Being a doctor, online reputation matters a lot. More than 90% of people in the USA do a quick search before visiting a general physician. Online reputation management for physicians is not a difficult task. In fact, it is rather simple as compared to business owners, and people from other fields.
Doctors and general physicians are often found vulnerable to online reputation crises, especially in the US. One negative review can go a long way and it can change things dramatically for you. If you are not managing your online reputation properly, then it can leave a bad impact on your business and professional lifestyle.
Online reputation has extreme significance for physicians and we are going to discuss it shortly. However, our main focus is to do something before anything bad happens to your online reputation. If you have a proactive approach, then you don’t need to react at all. Here’s what you need to know about managing online reputation for physicians.
Why is Online Reputation Management for Physicians important?
Of course, online reputation management for physicians has extreme importance. As we have discussed earlier that almost 90% of people do a quick online search before visiting a clinic. You can’t just ignore your online presence when working as a general physician in a specific area.
Local SEO and managing your online reviews are extremely important for doctors. You will have to respond to the patients online as well and you need to be proactive in your approach when trying to manage your online reputation.
Your online reputation is your business card. For patients, your online reputation is the level of trust they can have in you. With excellent online reviews and good ratings on different directories, you can be picked easily.
Apart from your communication, skills, and handling of the patients, your online reputation is something that will build trust in the patients. You need to impress your patients before they even visit you. Start sharing tips on your local pages that will help patients get all the information they seek.
We will be discussing some excellent tips to improve your online reputation as a doctor. Make sure to follow all of them and be proactive in your approach to managing online reputation.
Best tips to improve your reputation as a physician
Sometimes, it is not only about the positive reviews. Reviews are just there to get you more business. The job you are doing has a very high moral and ethical value that you simply can’t measure in terms of money. Your patients should be very comfortable when they are visiting you and they should have a high level of trust in you. Here is what you can do to improve the online reputation that helps your patients pick you up every time.
Be active on social media
Social media can be your worst enemy and your best friend as well. It is how you treat it. You need to be sure that you are separating personal and professional life on social media. Be very careful about what you are posting online. If you are not interacting with your patients through your professional pages, then you are missing a lot of exposure for yourself and your business.
Try interacting with your patients and people on social media and be a responsible doctor as well. Make sure to share useful things that will help people so you can improve your online reputation in your area. By targeting local communities, you will be able to improve your online reputation and business.
All you have to do is to be professional and social media will become your best friend. If there are questions, you need to respond to them and try to help people online as much as you can.
Have a professional website
For doctors, it is important to have a professional website. This is where you will share everything about yourself. With professional biographies, you will be able to showcase what you have done and what you want to do to improve things for your community.
Apart from it, you can run a blog where you can share all the positive and useful things about being healthy. Your blog posts should be targeted towards helping people in your community. If you are taking this proactive approach, then you will be able to handle any reputation crises in a better way.
If you have been blogging, then it can also help you build a better search engine ranking. The whole point of having a good online reputation is based on the links that are ranking in search engines. If you are taking a proactive approach, then negative news and articles won’t hurt you a lot and you can manage your reputation easily.
Engage with patients online
You will have to create a solid base for engaging with your patients online. There are various platforms that you can use to engage with your patients and try to listen to them. If you are responding to the queries online, then you will be resolving half of your problems related to your online reputation.
If there is a public thread on some topic that you are addressing, then it is going to help you in a long term. It is one of the best reputation management strategies that you can work on today. Not only it will help the patients, but it is also going to help you maintain an excellent online reputation.
Encourage happy patients for review
There’s no doubt that reviews are going to play an important role in a doctor’s online reputation. One bad review can cost you a lot. You will have to develop a system for encouraging your happy patients to go online and review their experiences.
If you have been facing a lot of negative feedback, then there’s something you can do. You can find good online review management services that will help you manage your online reputation and reviews. However, it is always going to be in your hands and you will be the one who is going to improve the quality of service. You can always ask happy and satisfied patients to leave a positive review so it can tackle the negatives if any.
Display testimonials on your website
There’s something that you can do about improving your online reputation and very few physicians do this in the US. If you already own a professional website, then you need to get some excellent testimonials from your patients that you can display on your website.
If you are providing specialization services, then it is one of the extremely important steps that you need to take. If you can get video testimonials from satisfied and happy patients, then they are going to help you a lot. Make sure to display those testimonials on your website and professional social media pages to improve your business and online reputation.
Claim your business in different directories
Most physicians and doctors ignore this step. Local SEO is extremely important if you are serving in a specific area. Let’s assume that you are serving in Los Angeles, California. You will have to claim your business locally.
Make sure to work on Google My Business and explore different directories where you can claim your business. It will help you improve your online reputation and business at the same time. You will then encourage your happy patients to leave feedback on different directories so you can improve your online reputation. Here’s a list of important directories for medical professionals where you can claim your business.
Be proactive rather than being reactive
As we have discussed earlier, you need to be proactive in your approach. If you are reading it, you should never wait for a bad review or negative news article to start managing your online reputation. If you are doing everything that we have mentioned earlier, then it will help you avoid any mishaps before time.
You can already build a strong online reputation that can’t be tarnished with a few negative reviews and negative news articles. Make sure to use this proactive strategy to stay on top and build a positive physician online reputation today.
How online reviews can impact your services?
Online reviews are the lifeline for every service-based company or agency. For physicians, it is important to work on improving their online reviews.
If you are providing services in Tampa, Florida, USA, then you must have good reviews for your local business listings. People will always go online and check the reviews for the general physicians in Tampa, Florida, USA before visiting a doctor.
If you have negative reviews and your overall physician rating is bad, then no one is going to visit you or even call you for an appointment and information. Online reviews have a huge impact on your services and that’s where most physician struggles. Online reviews and ratings are actually a part of your online reputation and you should focus on managing them.
If you have bad reviews, it will not only cost you business, but it will also cost you your reputation. People would like to read those negative reviews to understand what went wrong with the patient’s experience. In such a case, you will end up losing your repute in the area you are working. The best way to tackle such a situation is to get in touch with the patients and even respond to them politely and publicly and address the issue as well.
How to choose an online reputation management company for physician
If you have been facing a damaged online reputation and you are trying to find a company that is specialized in providing a good online reputation management service for doctors, then you must create a checklist before selecting the right agency.
Here, we are going to list a few important things that you should look for when about to choose an online reputation management company for doctors. Make no mistakes as it can cost you a lot of money and time.
- Ask them about their experience with physician’s cases
You may want to choose an online reputation management company that has experience dealing with physician cases. You can always ask them to share a few case studies that will help you understand their working in a better way. If they have provided some excellent results to other physicians, and doctors, then you will be able to build good confidence in their services.
It is important to select an agency that is specialized in your line of work. If a company has not worked on many physicians’ online reputation and they lack the experience of providing good services to the doctors, then you can continue your research to find a specialized agency in your area.
- Ask them what they can do for you?
You need to ask them straight questions. It is your right and you will not get another chance if you sign up with them blindly. Make sure that you are asking them what they can do for you and how they can create a perfect reputation management plan for you.
Are they going to help you with review management? Are they going to help you claim their local business listings? How much it will cost to avail of their services? Make sure that you have asked all the important questions that will help you clear up your mind before using their services.
- Ask them to share a detailed reputation management plan
One of the most important things that you need to ask is the detailed online reputation management plan. If you are getting a detailed online reputation management plan from them, then you are going to understand the process.
Without a complete action plan, it will be difficult for you to build trust in their services. Ask them if they are going to provide you with weekly or monthly reports on what they have done for you. Regular reporting is extremely important so you can keep track of the work they are doing or claiming to have done.
- Do they provide support?
Well, it is obvious and you can’t miss that question. Make sure that they have dedicated support that will help you stay updated with the progress and will answer all your questions. If they are not providing quality support, then there’s no point in hiring such a service.
Quality support means that you will be able to talk to a person whenever there is a new problem with your campaign. If you have any questions or suggestions, you should be able to reach out to them and talk over the phone. They should be able to give you complete insights into what’s happening with your search results and review the management campaign.
- Avoid companies with fake promises
Here’s a big red flag. Make sure to avoid all those companies who are promising you a lot. If they are making unrealistic promises, then you must avoid them. In online reputation management, there’s no room for unrealistic promises. You can’t change things overnight and it is never going to happen.
If an online reputation management agency tells you that your reputation will be fixed within a month, then you should run away as far as you can from that agency.
By avoiding fake promises, and using all the important tips that we have mentioned, it will become a lot easier for you to select a perfect online reputation management company for doctors.
Get Free Consultation Today
At CrunchPress, you can get a free consultation by talking to our online reputation management expert. We are going to help you by offering a detailed action plan that you can review. We have a lot of case studies that we can share with you and it is going to give you a perfect idea of the time spent on those campaigns. Feel free to ask any questions regarding review management and online reputation management for doctors.
