Managing your online reputation is essential for attracting new patients to your practice. It’s not enough that your dental office shows up in a search result—potential patients need to see that your business is trustworthy before they will choose you for dental work. At New Wine Digital, we help dentists create websites and content that build and strengthen their online presence. Find out how to increase your influence with this guide to online reputation management for dentists. Â
What Is Online Reputation Management and Why Is it Important for Dentists?
Online reputation management (ORM) involves regularly monitoring the online presence of your dental practice. In order to take control of your reputation, you need to know what your patients are saying about your business. Negative and positive feedback can sway a potential patient one way another when choosing a new dentist. ORM involves responding to all online feedback in a thoughtful and timely manner to help you maintain your reputation.Â
Four Online Reputation Management Tips for Dentists
1: Claim Your Dental Practice on Business Listing Sites
Claiming your business profile on different listing sites helps more people discover your dental practice. It’s a good idea to use several online business directories to reach a wider audience. However, you should choose one website as the main place you direct your patients to leave reviews of your office. Doing so will make it much easier for you to encourage and monitor new reviews from patients.
Some of the free online business directories where you can list your dental office include:
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Bing Places for Business
- Foursquare Â
- Yellow Pages
2: Monitor Reviews and Social Media Comments
Once you have listed your dental practice on your chosen listing sites, make sure to check them regularly for new reviews. You should also check the comments on your social media profiles to see what people have to say. To find other mentions of your practice, you can do a Google search of your business and review the first page of results. Once you have found reviews, comments, and other content regarding your business, it’s time to start responding. Â
3: Respond to Feedback
It may not seem necessary to respond to positive comments and reviews, but doing so can really strengthen your relationship with your patients and boost your online reputation. A simple response thanking your patients for their feedback can go a long way. If they give you permission, you can also share their positive reviews on social media or on your website to help promote your dental practice.Â
Crafting a response to negative reviews, on the other hand, takes some extra care. Letting poor reviews and negative comments go unanswered can cause you to lose patients and keep new patients from contacting your office. However, thoughtful responses from your dental practice can mend your relationship with unhappy patients.Â
Solving an issue from a negative review of your practice may also discourage someone from posting negative reviews of your practice elsewhere. Make sure to thank negative reviewers for their feedback and politely ask them to contact your office to ensure their problem gets resolved.Â
Whether you are responding to positive or negative reviews, always make sure your response is swift. Reviewers expect a quick response and waiting too long can negatively affect your relationship with the reviewer, no matter what kind of feedback they left. Try to respond within 24 to 48 hours if possible—the sooner the better.
4: Generate More Feedback
People are more likely to leave a review when they are unsatisfied with their experience. When the negative reviews outweigh the positive reviews, it paints a poor picture of your dental practice that might not accurately reflect most of your patients’ experiences. However, people are also more likely to leave a review when you ask them to. You can generate more positive reviews by simply asking your patients to review your dental practice.Â
Start Building Your Online Reputation Today
Online reputation management begins with a strong website. At New Wine Digital, we provide expert web design and online marketing services to dentists and other business owners. If you are interested in transforming your website and bringing in new patients, contact us at 480-516-1819 today.Â
Images used under creative commons license – commercial use (12/3/2024). Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash