Building a Positive Online Reputation for Your Practice

If you have a great reputation with your current base of patients and among your business partners, this is certainly a great achievement to be proud of. However, you may still struggle to get more patients in the door if your positive in-person reputation isn’t reflected in your online reputation. By taking some practical steps to boost your online reputation, you can start to experience unprecedented growth for your practice.

Properly Manage Your Reviews

Your online ratings could very well be quite different from your in-person reputation if you aren’t actively taking steps to generate more positive reviews. Make sure you have a presence on all of the major review platforms, including Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, and Angie’s List. This will make it easier for patients who want to leave a review to find a way to do so. There are also plenty of ways to ask your patients for a review, including making requests by email after an appointment, using a review kiosk, and simply asking in person. Just remember to never directly ask for reviews on Yelp, since this violates their terms and can get your practice flagged if discovered.

The other side of this is managing your reviews. It’s always good to thank your patients for positive reviews. You should also take the time to respond to any negative reviews. Due to HIPPA laws, it’s always best to keep your responses concise and vague and to immediately request to talk to them directly. Avoid blatantly telling the reviewer they are wrong, be polite, and offer to remedy the situation so readers can see you aren’t defensive and you want to make things right.

Have a Strong Social Media Presence

Not only will this help you when it comes to generating reviews on Facebook, it will also create more awareness for your practice. Social media gives you the opportunity for direct engagement and a wide reach that wasn’t possible in the past. Invest time and energy into being creative with social media posts on all major platforms, including Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook, and you can dramatically expand your online exposure.

Be consistent with your posts to stay in favor with social media algorithms, build your following, and stay relevant among users. Staying consistent also means you create more opportunities for engagement by responding to comments and messages.

Consistently Post Quality Content

As a form of inbound marketing, your blog helps direct web traffic to your practice. This is done through good SEO strategies, but it also relies on posting high-quality content your readers find useful. When readers know they can turn to your blog for trustworthy content, it inherently builds trust in your practice as a whole.

Keeping your blog posts consistent will allow you to build your presence online and to reach more people as they search for topics you post about. Having a posting schedule and focusing on original, quality content also helps boost your rankings overall, so it’s a win-win situation.

Make sure these strategies are also paired with a strong landing page for your orthodontic website that you keep up to date with accurate information and the latest SEO best practices. To bolster the online presence of your practice, contact Ortho Sales Engine to see how we can help your office through online content creation, video production, and marketing strategies that will earn you new patients.