Profile
If you haven’t yet claimed your Google Business Profile, you have to start there. Without a fully complete and optimized GBP, you don’t have a chance of appearing in the Map Pack. That’s how important your GBP is for high visibility on Google.
Once you’ve claimed your GBP, it’s time to fill it in and we mean fill in every single section fully. Don’t skip any sections or think any don’t matter. They all do, and if your profile isn’t complete, again, you won’t appear in the Map Pack.
Choose your categories carefully to make sure you select the right ones for your plastic surgery, and make sure every section you complete is full of your brand voice and well-keyworded, including local keywords.
Add your full address and contact details. Make sure your opening hours are on your profile too, so you can be found via voice search for “plastic surgeon, open now.” Every little detail builds an excellent picture of your business, builds trust, and helps to increase your visibility.
Finally, ensure you have high-quality images to show off your clinic. People want to see pin sharp, well-balanced and framed images of your premises, your staff, and the outside of the building with any signage. They can then start to anticipate what it’s like to visit you and receive treatment, and you have to create the right impression for them.
2. Reviews
We all know how important reviews are for your plastic surgery clinic. You need reviews on your business directories, such as Yelp, and on your social media. They provide important social proof to new potential patients and reassurance that you provide an outstanding service.
However, reviews on your Google Business Profile are particularly important if you want to appear in the Map Pack. It really is the case that the more recent, quality reviews you have, the more of a chance you have of appearing in the Map Pack.
If consistently getting great reviews wasn’t a priority before, it needs to be now to boost your Map Pack chances.
When looking to get into the Map Pack, here are the important factors:
- Your star rating
- Attributes added
- The description of the review
- Photos uploaded
- How many reviews the person has linked to their Google profile
If you don’t already have one, start working on a plan to consistently bring in reviews on a regular basis.
3. Business Directories
Ideally, you need to be listed on as many business directories as possible, including the well-known ones such as Angi, but also any review sites specifically for plastic surgeons, and any local area review sites, such as your chamber of commerce.
The main reason for this is that every listing on a business directory that includes your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) gives you a citation, and the more citations/listings you have, the stronger your online presence will be. A citation is simply a listing that includes your NAP that’s on any website other than your own.
However, you have to be consistent here. It’s vital that when you list your NAP, you list it in the exact same way each time. You can’t use abbreviations in one version and write it out in full on another site, or miss of your area code sometimes. It really does have to be identical on every site. The reason for this is that any customers looking at different variations of your NAP details might be confused enough to wonder if it’s the same business, and unfortunately, so might Google, and if Google isn’t happy with the consistency of your listings, they may well lower your ranking in the search engines.
4. Website SEO
All the traffic you’re generating with optimizing and improving your online visibility has to go somewhere and you should be sending it to your website, either to a specific, relevant landing page if it’s from a paid ad, or to whatever you think is the most important page new visitors need to see.
That may be your home page, if you’ve set everything up beautifully so that it’s easy for new leads to work their way through your sales funnel, or if you’ve already given them a lot of information, perhaps in a blog post on a business directory, you could give them a link straight to your booking page to book a consultation.
Don’t forget that you can also create a specific page for your location to help boost your appearance in local results. This is especially important to do if you have more than one clinic in different areas or states.
Wherever you send your visitors, your site must be ready to welcome them. It should be modern, quick loading, work well on mobile, reflect your business, with a clear call to action, and have quality navigation so it’s easy for people to find what they need.
You also need to remember quality images to show what potential patients can expect when they visit for the first time.
Every page must also be optimized for SEO. That means doing your keyword research and finding the best keywords that people are actively searching for. You should also include related keywords, local keywords, and long tail keywords in the mix to help your pages get indexed for the right terms and found by your ideal clients.
Then it’s a case of placing your keywords where they’ll have the best effect – in your meta title and description, the page URL, your main heading, at least one sub heading, in your image descriptions and alt text, and in the first paragraph of your copy. After that, use them naturally throughout your writing, without overdoing it, and write for your audience first and then the search engines.
5. Community Engagement
You might think you’re done at this point, with everything optimized and “SEOed” to within an inch of its life. But there’s one final step. You need engagement with your audience on your social media pages, your business directories, and your Google Business Profile in particular. That means you need to encourage your current and potential patients to ask questions on your Google Business Profile, upload photos, and write reviews. You can do that, and build a community around your online pages, by responding when people comment and ask questions, by being there to help when people need it, and by showing your expertise with educational and informational posts. Encourage people to ask questions: when you post, ask if anyone wants to ask anything, and if they do, take the time to answer them thoroughly. They’ll appreciate it, it will encourage more people to join in, and you’ll build trust with your audience.
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform demo
That’s quite a list of tasks, isn’t it? You can see getting into the Map Pack is going to take some considerable effort and time. However, there are two pieces of good news:
1. Everything you do towards getting in the Map Pack will also add to your online reputation and build your online presence and visibility, especially in your local area. You’ll already start increasing your traffic and getting better leads even if it takes you a while longer to get into the Map Pack itself.
2. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. And you don’t have to hire an expensive marketing agency to do it for you either.
Surefire Local provides professional business intelligence marketing software that can take so many of these tasks off your list and save you time, effort, and money.
With our software, you can manage your reviews far more easily. You can request reviews and respond to them when they come in, right from our dashboard, and if you need to, you can easily follow up and send reminders to people who haven’t reviewed yet.
You can update over 80 business directories, including your Google Business Profile, all at once with just a few clicks of your mouse. Type in your information just once, and then our software will update every directory we have for you automatically. Not only is this a great time saver, but it also ensures that your NAP is consistent everywhere online.
Not only that, but our platform also allows you to manage your most important marketing activities with just one piece of software. You can plan and manage your content, manage and schedule your social media, schedule and send email campaigns, manage your paid ads, and so much more. All of this saves you time and gives you more time to spend on being there live and responding to people to build your community and your online presence. It also frees you up to grow your business and take a long-term view of what needs to happen next to get where you want to go.
Don’t struggle and try to do everything manually. That’s no way to run any business. Instead, why not book a demo of our quality software and see how much time and effort you could save?