When potential customers in your area do an online search for a dentist near them, you want your website or Google Business Profile to be among the top results. Various factors determine your search engine ranking and online visibility, such as your:

• Presence on Google Maps
• Proximity to the searcher
• Local website optimizations
• Google Business Profile presence
• Online customer reviews

Of these ranking factors, positive customer reviews are among the most crucial. Google uses reviews to determine your practice’s credibility and resulting search ranking.

Prospective patients also trust online reviews to gain insight into your service and dental treatments. The more positive online reviews you have, the more patients your practice will attract, ensuring that your practice grows sustainably over the long run.

Setup and Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Before implementing a review-based marketing strategy, you must ensure that your patients have a platform to leave reviews. Dental patients often use platforms such as Yelp, Facebook, or the Better Business Bureau. However, because Google dominates the search engine market, you want to be sure your patients leave reviews on your Google Business Profile.

After claiming your Google Business Profile, you need to take advantage of this listing by adding details, such as your name, address, phone number, and practice website URL.

Adding this information will optimize your Google Business Profile and increase your ranking for relevant search terms, such as “dentist near me.”

Provide a High-Quality Patient Experience

Improving your practice’s dental patient experience will go a long way toward increasing its number of positive online reviews. Happy customers are more likely to give positive reviews. You can evaluate patient experience by assessing the following factors:

• Ease of scheduling appointments
• Scheduling protocols to minimize patients’ wait times
• Coordination between the front- and back-office staff
• Quality of telephone and face-to-face communication with patients
• Protection of patient information
• Office and bathroom cleanliness
• Available dental financing options
• Treatment presentation

A positive experience eliminates objections patients may have to give a positive review. You can also confidently request a star rating and testimonial without fearing that a patient will leave a negative review.

Ask For Reviews Via Email or Text

Patients often want to leave positive reviews but don’t know where. After the patient leaves, you can send them a review request via text or email using Online Reviews from Dental Intelligence. You can also manage your reviews using our Swell integration.  

The review request you send should explain that you value your patients’ input and that their reviews can help others make informed decisions. This method makes it easy for patients to leave a review without wasting valuable time.

Embrace Negative Reviews

A negative review is not necessarily bad for your practice, and you shouldn’t let an irrational fear of negative evaluations keep you from using this valuable marketing tool. Most significantly bad reviews allow you to identify potential weaknesses you can address to improve your practice.

Google users tend to distrust businesses that only have five-star reviews. A negative review here and there indicates authenticity and transparency. Responding to negative reviews also demonstrates your commitment to customer service.

Contact Us at Dental Intelligence

At Dental Intelligence, we offer digital marketing strategies and lead monitoring solutions to help you leverage the value of online reviews. Our automated review request solution supports up to five review platforms, including Google, Facebook, and Yelp. Contact us today to schedule a demo if you want to find out how to get more online reviews and grow your dental practice.