By: Dr. Len Tau
It’s no secret that we live in a digital world. COVID made the transfer to online work much more apparent, but the internet has been crucial for businesses, including dentistry, since its inception.
You don’t need to look at studies to know how important an online presence is, but research shows that 99% of people go online to research local businesses at least once a month.
So if your online presence is tough to find — or worse, actively discouraging — it can be an enormous problem.
Steps to Developing an Online Presence
Here are four simple steps to developing your dental practice online presence:
- Understanding What You Need
- Set Up Your Google Business Profile
- Automate Asking Clients for Reviews
- Deal with Feedback Appropriately
1. Understand What You Need
The first step to developing an online presence is understanding exactly where you need to make your presence known.
It might seem obvious, but Google is by far the most used platform and the one you need to focus most on (in some areas, especially California, Yelp is a close second; but Google is central); research indicates that 80% of people use Google as their primary resource.
2. Set Up Your Google Business Profile
If you haven’t already, setting up a Google Business profile for your practice is essential. For any dental students or younger dentists without their own practice reading: this is important for you, too!
If you make the account in your own name, you can take it anywhere you go as a record of all you’ve done. Starting up in a new city is a lot easier if you’ve been building up social capital from day one.
3. Automate Asking Patients to Leave Reviews
A huge portion of making yourself look good online comes from the reviews people leave. There are a lot of ways to ensure that you get more four- and five-star reviews (besides just doing good work!).
The first big one is making sure you don’t do it yourself. If you just ask people to leave feedback as they leave, odds are that they’ll forget or just won’t do it.
There are plenty of services that automatically send a text message to your clients, and these automated
services have great returns on a minimal investment.
Keep in mind that 91% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations — so it’s worth investing in reviews!
4. Dealing with Feedback
But it’s about more than just getting people to respond; it’s about dealing with feedback.
If you have nothing but four- and five-star reviews, that’s great! But if you get some poor reviews, don’t take it personally. You can let it ruin your breakfast, but don’t let it ruin your lunch.
Remember that these reviews are feedback, not pointless criticism, and try to pinpoint the problems; a lot of the time, it boils down to politeness and fast service.
Develop Your Online Presence & Watch Your Practice Grow
It’s becoming clear that businesses need to make themselves known online — and that’s definitely true of dentistry.
Making a Google business account, using automated software to get clients to review your practice, and making sure you do good work are all essential in today’s clinical environment.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska
