4 Mistakes That Damage Your Online Credibility

In today's society, where almost everything is posted online, making sure your chiropractic practice has a positive online reputation is essential to your business success.

According to a 2014 BrightLocal survey, 88 percent of consumers trust opinions posted online as much as they trust personal recommendations.¹ In order to capture the attention of prospective patients, doing everything you can to ensure a positive online reputation is a must.

Consider these four situations in which you could be damaging your reputation and not even know it:

1. Not Responding to Negative Reviews

Although your first instinct may be to defend your practice or ignore the review altogether, it's important to take a deep breath, calm down and read the review again. Letting your anger get the best of you will only create further damage.

Taking the time to respond objectively and considerately shows you care about your patients and their experiences at your practice. It's important to respond professionally and give the reviewer the benefit of the doubt. Thank the reviewer for bringing the incident to your attention and provide a solution.

A sincere, carefully thought-out response could potentially lead to a positive outcome. Often times, a simple acknowledgment of their voice being heard is enough to satisfy an upset patient.

If it appears your practice is receiving multiple negative reviews revolving around the same issue, it's likely the reviewers are right. Use these reviews to your advantage by noting the areas your practice can improve on, and develop a plan of action to fix the problem.

2. Not Responding to Positive Reviews

You may believe positive reviews can be left to stand on their own. However, to get the most out of a positive review, writing a response will show your appreciation for the patient taking the time to review your practice; and leave a positive impact on potential patients scanning third-party review websites.

It also demonstrates that you are actively engaged, so visitors will know you pay attention to their input. For practitioners, this is an insightful way to find what your patients want and need from your practice.

In addition to improving your online credibility, responding to a positive review will encourage past and current patients to leave their own positive reviews of your practice. As such, the overarching tone of your response to positive reviews should demonstrate you value your patients' feedback.

3. Inconsistent Web Presence

If you rarely update your website with new content, you could be harming your online reputation without even trying. Google recognizes quality content posted on a regular basis and will reward your pages with a higher search results position.

It is helpful to think of content creation as a marathon, not a sprint. Inconsistent posts fail to gain momentum and will exhaust your efforts. A consistent and steady Web presence demonstrates you are in it for the long haul.

Additionally, regularly posting sets you up as an expert in the chiropractic field. The more content available, the better the chance searchers will find what they are looking for on your pages.

4. Ignoring the Vital Connection Between Social Media and Google Rankings

While many people focus on the activity level and number of followers of their social media pages as metrics for success, in actuality, it's what's shared across your platforms that has the most impact on your organic ranking.

Content that's shared via links across social media helps search engines understand how to rank your website for specific keyword phrases.

Today, people use social media platforms almost exactly like they do search engines. For instance, Twitter gets more than 19 billion searches per month and Facebook gets more than 1 billion per day.² Many social media platforms are offering more vessels for content creation and distribution than ever before.

Google+ is not so much a social network as a "social layer" that links together all of Google's products from mail, maps, YouTube, search and apps. The most straightforward way Google+ impacts search results is with personalization. For instance, if a patient is following you on Google+, the chances that they will see your posts in Google's search results are much higher.

Ultimately, failing to embrace and leverage a variety of social media sites or turning a blind eye to Google+ can damage your practice's online credibility.

The Bottom Line

Managing your online reputation, encouraging positive reviews, and utilizing a smart content plan focused on quality content that is updated on a frequent basis will help ensure your website is seen in the best light possible by both potential patients and search engines alike!

References

1. Anderson M. "88 Percent of Consumers Trust Online Reviews as Much as Personal Recommendations." Search Engine Land, reporting on findings from BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2014.
2. Gray CM. "5 Things You Need to Know About Social Media and SEO." https://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-media-and-seo/

Amanda Navarrete is a content specialist at ChiroMatrix (www.chiromatrix.com). She received her bachelor of arts in communication and English, with an emphasis in writing, in 2015 from Pacific Union College. In her current position at ChiroMatrix, Amanda develops various content including advertising copy, white papers, webinars and more.