How to Set Up a Yelp Account For Your Dental Practice

Yelp may be a useful tool for growing your dental practice, but only if you’re actively utilizing it. Unlike marketing channels that require a lot of time and experience, Yelp may be a low-maintenance option for boosting your business.

Once you’ve established or claimed a Yelp account for your practice, current patients may naturally help you to attract new patients just by rating and reviewing their experiences, right on your practice’s Yelp page. Think of it as digital word of mouth marketing.

Unfortunately, some dental practices may not take advantage of this free service simply because they don’t know how to begin. Explore our step-by-step guide to setting up a Yelp account for your dental practice so your business may begin reaping the potential benefits of this digital platform.

Step 1: Creating or Claiming Your Dental Practice’s Yelp Page

Yelp is a review and rating based website that doesn’t require your permission to list your business (or the public’s opinion of it). Anyone may be able to create a business listing for any business. Users may also add their own photos, star-based ratings, reviews, and tips. Yelp may also automatically create listings for businesses based on the listings of search engines.

If a page already exists for your practice, you may just have to claim it and have your ownership verified in order to get control. The pages of unclaimed businesses may contain a direct link for owners to begin the claiming process with just a click. Verification typically entails calling your listed phone number and authentication via a code.

If no page currently exists for your dental practice, you may create one yourself using Yelp’s simple interface by visiting the site’s portal for businesses. Within minutes, you may have a complete Yelp profile featuring practice information, photos, directions and contact information that prospective patients may use to find and compare your practice.

Step 2: Adding Your Business Information

Yelp may be used more and more often as a business listing service every day, similarly to the Yellow Pages of the past. So it may be important to have comprehensive and accurate practice information available to the Yelp-using public.

Important business information to consider adding may include:

• Your practice name
• Address
• Business phone number
• Website link
• Hours and days of operation
• Dental practice specialties
• Forms of payment accepted
• Whether you have wifi
• If you accept walk-ins
• Insurance accepted
• Gender neutral restrooms (if applicable)

Step 3: Adding Photos

Although Yelp users may add their own photos of your practice, you may want some say in how to visually showcase your practice. There may be monetary incentives to add images as well. The official Yelp blog says that having more than 10 photos on your Yelp page may net you 12 times more leads per month than a page without images.

Once you’ve established or claimed your Yelp page, you may add as many images as you’d like, keeping in mind any privacy and patient confidentiality issues. Yelp suggests using images to highlight the different physical areas of your practice, both indoors and out, using iPhone photos that you may be able to easily upload using the Yelp app. High-quality images smaller than 5000 x 5000 pixels will stay within Yelp’s image guidelines. Consider encouraging your patients to share their own photos as well.

Step 4: Listening and Responding to Reviews

Once your page is claimed, your information is added and photos are uploaded, you may choose to maintain an active presence on Yelp by listening and responding to reviews. Although HIPAA law may restrict your response options compared to that of other non-medical industries, consider keeping close tabs on what’s being said about your practice.

Step 5: Boosting Your Brand with Yelp

There may be several options for boosting your brand’s presence both on and with Yelp. For example, some practitioners may choose to offer Yelp-based offers such as a 5% discount on services in a digital coupon sent directly to the mobile phone of interested Yelp users.

Yelp also offers paid advertising options for local businesses looking to boost the reach and performance of their listing. These may include targeting Yelp users near your practice, driving traffic to your Yelp page from search engines and other websites, as well as placement at the top of search results within Yelp itself.

Your Practice on Yelp

Yelp may work for your practice without you having to do much more than establish a page and keep the information current. Consider establishing a policy and schedule for looking over ratings and reviews. It may also be important to understand the laws and privacy regulations for interacting on Yelp as a dental professional. Simply claiming your page may help your business adjust to public feedback and reach prospective patients you may not have interacted with otherwise.

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