Introduction

Accurate business listings are vital for your health care organization. Why does this matter? If someone wants to visit your location but finds an incorrect address or phone number online, this creates a bad patient experience right off the bat and can lead to a decline in business without your realizing it.

Consider that “Four out of five people use search engines to find local information, like business hours and addresses, and research shows that businesses with complete listings are twice as likely to be considered reputable by customers,” according to Google.

At that point it doesn’t matter how strong your online reputation is or how many stars you have. If someone’s first experience with your business is negative, you will have lost them as a potential patient.

“Consumers are 38 percent more likely to visit and 29 percent more likely to consider purchasing from businesses with complete listings. Yet, only 37 percent of businesses have claimed a local business listing on a search engine.” (Google)

Don’t let inaccurate listings — or no listing at all — stop people from finding your location.

Manage Your Listings on the Sites that Matter

There are hundreds of sites that list business information for you, including most review sites, online maps and listings-specific sites. How can you navigate through the noise and choose the sites that are the most relevant to your business?

We’ve found that Google is the best site to focus on. In fact, 64 percent of internet searches are done on Google. In 2012, Google had 3 billion searches a day, which has most likely increased since then.

After Google, you should look at industry-specific sites, such as HealthGrades, to gain the biggest initial return. Facebook should be included in your next tier of priorities, followed by YP, Yahoo Local, and Vitals.com. You’ll gain less impact from UCompareHealth and RateMDs.

Finding a Doctor

To give a real world example, let’s look at some data on where prospective patients look to find a doctor.

A Reputation.com Survey of a Few Thousand Patients Found the Following:

Google Dominating the Listing Space

After word-of-mouth, the next most important source for business referrals is Google. Specialized listing sites are becoming legacy sites and we believe will continue to decline in
usage and search rank. We recommend all clients focus on sites that matter — sites where your prospective patients will be looking for you.

Don’t alienate potential customers before they’ve even walked in your front door. Make sure your business listings are 100 percent accurate, and make sure you monitor those listings on a regular basis. Reputation.com can help in the process with a centralized, state-of-theart dashboard that lets you monitor and keep listings up to date around the clock.