In this 5-minute read:
- Claim and update your Yelp profile
- Get new patient reviews
- Offer deals and promotions
- Advertise your dental practice on Yelp
- Promote your Yelp listing outside of Yelp
Yelp is a popular platform on which consumers search to find local businesses (and reviews), including medical and dental practices.
Attract new customers and keep them loyal with reputation management software. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!
Consumers trust the reviews on Yelp and use those to help them make decisions on where to take their business. How are you using Yelp to promote your dental practice?
Claim your Yelp business listing
In order to promote your dental practice on Yelp, you need to have a Yelp business listing. This will allow you to show up in consumer searches for dental offices in their area and provide an opportunity for your patients to leave your practice reviews online.
Get started with this quick guide: How to claim your Yelp business listing
Update your Yelp business profile
Once you’ve added your dental practice to Yelp, it’s important to really round out your profile so that your patients and potential patients have all of the information they need to find and choose your practice.
Start by including all of the following information on your profile:
- Practice name
- Address
- Phone number
- Open hours (including holiday hours)
- Website
- Services and prices (if possible)
- Payments accepted
- Wi-fi availability
- Accessibility
- Parking options
- Lots of photos
As far as the photos go, be sure to include photos of the outside of your practice and your branding so it is easy for patients to find and recognize your office. Photos of your office staff and the inside of your lobby and exam rooms will also help patients make a decision about your practice.
Get more patient reviews and respond to them
Now that your Yelp listing is up and completed, it’s time to get some patient reviews.
The tricky thing about Yelp is that they aren’t very keen on businesses soliciting reviews from customers on their platform. So it’s important to be careful in the way you go about getting Yelp reviews.
Here are a couple of ways that you can encourage Yelp reviews from your patients without going against Yelp’s policies:
- Post “We’re on Yelp” signs in your office. This shows your patients that you have a Yelp account and reminds them that they can leave you a review there.
- Add links to your Yelp listing on your website so patients can see that when they are getting your contact information.
When you do get reviews on Yelp, it’s also important to respond to them. Whether it’s a positive or negative review, be sure to post a response shortly after the review is posted. Say “thank you” to the positive reviews and be sincere and professional in any negative reviews that may occur.
For more insights, check out our guide: How to respond to reviews
Responding to reviews isn’t just polite… it can mean big bucks. Womply research shows that businesses that regularly respond to reviews earn up to 49% more revenue!
Offer deals and promotions on Yelp
Dental procedures can get expensive, so if you are able to offer discounts or promotions to help your patients save a little money on their visits, be sure to maximize that value by utilizing your Yelp listing to spread the word.
Share special promotions—like free cleanings or exams—on your Yelp page. This is a great way to get new patients in the door, and keep them for life.
Advertise your dental practice on Yelp
Advertising your dental practice on Yelp is an effective method of promoting your profile and getting it in front of potential patients.
When you pay Yelp for advertising services, you get premium placements for your Yelp profile so when people are searching for dental practices near them, your listing shows up at the top of the list.
There are three main benefits to Yelp advertising.
- Targeted audiences
You can choose audiences for your Yelp ads based on location and demographics to make sure that your ads are put in front of the right people for your clinic.
- Premium placements
When you pay for Yelp ads, your profile is shown in more places across Yelp’s platform. Your practice is put at the top of relevant searches as well as on competitors’ listings to give you the most opportunity to be found by new patients.
- Multiple platforms
Yelp recognizes that people do their research across a variety of platforms, so they make sure that your ads show up in those places. Potential patients may see your ads on their Yelp mobile app, in a mobile browser, or on their desktop.
Go deeper: Learn more about Yelp Advertising for small business.
Promote your Yelp profile outside of Yelp
Let patients—and potential patients—know that your practice is on Yelp by promoting your Yelp profile outside of Yelp.
This not only helps your practice get more Yelp reviews as we mentioned earlier, but it will help others to know that you are on Yelp when researching your clinic and provide them more information to help them make a decision to choose you over someone else.
Here are a few ways you can show people that your dental practice is on Yelp:
- Add “We’re on Yelp” signs strategically throughout your office. On the front door and at the front desk in the lobby are both great places to do this.
- Add an official Yelp badge to your website. This can be on your home page, in the footer of your website, or on the contact page (or all three). Adding placements on your website that link to your Yelp reviews can help people in the research phase to learn more about your practice.
- Invite patients to “check-in” to your practice on their Yelp mobile app. Your Yelp listing will show others how many people have checked in lately, and that also provides another reminder for patients to leave you an online review.
Yelp is a free platform that you should take advantage of for your dental practice. If the thought of managing another review platform is overwhelming to you, there are solutions that can make it easier.
Reputation management software can help manage your online listings and reviews while saving time. Womply’s software collates all of your online reviews from all the important review platforms in one place for easy management and reply. You can even choose or create automatic replies if you desire. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!