WE’VE EXPERIENCED a spike in overall Google enquires at the Paul Gough Physio Rooms recently, especially as Covid restrictions have started to ease.
With more and more people now searching for physical therapy services in their local area, it’s crucial that your business is seen in the search engines. But as well as being seen, it’s important that your business stands out against your competition too! So, right now really is the perfect time to get going with your digital marketing. And if you are already doing it, then make sure you stick to the rhythm.
Once someone finds your business on Google, they’ll compare your business against all of the other businesses that have appeared in their search… it’s your responsibility to give that person that has found you a number of reasons to choose your business.
Remember what I say: “There’s not 1 single reason why someone makes the decision to choose your business – you’ve got to build a case for someone to discriminate in your favor, to choose you and contact you. It’s just like stacking up 4 or 5 pieces of evidence in a court case.”
Google My Business
Having an up-to-date Google My Business profile should be a necessity – and the best thing is, it’s free and very easy-to-use! (See image below left)
If used consistently, and alongside other key marketing spokes, you can really elevate your profile and create a powerful online Google presence.
Putting resources into constantly updating and monitoring your online presence is vital in today’s increasingly digital and ever-changing landscape. At PGPR, we dedicate time each week to work on lots of spokes that all contribute to keeping our online presence fresh and relevant. As well as updating our Google My Business page, we maintain our Google Ads campaigns (the Google Team helps me do this), have a blog that’s updated with relevant and optimized content and have an active social media presence, as well as all the other marketing spokes you hear me talk about..
Google says: Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Google Search and Google Maps. To help customers find your business, and to tell them your story, you can verify your business and edit your business information.
What Google wants…
Google demands an accurate Google My Business listing that is fresh, relevant, active and has people clicking on it.
A Google My Business account that is optimized and up to date signals to Google that your profile is relevant for users searching for your product or service – this increases your visibility on Google Maps and in the search engine, which in turn helps drive traffic to your website and attracts more leads.
All these things help your listing in the Google algorithm, and encourages Google to show your listing over competitors.
6 important lead generation strategies…
- Optimize your listing: this makes it easier for people to find you and choose you.
- Add photos and videos: increases time spent on profile.
- Post regularly: boosts traffic to your profile.
- Questions & Answers: building out an FAQ section improves searchability.
- A steady stream of 5-star reviews
- Citations to boost your listings authority.
1. Optimize your listing: this makes it easier for people to find you and choose you.
You need to ensure your listing is optimized, that you’ve filled in all the important information and that it’s all up to date.
On Google Maps, there are lots of factors that can impact if you come up at the top of the search results, not just proximity. Optimizing your listing includes displaying the correct contact information and opening hours, using keywords in your business description, and selecting the most relevant products and services.
You can also switch on a feature so that customers can message you directly from your Google My Business profile, this is a relatively new Google chat feature and something we have now implemented at the Paul Gough Physio Rooms. Through this feature, you have the opportunity to quickly answer questions and help current and potential customers.
Tip: You can update your listing on a web browser, or it’s really easily to make changes via the app, (see below)
2. Add photos and videos – increases time spent on profile.
Photographs and videos are important as they not only help customers understand your business, but they also increase the time spent on your listing, which in turn boosts your online visibility.
If you add interesting and engaging photographs, which help potential customers “see” what you have to offer, it leads to higher engagement.
Post at least every two weeks, ideally once a week, and use real life, high-quality, photos to help your profile stand out (avoid stock images). You can simply repurpose photographs or videos that you are taking and posting on social media anyway, so it shouldn’t take much extra time – for example images of your staff, patients, and inside/outside the clinic.
Google statistic: Businesses that add photos to their business profiles receive 42% more requests for directions on Google Maps, and 35% more clicks through to their websites than businesses that don’t.
3. Post regularly – boosts traffic to your profile.
Uploading a new post regularly can also be very powerful. The lifespan of a post is 1 week, unless it’s for an event, so post frequently to stay in front of potential customers.
You can use the posting feature to entice new customers with a special offer, promote an event or online workshop, to share a Covid clinic update, some company news, or to highlight a fantastic 5-star review.
You can make your post stand out and reinforce the message by adding a high-resolution graphic that you’ve made, or with a photo or video.
The title of your post should explain what it is in just a few words, and although you can use a lot of characters, try to limit the length to a much shorter post. Only around the first 100 characters (two lines of text) will show up in the “snippet”, so make every character count!
There’s also the option to include a ‘Call to Action’, which you can use to can drive people to your website.
Tip: Check your insights (see below) to see on which days you get the most traffic, then post that morning. Your posts might not always get many views, because customers can see a snapshot of the post without having to read the full thing, but keep posting to keep your listing fresh.
4. Questions & Answers – building out an FAQ section improves searchability.
People rely more and more on Google to find the answers to their most pressing questions. There’s now an ‘Ask A Question’ function on your Google My Business listing, and it’s important that you respond to any questions potential customers ask you on there.
PGPR Tip: I’m going to look at analytics data to see what questions people are searching for, or the most common questions customers ask on the phone when they ring us and build out our FAQ’s section around this key information.
5. A steady stream of 5-star reviews.
Regular Google reviews help customers build trust in you as a brand and this is probably the most important strategy – if you want to rank higher in search and map results then reviews are your number one priority… ideally 5-star reviews!
The easiest way to collect customer reviews is to consistently ask your customers for them.
It’s also vital that you respond to all reviews, even if it’s a bad review. I have acknowledged and thanked each person that has left us a review – it shows you care, and it also shows Google that you are engaging with your audience.
PGPR Tip: As a physical therapist, think about who your ‘best’ customers are, the ones who you know have been satisfied with your services and ask them first. Ask for reviews face-to-face in the clinic, or send personalized email requests.
6. Citations – to boost your listings authority.
Having your business details included on reliable directory websites helps boost your authority on Google. You can upload your company details on local online directories, including Bing, Yelp and other industry-specific sites.
It’s vital that the way your company name is presented is consistent across all websites, and that your phone number and address, etc. is correct across them all too. Having inconsistent information confuses potential customers and can negatively impact how you rank.
How to implement this in your clinic. The ways to make a big difference.
- First steps: If you’ve never done anything with your Google My Business page, you might need to claim it as yours. Claiming your page is an amazing first step to building your online visibility. You could see the benefits instantly.
- Updating this spoke: This might take a couple of days initially, but once your listing is built out it should only take a marketing assistant around 1-2 hour per week to maintain it.
- Keep referring to this Special Report: To ensure you are covering all 6 strategies.
- The insights section of Google My Business: This is brilliant too – it’s interesting looking at your insights and learning how customers search for your business, and where they come from.
Important reminder: Google makes regular changes to its algorithms, and it’s always releasing new features, so it’s important to keep up with the changes and ensure your Google My Business listing is optimized on a regular basis. You also need to remember your search engine ranking will change if competing local businesses start optimizing their own listings too.
Could You Benefit From Working With Paul’s Team to Improve Your Google and Facebook Marketing?
Is your business reaching its online potential when it comes to digital marketing? Just how many patients can you reach if you start using Facebook and Google?
Book a free call with our online marketing expert to discover just how many patients you can get in front of and how you can improve your online presence and ultimately get a higher number of leads and more patients each month coming to you via online marketing.
We have 4 FREE discovery calls available, click to book now!