How Online Reviews Affect Local Search

When it comes to shopping online, research has shown that potential patients often turn to reviews when it comes to deciding when to purchase. With review sites all over such as Google, Yelp, and even Facebook, chances are patients are talking about your practice online somewhere. But outside of providing potential patients with information about your practice, products, or services, how do online reviews affect local search?

What Are Your practice Ratings?

Did you know over half of online shoppers don’t “trust” practices with a star rating lower than a 4 out of 5? Even if patients aren’t reading through what each review has to say, the majority of them are looking at your overall rating. When faced with various competitors offering the same product or service, most potential patients will go for the practice with the highest ratings/reviews.

Where Does Your practice Have Reviews?

Although Google reviews are obviously highly important, other review sites such as Yelp and Facebook are also important. Not only do search algorithms take these reviews and ratings into account, but your potential patients may also be searching via those sites. Making sure that you have a variety of reviews across any relevant review site should be of utmost importance. Having 50 reviews on Google doesn’t mean much when the potential patient is looking on Yelp or Facebook.

How Recent Are Your practice Reviews?

Research has also shown that potential patients prefer to see more recent reviews and often find reviews older than three months to no longer be relevant. Part of managing your online reputation is generating new, positive reviews for your practice.

Pozative allows practice owners to automatically send customized review requests to patients after receiving a product or service. This increases your chances of receiving patient reviews and allows you to decide which review sites to target, allowing you to make sure you are getting reviews on a broad range of sites. Ready to get Pozative? Sign up today; it’s free!