The Clinic Marketing Podcast - Local SEO & Healthcare Digital Marketing Tips for Clinic Owners & Wellness Providers

This 1 Simple Step Can Quickly Boost Your Google Rankings | Local SEO | Ep. 103

• Darcy Sullivan • Episode 103

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What if I told you there’s one simple thing you could do right now to instantly improve your online presence and boost your local rankings?

It doesn’t require tech skills, fancy tools, or a big budget—yet most clinic owners overlook it completely. And when they do, it costs them visibility, patients, and revenue.

In today’s episode, we’re diving into the #1 fix you can make today to strengthen your local SEO and ensure potential patients find accurate, trustworthy information about your business online.

👉 Episode webpage: https://propelyourcompany.com/boost-your-google-rankings/ 


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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Clinic Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, darci Sullivan from Propel Marketing and Design. What if I told you there's one simple thing you could do right now to instantly improve your online presence and boost your local rankings? It doesn't require tech skills, fancy tools or a big budget. Yet most clinic owners overlook it completely, and when they do, it costs them visibility, patience and revenue. In today's episode, we're diving into the number one fix you can make today to strengthen your local SEO and ensure potential patients find accurate, trustworthy information about your business online. Stick around, because this one tweak can make a huge impact on how Google and your future patients see your clinic. Let's jump right in, shall we it? Let's jump right in, shall we?

Speaker 1:

Today we're covering a simple but crucial factor that can make or break your local SEO success map consistency. If you want your clinic to show up in local search results and on Google Maps, you must ensure that your business's name, address and phone number, also called NEP, is consistent across the web. And yet this is one of the most common SEO mistakes I see clinic owners make. Maybe you changed locations, updated your phone number. Maybe you changed locations, updated your phone number or listed your business slightly different on different platforms. These inconsistencies confuse Google and potential patients, and they can hurt your rankings. So in today's episode, we're breaking down what net consistency is and why it matters for local SEO, how net inconsistencies happen and their impact, and how to check and fix net issues.

Speaker 1:

First, let's define net consistency. It simply means that your business's name, address and phone number are listed the exact same way across the internet. Your net appears in places like your website, your Google business profile listing that's what controls your Google Maps listing. Business Profile Listing that's what controls your Google Maps. Listing Local directories like Yelp, healthgrades and Yellow Pages. Other listings like Apple Business Connect that's what controls how your listing shows in Apple Maps and Bing Places. By the way, we have guides on how to optimize your Google Business Profile listing, apple Business Connect listing, yelp listing and Bing Places listing. We'll include those in the show notes for this episode. In addition to those, your net also appears in social media profiles like Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn and anywhere else your business is listed online.

Speaker 1:

Even small differences like using MainST versus MainStreet, spelled out, or listing ABC Chiropractic and Wellness in one place and abc chiropractic in another, can create confusion for google, even as google continues to grow and gather information. It still relies on consistent business information to verify your legitimacy and trustworthiness. When your NAP details match across platforms, google is more confident in displaying your business information in search results. You might be wondering how do NAP inconsistencies happen? Here are some common ways Business name variations Maybe your business name has changed over time or you sometimes list it differently, like Smith Chiropractic and Wellness versus Smith Chiropractic.

Speaker 1:

Maybe your address has changed or there are formatting differences. Did you move locations? Even if it was years ago, outdated addresses might still be floating around online. There's also small variations, like the difference between suite 100 versus number 100. These small changes can still cause inconsistencies. Also, phone numbers change. If you switch phone numbers or if you use a tracking number for ads, some listings might have the wrong phone number. Duplicate listings happen. If you or a third-party service created multiple business listings, each with slightly different details, google can get confused about which one is correct. Third-party data aggregators websites that pull business information from databases and aggregate those listings sometimes have incorrect information. Now that we know how inconsistencies happen, let's talk about why they're a problem for local SEO.

Speaker 1:

Number one Google trust issues. Google wants to deliver the most accurate search result. If it finds conflicting information about your business, it doesn't know which version to trust and it can lower your rankings. This can also lower your Google business profile rankings. That's what controls your listing in Google Maps and local search results. If your NEP isn't consistent, your Google business profile listing may not rank as high in Google Maps and local search results. That means fewer potential patients finding your clinic. We also want to make sure that we're not confusing patients or potential patients finding your clinic. We also want to make sure that we're not confusing patients or potential patients. Imagine a patient finds your business listing with two different addresses. Which one do they visit? Inconsistencies can lead to lost bookings and frustrated patients. Also, there's the missed opportunity for backlinks. Directories and local sites provide valuable backlinks. If they have incorrect info, they won't be as helpful for your SEO.

Speaker 1:

The good news is you can fix NEP inconsistencies and boost your local SEO. Here's how. Start off easy Google yourself your business, that is, search for your business name and look at all the places where it's listed at your Google business profile listing and some of those other listings we mentioned earlier, from your social media to your Yelp listing and beyond. Make sure that all of these locations have correct information for you. You can conduct a net audit. You can do this manually or you can use a tool. There are tools and services like Mozlocal, brightlocal or Whitespark that can help you with inconsistencies.

Speaker 1:

You can manually fix incorrect listings. You can visit each directory and update your business name, address and phone number to exact match. And again, don't forget those social media profiles like Facebook, linkedin and Instagram. If there is a listing that is incorrect, maybe a former employee set it up and you're having a little bit of trouble just automatically updating that listing and you need to reach out to that entity to get help. So let's say there's a listing and you want to reach out directly to that listing to get it changed, make sure that you're using an email address that matches your business. So, for example, if I have a company named ABC Chiropractic, it's ay23bc at aolcom if I am reaching out to these listings to get my information changed. So again, if you need to get information changed and you need to reach out on behalf of your company, make sure that you're using an email address that really makes it easy for them to realize yes, you are a member of that organization.

Speaker 1:

You also want to claim and remove any duplicate listings. If you find duplicate business listings, claim and merge or delete them. Google Business Profile allows you to request removal or duplicate listings. One note on this is that if you have a listing for your company that is different than a listing for a doctor or a chiropractor, if you're a doctor, you're allowed to have a separate listing from the business listing, so having those two listings does not count as duplicate listings here. Here we're talking about duplicate listings again in the example of ABC Chiropractic. If there were two listings for ABC Chiropractic, I would want to go in and either merge or delete the one that was incorrectly associated with the business.

Speaker 1:

You also want to keep future listings consistent. When you're signing up for new directories, always use the same net format. If you have multiple people helping you with projects like this in your team, you want to make sure that you create a standardized business information document that makes it easy for people to copy and paste from. Keeping your name, address and phone number consistent might seem like a small detail, but it has huge impact on local SEO. If you want your clinic to rank higher in Google Maps, get more local patients and avoid confusion, then NAP consistency should be a top priority, so let's do a quick recap.

Speaker 1:

You want to keep your business name, address and phone number identical across platforms. Audit your Google business profile, listing your website and all other directory listings online. You can use tools like we mentioned earlier to help you find inconsistencies. You want to fix incorrect listings and remove duplicates and stay consistent, moving forward. Well, that's it for today's episode. If you found this helpful, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review or share it with other people you think would find value. Thanks for tuning in to the Clinic Marketing Podcast.