Many dermatologists get a significant amount of their business from referrals. Maybe a neighbor used your practice before, or perhaps someone’s PCP sent them your way. However, you probably don’t want your entire medical practice to be dependent upon referrals alone. In the grand scheme of things, it’s important to have a marketing strategy that helps attract new patients, even when they’re not coming directly from referrals. This is why local marketing is so important in the dermatology field. Google My Business for dermatologists can help you get the word out about your practice to patients who are in your area and seeking your specific services. With this platform, you can engage your potential patients for free and build up your practice in ways that work well for both your organization and your surrounding community.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business, or GMB for short, is a platform powered by the world’s largest search engine that gives you access to more local patients in your area. It’s a free and easy-to-use tool that helps you manage your digital presence across several important areas, including Google Search and Maps. You can help future patients find your practice by filling out your GMB profile, telling stories, and posting photos that let people know more about who you are and how you can help them.
GMB is important because it provides you with simple ways to manage your digital footprint. Not only is this tool beneficial to you, as a dermatological practice, but it’s useful to your future patients, as well. They’re able to see reviews, check out your updates, and see answers to your FAQs. That is, only if you fill out your profile and use GMB for all the things it was designed to do.
Benefits of Google My Business for Dermatologists
There are a whole lot of benefits that can come to your practice when you use GMB fully. For instance, because it’s owned and operated by Google, it’s highly visible. It’s immediately connected to Google Search and Google Maps, so the more information and keywords you put into your profile, the more likely you are to rank highly when future patients are searching for your services.
Information at a Glance
GMB enables users to see the information they need at a glance, too, which makes it easier for patients to make a decision about whether or not to move forward in terms of contacting your practice for further information. If you’re giving them everything they need right inside your profile, you stand better chances of being contacted by highly qualified leads because they already know where you are and what types of services you perform.
Reviews
GMB also allows people to leave reviews for your practice, which is important for a variety of reasons. For starters, your soon-to-be patients are absolutely checking other patients’ reviews to see how their experiences went. That’s why it’s important to keep high-quality, five-star ratings coming in time after time. People often sort by the most recent reviews, so if you haven’t had a review in two years, or the last five were one-star ratings, you could be losing patients before you even have a chance to talk to them. Google My Business makes it easy for you to ask for reviews, receive them, and then reply so people can see that you’re actively engaged with your patients.
Let’s not forget that reviews help boost your rankings on Google Search and Map. The better your reviews (and the more positive reviews you accumulate), the more likely you are to be featured in Google’s Local Pack, which is a premier piece of online real estate that you should really be trying to gain entry into.
Free of Cost
There are a lot of programs and tools that will help you gain insight into your patients’ preferences as far as your content is concerned, but most of them charge money. Google’s super robust GMB platform is completely free of charge, and it’s super intuitive to use. That means you’re not spending the money you’re making from leads just to get new patients through the door. Instead, you’re building onto your business the smart way—using tools that are readily available at your fingertips.
No matter how busy you are or how much of a marketing amateur you consider yourself, Google My Business for dermatologists will help guide you through the process of enhancing your digital footprint. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll soon be increasing your practice’s visibility and improving your chances of showing up in search results.
Google My Business for Dermatologists: Features
As we’ve mentioned, GMB is a pretty robust platform that offers a lot of insight into your patients’ preferences regarding the content you put out into the world and the services you provide within your local area. GMB offers many features, including:
- Category and description
- Reviews
- Photos
- Attributes
- Posts
- Q&A
- Suggest an Edit
- Google My Business Insights
With this in mind, let’s dive into four features you should absolutely pay attention to when you set up your Google My Business account.
1. Google Profile
Let’s start with the basics. Your profile on Google Search and Maps should contain everything anyone needs to contact you for more information. This means your GMB profile should be complete with your name, address, website URL, phone number, and business description at the very least.
To create your Google My Business profile, you’ll need to:
- Start by initiating your business listing on GMB
- Be sure to enter your business address, as that’s incredibly important when you’re embarking on local marketing
- Get verified by filling out the postcard you’ll receive from Google shortly after you claim your business online
- Optimize your GMB listing using the tips we have forthcoming in this article
2. Google Reviews
As we stated above, reviews are incredibly important if you want to attract new patients into your practice. Google My Business reviews show up right when your practice is displayed so people can easily see what your other patients have to say about you. Your business reviews appear next to your Business Profile in Maps and Search, which not only helps searchers learn more about your practice, but it also helps the search engine itself know when it should send people your way.
Your reviews could appear in the Local Pack, on Search, or on Maps, so it’s important to maintain great patient happiness and engagement so your patients will feel compelled to leave awesome reviews about you and your staff, which will be seen by tons of searchers on the internet.
3. Google Questions and Answers
Never overlook the all-important Q&A section of GMB! This is an often-forgotten section that many businesses don’t take advantage of, but it can really be your bread and butter if you maintain this area properly. It works by allowing anyone to ask questions about your practice. Maybe they want to know your location or hours. Sure, those are easily found on your website (hopefully!), but it’s possible they’re not as simple to find as you think they are. Maybe someone wants to know what services you perform, how long you’ve been in business, or what other locations you have.
In the Q&A section, people can ask anything, and anyone can answer. It’s incumbent upon you, as the business leader, to stay on top of questions and answer them as soon as they come in so viewers are hearing directly from you. You don’t want someone sliding into this section with their own opinions or incorrect information; that could damage your brand.
Additionally, you can seed your own questions into this feed. What do patients ask you all the time? What kinds of inquiries are your receptionists fielding day after day? Put these questions to work for you in the Q&A section of Google My Business and answer them in a way that the masses will learn from.
4. Google Posts
Google Posts can include text and photos that are used to promote your practice within the GMB platform. They’re visible to users through Search and Maps, allowing you to connect with a variety of new audience members who might very well become patients in the future.
Using Posts, you can create and share announcements, offers, new or popular services, or event details you might be offering within your organization.
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform Demo
Check-in with Surefire Local to learn how easy it is to grow your dermatology practice with an all-in-one marketing intelligence platform. Together, with our team of experts, we’ll help you craft a local marketing strategy that can assist you in becoming an easily accessible practice on Google (and anywhere else potential clients are looking for you!) Get started today!