marketing
How Negative Reviews Can Actually Benefit Your Dental Practice
by Ernie Cote
It may be hard to believe , but negative online reviews can actually benefit your dental practice . Of course , five-star ratings and glowing feedback will help you build a strong online reputation , but perfect reviews shouldn ’ t be your highest goal .
Here are four ways negative reviews can actually improve your practice ’ s reputation .
2 Trust
Reviews serve as third-party validation . Bad online reviews , despite their content and low scores , will at least prove your credibility and authenticity as a real , local business .
When it comes to reputation , fake reviews are a problem across any industry . If a business has nothing but 5-star reviews , it can raise the suspicion of search engines and people . It makes you wonder if customers or patients were incentivized to leave a specific rating , or if some of the reviews were purchased or fake . For that reason , a mix of good and bad feedback is often seen as more authentic .
1 Visibility
Even negative reviews boost SEO . It may seem counterintuitive , but for search engines like Google , one bad review is better than having no reviews at all . Getting patient reviews , even if they ’ re negative , is essential to your local ranking .
Additionally , negative reviews often contain keywords that are relevant to people who are searching for a local dental practice . Google uses those keywords to decide which dental offices to feature in search results . If you don ’ t publish your negative reviews , you ’ re missing out on potential traffic to your website .
3 Empathy
Have you ever come across a negative review that seemed unfair ?
Maybe the reviewer had misplaced expectations or “ judged the book by its cover ” and left negative comments without ever visiting or interacting with the business . Sometimes , it can be obvious when a review is inauthentic or biased .
However , even a fair , well-crafted negative review might come across as surprising to you , because your experience with the business was vastly different . In this case , your wonderful experiences just don ’ t match up with the bad comments .
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