Episode 342

342: What You Need to Know About Google My Business & Your Website - Kristi Simone

Published on: 4th October, 2021

What You Need to Know About Google My Business & Your Website

Episode #342 with Kristi Simone

You've finally built your website, and it’s ready for patients to use. But just because you've built it doesn't mean it’s done! Managing your website is a constant editing process. And to help you be up to date and searchable, Kirk Behrendt brings in Kristi Simone, CMO at Whiteboard Marketing, to teach you the best practices of website building and utilizing Google My Business. If you want to create a website that will increase your conversion rates, listen to Episode 342 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Fill out your Google knowledge profile.

Be active on your Google My Business page. It will help you show up in search results.

Build your website for how Google is going to search for it.

Your website should also be built for patients. Keep it clean and simple.

Home pages are the most important to get right. It’s where patients spend the most time.

Have your calls to action at the top of your website.

45% of website users click off in 10 seconds or less. Make information easy to find.

Don't have videos streaming in the background. It increases the loading time.

Patients want clickable buttons, such as Google Maps, calling, and online scheduling.

Online scheduling and chat can increase your conversion rates!

Use Google Posts as a free advertising opportunity.

Don't build your own website. Let the experts build it for you.

It’s recommended to redesign your website every three years.

Quotes:

“We recommend that dentists redesign their [website] every three years, or at least making sure that just because you've built your site, you're not ever finished with it. You should always be working to update content, add new pages, add a blog, do different things to keep your website current all the time.” (04:28—04:46)

“[Google owns] pretty much every aspect of internet search. You also have other players in the industry like Bing, Yahoo. But Google really owns 90% of that search purpose. So, when we build websites, we are really building it for how Google is going to search for it and different things that make your website show up for Google when a patient may be searching for a dentist in your specific area, or a dental implant in your specific area.” (05:18—05:48)

“You also have to build a website for your patients to be able to use. There’s a lot of data out there that shows that 45% of actual users jump off of a site within 10 to 15 seconds. So, one of the other reasons that we really focus on building websites for is to get a patient to do whatever you want them to do, know whatever you want them to know, within 10 seconds or less.” (05:53—06:20)

“You're building [your website] for Google, you're building for conversion rate optimization, and then you're also building it for speed. We want those websites to load really quickly. The ideal is three seconds or less.” (06:21—06:35)

“One of the first things that we ask [dentists] to do when we’re talking about Google My Business is pick up their phone or their laptop and search their own name on Google and see what pops up. What they should get on the right-hand side is called the Google knowledge profile. And that is what Google is really using to pull up your practice information when a patient is searching for a dentist in that area.” (07:05—07:29)

“Google considers dentists as a local business. So, they're local to Columbus, Ohio, or Chicago. It’s really local to that. Where you think of Nike, for example, that's not a local business. That's a national, international brand. So, it’s really important that that knowledge profile that you just pulled up and looked at is filled out with all kinds of great information. And that's how local search works, and that's how Google My Business works. To tie it together, your website is the heartbeat of that knowledge panel information. Your Google My Business profile actually allows you to add your website URL. It allows you to add your scheduling URL on there. So, it allows you to add a lot of information so that you're tying your website and your local search profile together at the same time.” (07:29—08:26)

“When you think about your website, you really want to make sure that you're building your website — again, you have 10 seconds or less — so the first question that we ask is, what are your goals for the website? Dentists really ought to think about what they want their patients to do on the site. What do you want your new patients to do on your site? What do you want your current patients to do on your site? So, those things need to go right up at the top.” (08:45—09:06)

“There's something called the fold. When you think about pulling your website up on the computer or pulling it up on your cell phone and you get that first part that you see on the top of your screen, that's called the fold. That's above the fold. So, really, the longer that your website home page is, for example, the less chance you have of somebody scrolling all the way down and clicking for a phone call, or to download forms, or those kinds of things. So, we always tell our dentists, keep it very, very simple. Keep your design clean. Use a lot of white space and have your calls to action right up at the top of your website. That's so important.” (09:07—09:45)

“Having clickable buttons on your site [is important], because the majority of people are starting to search on mobile. So, you want to make sure that you can click to call, click to get your directions, and those kinds of things.” (09:49—09:58)

“What we try to tell our clients is, don't focus on building this big, huge, beautiful website that has stuff around it that no one knows where to find. Make it easy to find things. People want to find things quickly. They want to click on different pages as few times as they have to. So, what we say is, minimize the click and try to get it front and center for that user.” (12:16—12:39)

“The other thing that we’re finding that are 100% absolute have-tos today, don't have videos streaming in the back of your homepage banner. It’s hard to load those, and it slows down your website. Google really wants a static image, meaning you have one image. And you don't even have scrolling images. So, you don't have like one, two, or three different options. You have one image, because it converts to mobile so much easier.” (12:40—13:02)

“Make sure that you have a lot of white space. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but one of the things that we find is that a lot of dentists really want to put stuff everywhere. And you just want to keep it really clean and simple, because that's how you direct the viewers’ eye exactly to where you want to go.” (13:03—13:20)

“Make sure at the very top you have a phone number that people can click and call on. Make sure you have a Google Maps link to the directions to your practice. That's so important. Make sure you have a call to action like a “Contact Us.” If you have online scheduling, have an online scheduling button front and center so patients can just click right there.” (13:23—13:43)

“[Online scheduling] is incredibly significant, and I cannot recommend it more. I think it’s so important for every dentist to have it. There are a lot of different online scheduling options out there. You can have just “Contact Us,” which is pretty typical, to schedule an appointment and they contact the office that has to get back — many times, the office staff isn't following up — all the way to a scheduling system.” (13:53—14:16)

“Dentrix has a really great online scheduling platform. I believe Open Dental has as well. Solutionreach is a patient communication system. They have an online scheduling system that literally writes directly to your patient management scheduling system. Meaning, if I'm a patient, I schedule an appointment on your website, it will write directly back to my chart inside the patient management system that the practice has. Now, that's really scary to a lot of dentists. But what they don't realize is, there are steps that have to be taken on the other side. So, for example, if a patient tries to schedule, the front desk staff is going to get a notification and they get to choose whether or not they want to accept that appointment. So, the practice always has control.” (14:17—15:06)

“What we find is when we’re taking a look at the backend data of how our clients are converting, sometimes we’re seeing 50% of their new patients are coming from an online scheduling app. That is significant.” (15:07—15:22)

“We highly recommend patient scheduling online. It’s so key. And what dentists must realize is, you still have the ultimate control, whether you're going to accept those appointments or not. But it gives the patient the perception that they can schedule on their time, at their convenience. And that's one of our key messages when we market.” (15:54—16:12)

“We are really finding that chat is just another opportunity for you to answer questions and convert patients. Again, it all goes back to this society of immediacy and not necessarily wanting to talk on the phone and wanting to get it done on their time. And chat does that.” (16:59—17:14)

“For a lot of our dental clients that utilize chat, they're seeing it do a couple of things for them. One, it is allowing their existing patients who may have questions to chat and get information, and it allows prospective new patients an opportunity to learn more about the practice and also be directed to schedule.” (17:15—17:35)

“A lot of people think, ‘Just only advertise during the day when you're open so you can field those calls.’ But in today’s society, in today’s world of immediacy, you need to be available when your patients are available. And that's typically 24/7. Chat offers that opportunity.” (19:04—19:22)

“We find that the majority of our clients, the home page is always number one. “Meet the Team” is number two. Typically, “Reviews” page is number three. Your specific service is maybe farther down, and that's number four. And then, number five is usually contact or online scheduling. So, really, you want to get right your home page. That's first and foremost.” (20:02—20:29)

“The “Meet the Team” page, that's where people spend so much time, so we really encourage clients to have authentic photos. Have real photos of your team. It makes a significant difference. And there are statistics that show that if you have personal photos on your website that are professionally taken of your practice, your team, your office, [patients] convert. They have a much higher conversion rate than websites that have generic stock photography on those pages, because people want to know who are the hygienists, the staff, the doctors that are going to be working in their mouths, and they just want to get to know them. So, personal biographies, personal photos are really important.” (20:30—21:06)

“We also really recommend having a reviews page. When you're searching for anything, online reviews are so important. If people aren't searching online for a new dentist, they're searching online to confirm a dental referral. So, those reviews are so important either way. They're checking those reviews out no matter what.” (21:11—21:31)

“You need to really claim your Google My Business page and then what we call optimize that page with your name, with your category, because that's how Google allows you to show up when a patient is searching. So, if I'm searching for a dentist near me, my primary category, if I'm a general dentist, needs to be “dentist.” If I do dental implants, one of my second categories can also be “dental implants.” But those categories are so important in how Google serves you up, basically, when a patient is searching for something. So, it’s really getting all of that key information correct in the back end of your Google My Business page and then connecting it to your website, making sure you have links back to your site and those kinds of things.” (22:57—23:43)

“Google has come out and said the more active you are on your Google My Business page, the more likely you are going to show up in local search results. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, that profile, Google, at some point, really doesn't want people to go to websites. They want to try to keep everybody right there on Google so they're not clicking off to something else and then coming back. That's their ultimate goal. It’s never really going to happen because websites are too important. But what Google does do is it uses all of that important information on your website to help pull up when someone searches.” (23:56—24:31)

“Once you've got your page claimed and you've optimized it with all the great practice information, Google wants you to start asking patients for reviews directly on your Google page. A few years ago, Google didn't necessarily want you to ask for reviews. Now, they do want you to ask for reviews. They actually even give you a link that you can share on your Facebook page or share via email to get people to review your practice. What they don't want you to do is ask only patients who are going to give you a positive review or only put positive reviews out there. So, they prevent some of those things from happening. But to stay active on that, they want you to start asking for reviews. Side note, make sure you're linking those reviews to your website.” (25:22—26:05)

“The other thing that you can do on Google that Google really wants you to do is start posting on Google. They're really allowing this free advertising opportunity called Google Posts.” (26:07—26:17)

“Consumers, or patients, can actually ask a question from that Google profile that I ask all dentists to pull up. So, if you keep that one in mind, I could go on to that profile and I could ask a question, ‘What are your hours? Do you accept families? What insurance plans do you accept? Do you do dental implants?’ So, what happens is that gets conveyed back to my Google My Business profile, and in the back end I have the opportunity to reply to that. I can also reply from the front end, or you as a consumer can also respond. So, not only does the practice have the opportunity to answer back, but so do other patients. So, it’s important to be able to provide those answers. And you can also chat with patients from your Google My Business profile now.” (27:26—28:15)

“My husband uses the Google chat feature, and we’ve definitely gotten some conversions from it. It’s free, so it isn't like you're paying for it. But we get a lot of questions from patients and prospective patients.” (28:36—28:49)

“It is confusing. It is really overwhelming. And that's part of the reason why only 50% of businesses, including dentists, have claimed their Google My Business page and optimized it. That's really, really frustrating from a marketing standpoint, because Google offers this free tool to help you show up on search, yet only half of all businesses out there have even claimed it or even know how to do it.” (29:34—30:00)

“The future is now, in the sense of people are using their phones more. They're living on their phones. So, making sure that everything is digital, that it’s immediate, and that it’s easy to do from their phone or from the desktop, I think those are really the key things in terms of things you can do every day that probably won't change. Those are your tried and trues.” (31:13—31:37)

“You really don't want to be a dentist trying to build your own website because you're not going to do it right. I don't know how to extract a tooth, and dentists don't know how to build a website. So, number one, send it to the experts and let people who know how to build sites build your site.” (32:06—32:22)

“When you go with a templated website, basically, what you're doing is you're choosing a specific design that's already been created that your competitor down the street can have the same design.” (33:37—33:47)

“One of the things we find with templated websites is the content is the same content. You're not necessarily creating your own unique content that's personal to your practice. And that does have an impact on your search and search engine optimization and how Google will decide which practice it’s going to list when someone searches for a “dentist near me”. So, taking the time to invest in a website that's personal to your brand, has unique written content that no one else has, that has calls to action that are applicable for you and for your practice, with photos that are for you and your practice, as opposed to an image that anyone can have, those things are all really important and it’s worth that investment because it will help you show up, and it also helps convey your brand culture and your service experience to patients.” (34:01—34:52)

“You have a better ability with a personal, custom site to continue to update it. One of the things that we always say to our clients is, just because you’ve built your site doesn't mean that it’s ever finished. You have to continuously manage it, and update it, and check for links that may be broken, or updates that Google may make. And it’s really important to also have a really strong website management process so that your website is live and online and functioning well all the time.” (35:01—35:31)

Snippets:

Kristi’s background. (02:21—03:34)

How website marketing has changed for dentists. (03:34—05:01)

Build your website for Google Search and your patients. (05:02—06:35)

How Google My Business and building a website is related. (06:36—08:26)

Biggest mistakes dentists make when building their website. (08:26—09:58)

More people are searching on mobile. (09:58—11:26)

Non-negotiables in building a website. (11:26—13:43)

Online scheduling is a big opportunity. (13:44—16:26)

Chat is important to a dental practice. (16:26—19:22)

How important is the “About Us” tab? (19:23—22:08)

Other things to be aware of with Google My Business. (22:08—25:07)