Healthcare organizations receive outstanding rewards and benefits by leveraging laser-focused, location-based marketing strategies. With Google My Business (GMB), they target prospective patients within a specified area using a business listing or profile and focus their efforts on boosting revenue.

A tool like Google My Business offers the most effective impact for brands seeking local exposure. A feature like Google’s local search emphasizes the need for a GMB profile for both new and established businesses. It provides a list of companies nearby and business reviews, addresses, operating hours, and more.

As a free tool from Google, GMB helps medical practices, healthcare organizations, and other businesses manage their online presence. Although it does not replace your website, a Google business profile complements it by giving your practice an additional platform to strengthen your online presence.

How Does Google My Business Help Healthcare Practices Gain Exposure?

Google My Business helps you climb to the top of local searches when patients search for healthcare providers. If a patient searches for Dieticians in California, your business will show up in searches as a dietician in California. For healthcare practices to optimize all that Google My Business has to offer, they must include in their profile the following:

• Business name
• Phone number
• Website address
• The physical address of the practice
• Office photos
• Healthcare specialty
• Description of services
• Q&As
• Google reviews

A well-crafted and thorough Google business listing can increase your revenue by ranking your practice before others in search results.

Why Optimizing Your Google Business Profile Helps Your Practice

An optimized Google business profile helps prospective see your practice first and choose you over competitors, but there are other benefits to optimizing your business profile for effective local marketing. They are:

1. Improves Engagement

Many patients go in and out of Google without going to other pages because the essential information they need is on the first page of the search results. With Google’s setup, sometimes, they do not even need to click on any link before getting complete answers from the snippets; this can result in “zero-click searches” on many websites.

With the Google My Business, the patient can still find all the information they need in your Google business listing without clicking your website. The difference is they have access to your contact information without leaving Google to go through your website.

2. Boosts Your Local Ranking

Social Media Today's survey shows that 97% of search engine users searched online to find local businesses close to them. And 46% of all Google searches were looking for local information. This is proof that optimizing your GMB can place you right at the top of these local searches, so people searching for similar healthcare services you offer will find you quickly and contact you.

3. Converts More Patients

A basic Google business profile doesn’t offer much help in acquiring new patients. You need to use features in Google My Business to optimize your profile. More patients can discover you through keyword searches, call your office, visit your website, view your FAQ, book an appointment, etc.

Optimizing your Google business listing can rank your practice higher, an advantage to your business. Your Google My Business strategy is just like any Google SEO strategy: it should focus on providing as much quality information about your practice as possible, not just in your profile but in the sources that Google uses to populate it — your practice’s website, review site profiles, and even your social media accounts.

If you have a practice management software like Curogram, you can include all of its sought-after services in your profile, attracting more patients. Curogram helps healthcare practices optimize Google business listings and further engage patients. Curogram also provides your practice with 2-way text messaging, online appointment booking, automated surveys, etc. Contact Curogram today to request a demo.