when you create a website that’s optimized for search engines and establish a system to collect your hard-earned 5-star reviews, you position your practice for success.
Many people who are searching for health information or a new clinician look online first. But if you don’t have a solid online presence, those people won’t find you. One of the best ways to increase the success of your website—and your practice, is collecting 5-star online reviews.
These reviews are a free and incredibly effective way to build your reputation and attract new patients. But negative reviews of your business can derail your website faster than a faulty broadband connection. They can harm your reputation without you even knowing it. That’s why Liz Cortes, cofounder of RebelFish Local, a San Diego-based digital marketing agency that helps small businesses increase their online presence, stresses the importance of ensuring that your website is packed with positive reviews from patients.
Here are Cortes’ top three tips to ensure you consistently collect 5-star online reviews and use them to grow your medical practice.
- CLEAN UP YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS
“The first problem we see with most of our clients is that their basic business information is not the same on all directory sites,” Cortes says. This may seem minor, but Cortes has found through her work with hundreds of small-business owners that If you have inconsistent information about your business name, address, website, or phone number in various places online, your patients and potential patients will be confused about where to leave a review. So, in essence, you’re forgoing their 5-star reviews due to an administrative issue.
The same is true if you only have one location but two listings in the same directory. Your patients won’t know where they should leave a review, so they often simply won’t bother. Be aware that Google My Business allows doctors to have two listings: one for the clinic and one for yourself.
Another common problem Cortes sees is that businesses haven’t claimed their local listings on important directories. Most business owners know to claim their business on Google, Yelp, and Facebook, but patients might be reviewing their doctors on other sites too. If you haven’t claimed your business on those sites, that means you can’t respond to the reviews—good or bad—posted there.
To discover listings for your practice that you may not know about, go to Google and enter the name of your business, your city, and the word “reviews.” Find out where your patients are leaving reviews, claim those listings, and be sure to respond appropriately.
Lastly, many small businesses aren’t listed on some of the top directories for their industry. For healthcare professionals, the most popular directories include Healthgrades and Zocdoc. Cortes says one way to discover other directories where you shouldis to look at where competitors whom you admire receive their online reviews.
- ASK PATIENTS FOR REVIEWS
The unfortunate result of never asking your patients for reviews is that you’ll either get no reviews or only negative reviews. There are two critical steps to getting consistent reviews from patients: verbal confirmation and follow up.
Cortes says in her experience, once a patient says: “Yes, I’ll leave a review,” they are very likely to do it, so train your staff to ask your patients for that verbal confirmation. It can be as simple as saying, “Would you be willing to give us feedback on your experience today?” as the patient is checking out to leave.
Cortes suggests you teach your staff to recognize the “referable moment”— For instance, if a patient expresses gratitude after their visit, your staff can say, “Thank you so much for giving me that feedback. I’d love it if Dr. Emily could hear about it too. Would you be willing to leave that review online? I’ll send you a quick email or text with an easy link to leave a review. Could you do that?”
The second critical step is to have a system in place to follow up with patients. After they agree to provide feedback, send them a message or email with a link to leave a review. Have a protocol in place to be sure you do this immediately after they leave your office. There are several options to establish a system for collecting reviews. The simplest way is to provide patients with a direct link to youror Yelp page. You can also use a reputation-management service such as PatientPop or RepuGen.
If you use practice-management software, it probably includes a feature to help you collect and manage reviews. But be sure those reviews will be posted publicly. Some software only allows you to collect private feedback. Also, be aware that some online directories allow you to screen reviews before public posting, but Google doesn’t.
Cortes says this screening process, called “review gating,” begins when you send patients to a private review page to ask them to rate your practice. If they give you four or five stars, you ask them to cut and paste their review to Yelp or another site. If they give you only two or three stars, you follow up with them in a private message.
- MARKET YOUR REVIEWS
Once you’ve cleaned up your local listings and have a system in place to collect patient reviews, it’s time to capitalize on your investment. One way to market your reviews is to post them directly on your website. Most practice-management software can stream your 4- and 5-star reviews on your site. And if you have a WordPress website, some plugins allow you to stream your Google reviews.
You can also post your top reviews to your . Use a simple design tool, like Canva.com, to create an image that includes a picture, five stars, and an excerpt from an online review. Or you can produce a 10-second review video with easy-to-use software like Wave. In the video, show a photo of the patient, the review, and then your website.
Regardless of what some so-called experts might recommend, don’t pay for reviews and don’t make false claims (saying all reviews are 5 stars if they aren’t). And be careful not to disclose patient’s private health information when interacting with their posts.
The bottom line is that when you create a website that’s optimized for search engines and establish a system to collect your hard-earned 5-star reviews, you position your practice for success. We hope our series on “Websites that Work” has given you the tools and inspiration to make that happen.