Why You Can’t Ignore Google My Business

Imagine that you’re on a business trip in a different state. After arriving in this foreign town, you begin to feel under the weather. What do you do? Most likely, you take out your smartphone and begin searching for “urgent cares.”

Immediately Google displays results of local urgent cares. The closest urgent care that appears in the search results is half an hour away. You think that seems pretty far away, but end up biting the bullet and head to what you hope is relief.

Now what if you, as a healthcare marketer, know that in reality the closest urgent care to that person is only 10 minutes away – but you just haven’t had time to create a listing yet.

As both a provider of healthcare and a marketer of healthcare, it’s frustrating to miss that opportunity.

Now, maybe you’re thinking: “But the locals, the ones who actually live in my community and are the main consumers of our health services, know where our facilities are.” But what if those locals do a Google search for your urgent care and you appear, but your phone number is wrong? Now you have a local health consumer that is frustrated with your service and might go to a competitor.

Four Reasons Google My Business Is Worth the Time Investment

Having an up-to-date listing would be beneficial in lots of scenarios. But if you’re in charge of promoting 20 urgent cares, two hospitals, six family practices as well as a handful of specialty clinics you’re probably thinking this is quite the time investment.

And it is. But it’s so worth it. If you’re not convinced yet, here’s four reasons why investing in local listings, specifically Google My Business, is worth the work:

1. Claim Your Business – Before Someone Else Does: This is more common than you might think. Maybe a previous ad agency or employee claimed your listings and now you can’t make changes. Maybe a competitor claimed the listing and is holding it hostage. The process to reclaim your listing can be tedious or smooth as butter depending on who has possession. Either way, not having control over your listing is a pretty big deal.
2. Provide Your Patients with Up-To-Date Information: Keeping your listings up-to-date and accurate is just good business. You want to make it as easy as possible for your patients and potential patients to do business with you – this means keeping addresses, hours of operation and phone numbers current. As Google tends to be a consumers first place to begin a search, if you don’t have the most recent information there consumers can easily become frustrated with your brand.
3. Manage Your Organization’s Reputation: Another important part of business listings are the ratings. By having a local listing, you’re allowing your patients and consumers the ability to rate and review your facilities and your services. Giving happy – and unhappy – consumers Google as a platform to share their thoughts and experiences can be scary. But by having your listing claimed, you’re able to respond to those reviews and take the necessary steps to maintain the reputation you work so hard to protect.
4. Outshine Your Competitors: Who doesn’t want a chance to look better than competitors? When you claim your listing, respond to your reviews, provide your listing with up-to-date information, and include great photos of your locations it will be easy to look better than your competitor’s search listing.

Getting Started With Google My Business

Now, after reading all those great points you’re probably thinking it’s time to attack this! But, you’re also thinking that you have lots of locations to update and lots of edits to make – and a lot of other to-dos! No problem. Geonetric can help. Drop us a line and let’s talk about getting your listings claimed and up-to-date today!