Creating a regular Google Post schedule is an important part of any medical practice marketing strategy. Follow our helpful guidelines to create winning posts to promote your practice and attract new patients. Choose from our list of clever Google Post ideas. SocialClimb’s automated practice marketing system makes it easy to manage posts across all your physician listing pages.
We recently wrote about why medical practices should include regular Google Posts in their automated marketing strategy. Industry experts explain that the Google search engine continues to prefer businesses that create and optimize a Google Business Profile. In fact, they see the GBP pages and features becoming more important every year to Local Search results.
Google’s newer GBP features, like Google Posts, now allow searchers to interact with businesses through their online listings, right in the search results. The Google machine tracks and values this real online interaction, because it suggests that real people want this business and what it has to offer. And this leads to better search rankings.
Read below for our “best practice” guidelines to create simple Google Posts that will engage searchers. Then get started by using some of our favorite post ideas for medical practices.
Remember these simple guidelines to create awesome Google Posts:
When you create Google Posts, follow these rules of thumb to get the attention of potential patients and to thereby get the attention of the Google search engine:
- Keep content short, because people are in “scan mode” when they look at search results. Search results are also in a quick-scan view, displaying only the first approximately 80 words.
- Include some kind of visual, because a picture is worth 1000 words! Even simple visuals are better than no visuals. If you can find something interesting, colorful, or clever–all the better.
- Invite people to take action that requires a click, because search engines “see” clicks. Clicks are measurable behaviors that show people are interested in your practice.
- Include important keywords, because search engines will use these to verify that you really offer the things people are searching for. When they find these keywords, the search engines consider you a better fit, and are more likely to prefer your listing above others.
- Update your content every week, to keep people and search engines paying attention. The Google Post system stops promoting a post after seven days. However, old posts still exist in a slider view if someone clicks on a current post. Remember that even re-posting a standing photo and text is better than no post at all.
Start with these clever Google Post ideas for medical practices
These are some of our favorite ideas for medical practice posts. Use these ideas directly, or use them as springboards for other great post ideas.
- Promote a new doctor. Include her photo. Invite people to click to your website to learn more about her.
- Promote a new office location by having an open house. Include a photo of your new office. Plan to have cookies. Include a link where people can say “I’ll be there!”
- Invite people to see your new walk-in clinic. Include a photo of your high-tech imaging equipment. Invite people to click for an address and directions.
- Schedule an evening Q/A session or information fair about new treatment options, such as trends in hip replacement. As an image, include a photo or even just stylized text saying, “If you’ve been waiting, now is the time.” Include a link for people to RSVP.
- Schedule a class related to your specialties, that will interest your preferred patients. For example, for your weekend walk-in clinic, plan an open house where families can learn about common injuries in youth sports, with ideas on injury prevention for teens.
- Schedule a general health class taught by one of your physicians or staff members, or by a local expert. For example, you could schedule a yoga class to encourage flexibility or a nutrition class on joint health. Don’t forget an image and a prompt to click.
- Is there a new physical therapist in town? Or another professional whose work is connected to yours? Invite them to make a presentation in your office, then post an invitation to all interested internet searchers. It’s a win for all of you.
- Offer a free screening one evening, like a flexibility assessment or body fat or bone density scan.
- Set up an information tent at a local health fair, 5K community fun run, or a youth sporting event. Let people know you’ll be there, and include a link to information on your website that teaches people about health issues in your specialty. For example, if you set up at a fun run, link to a chart of pre- and post-run stretches.
- In September, remind people it’s not too early to beat the scheduling rush for end-of-the-year surgery, when people have met their insurance deductibles. Include a picture of a calendar. Add a button to call your office, or a link to your appointment scheduling system.
- Tell about a good cause your practice supports. Do you donate to Special Olympics? Say so, and include a photo and a link for people to learn more about your favorite causes.
- Tell about your community involvement. Did your staff help at a local elementary school’s “fitness obstacle course” fundraiser? Say so, and include a photo–with parent permission, and a link to the school’s website.
- Tell about your doctors’ interests. Is one of your doctors a musician (or a ventriloquist? or a sourdough bread maker?) Highlight something they recently did to personalize your practice to searchers. Remember a photo, and link to something like a concert review, or recipe.
Use automated tools to duplicate your posts on multiple listing pages
Medical practices creating Google Posts face a unique challenge different from standard businesses like retail or restaurants. That is because medical practices need to have a separate page for every physician at each of their different office locations.
Creating a post is simple. But without the right tools, it can take a lot of time to cut and paste your posts onto every doctor’s GBP listing page. SocialClimb’s smart, automated practice marketing system makes it easy. SocialClimb will help you claim and optimize all your Google Business Profiles, and will make it easy for you to quickly duplicate posts and other content across chosen groups of doctors in your practice.
Armed with our advice and ideas, you can quickly create engaging posts to draw in new medical clients, boost your search results, and grow your practice volume.
Read here to read our recent article on why Google Posts are an important part of automated practice marketing. Click here to learn more about how SocialClimb helps you optimize your listing pages, including using Google Posts. You can also learn how SocialClimb helps you attract the patients you want and automates online medical marketing.
