North Texas Dentistry Volume 7 Issue 3 NTD 2017 ISSUE 3 DE | Page 15

If it’s out there, your patients can ab-
solutely find it… and it does matter.
Eighty-two percent of consumers trust on-
line reviews from anonymous strangers as
much as personal recommendations from
friends and family. It’s shocking, but true.
So it’s imperative for dentists to not only
know what’s being said about their prac-
tice online, but to proactively protect it
as well.
Know the importance of
online directories.
Online directories include sites like Yelp,
City Search, Google Maps and Angie’s
List – essentially any website that hosts
information for prospective customers
about a business – dentistry included.
There are hundreds of online directory
websites and here is why they are impor-
tant to you:
!
Prospective patients often find
them before your website.
In a recent Google search for “best dentist
Chicago”, nine of the top ten listings on
the first page of the search are directory
listings – not the dentist’s website itself.
Here are four key steps every dental
practice must take in order to build the
online social proof that converts prospec-
tive patients into booked patients.
Review what’s being said
1 about you online – and re-
spond! If you’ve never
“Googled” your name or your practice –
now is the time. Take inventory of every
review or recommendation you find -
good or bad. Next, spend some time re-
sponding to negative reviews. When
doing so, you want to thank them for
their feedback and apologize that the ex-
perience didn’t meet their expectations
(always with HIPAA in mind). Even if the
complaint isn’t valid, don’t become com-
bative, doing so won’t sit well with
prospective patients, but taking the high
road will. And while you’re at it, reply to
your positive reviews as well. A simple
“Thank you! We appreciate your kind
words” will do.
STEP
Implement an active strategy
2 to gather positive online rec-
ommendations. You can be a
top-notch dentist clinically, with a well-
run front office and impeccable staff –
and you’ll still probably receive negative
reviews. It’s not about making sure you
never receive a negative review (because
that’s a losing battle), but rather, drown-
ing out those negative voices with
positive ones. If you can implement a
proactive strategy to accumulate positive
reviews it will push negative reviews fur-
ther down the webpage and make nega-
tive reviews seem like outliers.
STEP
Ask loyal patients if they would leave a
positive review for you on a specific site
like Yelp or Google Maps.
Take inventory of which
STEP
directories your practice
3
needs to be listed on. Be fa-
miliar with the directory websites that
mean the most to the dental and medical
field and focus on keeping up your list-
ings on those sites.
Visit www.bullseyedental.com/scan to
run a complimentary scan of your list-
ings on 50+ of the most important direc-
tory listing sites.
Update your online directo-
4 ries, perfectly and often.
What’s worse than your prac-
tice not being listed in directory web-
sites? Having inaccurate directory
listings. Two out of three business list-
ings contain incorrect information and
this is harmful for a few reasons:
STEP
It can hinder your SEO efforts. In order
for Google to give you “credit” for the
hard work you put into your directory
listings information, it must be accurate
and it must be consistent across all chan-
nels. A wrong phone number or address
not only confuses patients, it also con-
fuses the Google bots trying to organize
the information for searches.
It can damage patient trust. Your
prospective patients will absolutely judge
whether or not they can trust you based
on what they find online – that includes
online reviews and any directory listings
you have. What patients see online about
you is accepted as representative of what
they will experience inside your practice.
Your practice’s online presence goes
much further than your website.
If you’d like help in assessing your
practice’s overall online health, visit
BullseyeDental.com/xray to request a
complimentary analysis.
Marc Fowler
Marc Fowler is President of
Bullseye Media and a fre-
quent dental conference
and study club speaker.
Since 2006, Bullseye has
helped over 350 dental
practices across the U.S. and Canada achieve
their practice growth goals.
www.northtexasdentistry.com
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