The Google Business Profile

Why the profile matters more than the site

For a patient searching at stage four of the journey in Module 03, The patient journey, from symptom to booking, the profile is frequently what they see first, what they read, and what they act on. Calls, direction requests and website visits all originate there, and for many clinics the profile out-produces every page of the website combined.

It is also free, it takes an afternoon to complete properly, and it is the single highest-return hour in this entire course for a clinic that has never done it. That combination is why it comes before anything else in Part VI.

Three factors, two you can affect

Relevance is how well the profile matches what was searched for, and it is improved by completeness: the correct primary category, the right services listed, a description that says what the clinic actually does.

Distance is how far the clinic is from the searcher or from the place named in the query. It cannot be changed, and every scheme that claims to change it, from fake addresses to virtual offices, is a guideline breach with a suspension attached.

Prominence is how well known the clinic is, which is informed by what exists about it across the web, including reviews and references from other sites. It is the slowest of the three to build and the most durable once built.

Google's own page on improving your local ranking states these three plainly and is worth reading in its entirety, since it is short and since a great deal of contradictory advice exists elsewhere.

The name field, and the trap in it

The business name field must contain the business name. Not the name plus the town, not the name plus a list of treatments, not the name plus an adjective.

Adding terms to the name field does move listings, which is precisely why it is against the guidelines for representing your business and why it is reported by competitors constantly. A clinic that does it is trading a temporary improvement against the risk of losing the listing entirely, and the listing is frequently the clinic's largest source of enquiries.

The name field is the one place on the internet where the short-term reward for breaking a rule is most obvious and the long-term cost is most severe.

Categories, services and attributes

The primary category carries the most weight and choosing it badly is the most common quiet error. Choose the category that most precisely describes the business as a whole, not the treatment you most want to sell. Additional categories cover the rest, and adding categories you do not genuinely operate in dilutes relevance rather than adding it.

Services should list what you actually offer, using the names patients use, subject to the constraint in Module 05, The rules that constrain everything you publish about prescription-only medicines. Attributes, which cover matters such as accessibility and appointment requirements, are read by patients far more than clinics assume, and the accessibility attributes are directly relevant to the population discussed in Module 24, Accessibility as an obligation and an advantage.

Photographs, hours and the fields nobody fills

Photographs of the actual premises, exterior and interior, taken with the standard from Module 18, Before and after imagery and the advertising codes applied to the extent that it makes sense: consistent, current, and genuinely of your clinic. The exterior photograph matters more than clinics expect, because a patient arriving for the first time uses it to recognise the building.

Hours must be correct, including the special hours around holidays. A patient who arrives to a closed clinic because the profile said it was open is a patient who leaves a review about it.

The fields most often left empty and most worth filling: the description, which should be the compressed proposition from Module 06, Writing the clinic's proposition rather than a list of treatments; the opening date; the appointment link, which should point at your booking path rather than at the homepage; and the products or services list.

Posts, questions and the monthly routine

The questions feature is public and anybody can answer, including people who do not work at your clinic. Unanswered questions accumulate wrong answers. Checking it is part of the monthly routine.

Posts are short updates that appear on the profile. They are useful for genuine news and practically useless as a keyword device. Treat them as a noticeboard rather than a channel, and do not feel obliged to post weekly for its own sake.

The monthly routine is ten minutes: check hours are right, answer new reviews per Module 28, Reviews and what the codes allow, answer or correct any new questions, add any new photograph, and check that nothing has been changed by an automated update or a third party. That last one surprises clinics; profiles can be edited by others, and noticing quickly is the only defence.