[Guest Post] Leverage the Power of Google for Your Practice

You may know Google best as the popular search engine, but when it comes to online marketing, social media and SEO, Google is a serious powerhouse. Google purchased YouTube, the largest video sharing site to date, and launched both Google+ and Google+ Local.

Why is this important for your practice? Patients are turning to the internet to find health care providers now more than ever. They will most likely use Google when searching for a local dentist, so your goal is to have your practice appear in the top search results.

How do you do this? Google has specific algorithms to determine their search results, but what better way to improve your rankings than to create profiles on each of their social media sites. Each of the profiles on the Google affiliated sites will serve as incredible drivers of search engine optimization. From dentists who are social media mavens to novices, it’s a no-brainer to add these social media profiles if it helps patients easily find and connect with your practice online.

Google+

Launched in the fall of 2011, Google+ has grown to over 400 million users in just one year’s time. While it has yet to rival Facebook in terms of its reach, Google+ is growing fast. It’s a great tool for developing inbound links. Building your practice’s Google+ business page offers you many opportunities to feature videos, share photos and images, and create direct inbound links, all of which are incredibly important for search engine optimization. Click here to learn more about Google+.

 

Google+ Local

Remember your Google Places profile? Google replaced Google Places with what is now known as Google+ Local. Not to be confused with Google+, your Google+ Local page is your practice’s business listing within Google. This profile provides the same opportunities for inbound links, images and video as Google+, and it also includes patient reviews which can have a huge impact on your word-of-mouth referrals.  Google creates a Google+ Local page for every business in the country, but it’s up to the business owner to claim that profile and make sure it’s accurate. Being familiar with your Google+ Local page also enables you to monitor what patients are saying about your practice and to highlight these comments (at least the positive ones) through other social media platforms. Click here to learn more about Google+ Local.

 

YouTube

YouTube is now the Internet’s second-largest search engine. More than 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and over 4 billion videos are viewed a day! Dentists around the globe are finding that including one- to two- minute videos on the practice’s website and YouTube channel can be an effective part of an overall search engine optimization strategy. Video on your practice website can play into Google’s preference for fresh, relevant content, and can help your practice rank higher in Google searches. And the videos posted directly to YouTube drive search traffic to the practice website as well.  Click here for more information about creating your own YouTube account and start uploading videos.

Google is synonymous with online search, and one of the easiest ways to make sure that Google’s algorithms continue to work in your favor is to create profiles for your practice on the Google-affiliated sites. You can reach and connect with patients while improving your search engine optimization at the same time.