Removing negative comments about you or your dental practice in the search engine results pages after they have attained top position is very difficult. This post will teach you how to “own” the top 10 positions in the search engines before you receive negative comments on the web.

Step 1: Conduct a Google Search and a Yahoo Search for your name and the name of your dental practice. Determine how many of the top 10 results on each engine are derogatory comments. If you find that there are negative comments about your dental practice attempt to remove the negative comments about your dental practice. The steps in this blog post should be conducted whether you have negative comments already or not. However, it is much more effective to dominate these results before you discover derogatory comments.

Step 2: Create a list of well respected domains that allow the creation of profiles or business listings. You will create a profile or listing for your dental practice and a profile for your own name.

Here is an example profile page on Amazon.com for Steven Edwards DDS. If you Google ’steven edwards dds’ you will find that this Amazon profile page is the #4 result. Amazon is an extremely powerful domain and creating a profile on their domain and other strong domains will allow you to dominate the top 10 search results for your name and the name of your practice.

Here are some examples of places to build profile/listings pages:

Amazon.com

LinkedIn.com

InsiderPages.com

ThinkLocal.com

MerchantCircle.com

Step 3: If you don’t already own them – buy two domain names , YourName.com and YourPractice.com. Use a 301 redirect within your hosting package to redirect these domains to your main dental practice website.

There are two reasons for buying these domains. Firstly, you do not want anyone to own either one of these two domain names. Secondly, Google and Yahoo may display these domains when your name or the name of your practice is typed into the search engine.

Step 4: Set up Google Alerts to continue to monitor your online reputation or consider purchasing some online reputation management software to alert you of what is being discussed about you and your practice.

Read more about how to use Google Alerts to manage your online reputation here.

The tools creator is Andy Beal, a very well respected member of the online marketing community.

Here is what Andy Beal had to say about online marketing for dentists and doctors as well as comments about his new online reputation management tool – Trackur.

I’d encourage most medical professionals to start with a close look at their own web site design and messaging. Most doctor and dentist web sites tend to be little more than a brochure for their business; who they are, where they studied, what they specialize in, and, how to find their office. That’s great information, for existing patients, who just need to know the basic information, but does little to brand you as an expert in your field.

Make sure you web site has pages that talk about your happy clients (we all want to see a doctor that has many happy patients) and don’t underestimate the importance of a professional web design. Just as in real life, you only get one chance to make a first impression. A web site that looks professional, shows you care about your patients, and demonstrates your expertise. It will go a long way in improving that first impression.

Make sure your web site is optimized for Google and the other search engines. I’d recommend picking up a copy of “Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day” if you want detailed advice on how to do that. Or, you could pick up a copy of my book (Radically Transparent) and read the chapter on using Google to improve your online reputation. Either way, your goal is to ensure that your web site is optimized for the keywords people are actually entering into Google–such as “cosmetic dentist in Chicago”–and that you’re getting other web sites to link to your web site.

With that task completed, I would carefully consider which social media to engage. It’s tempting to start a blog or jump on Twitter (a hybrid of a social network and instant messenger) but I’d suggest some analysis first. In Radically Transparent we discuss the need to find your customers’ (or in this case, patients’) “centers of influence.” What web sites do they visit, when looking for a recommendation for a GP? What blogs or forums do they read when looking for reviews of dentists? For example, we find that most doctors should pay more attention to Health Grades than Facebook.

If you’re willing to set aside the time needed, adding a blog to your web site is a great way to increase your visibility online and improve your reputation. If you specialize in cardiology, then why not create a blog that discusses the latest advances in heart care or heart attack prevention? Perhaps post weekly tips on how to reduce your cholesterol or lower your blood pressure. Not only will these blog posts allow potential patients to see your expertise, but they will also likely show up in Google’s search results or attract the attention of other bloggers–who will send their readers to your web site.

3. What is Trackur?

Trackur is an affordable yet powerful tool for monitoring the internet for any mention of your name, company, and overall reputation. It scours millions of web pages every day and if it discovers a blog or review that mentions your name, it alerts you–allowing you to decide whether to respond or not. Consider it a reputation insurance policy–while you tend to patients and clients, Trackur keeps a watchful eye on your internet reputation.

Google Alerts is very limited in its capabilities. For one thing, it only provides alerts for items found via one of Google’s channels–Trackur scans Google and dozens of additional web channels. In addition, Trackur offers an easy to use dashboard, smart filtering, and we even display the “influence” score of someone discussing your reputation–things that Google Alerts is not able to offer.

Check out Trackurs features versus those of Google Alerts:

5. What tips could you give those in the professional services industry when setting up there first Trackur account?

When you enter your first keyword search on Trackur–perhaps the name of your practice–Trackur will provide you with a snapshot of conversations that include your brand. With very small–or very new–practices there may be only a handful of results found by Trackur. Don’t be fooled into a false sense of security! Just because your reputation is not being discussed now, that doesn’t mean an unhappy client/patient isn’t getting ready to write a scathing blog post. So, be sure to “save” your search on Trackur so that our powerful technology can start monitoring the web every day for any new mention of your reputation.

Other great uses for Trackur include:

-Monitor industry news and announcements

-Keep a close eye on your competitors

-Watch for feedback on drug interactions/reactions

-Discover new blogs or forums you should be reading to improve your own knowledge

With Trackur we offer a free 14-day trial, so you can check it out and see for yourself just how valuable it is. If anyone has a question about Trackur, then I’d invite them to send us an email.

Check out the free video demonstration of this online reputation management tool at trackur.com.

Your medical and dental practice web marketing should include the garnering of reviews from patients that have been with you a while. Make it easy on them by providing a place to submit a review in your waiting room.

Check out this Google result for dentist reviews chicago

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The overall volume of dental and medical patients checking reviews on the Internet is rising at a staggering clip. Check out these next two images detailing the increase in search volume for medical and dental practices since 2004. The data is courtesy of Google Insights.

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You can find the complete explanation concerning how Google arrives at these figures here.

At the moment Google and Yahoo are not taking into account whether a review is negative or positive as part of the local algorithm but rumor has it that this will change fairly soon. Both companies are very interested in the Local Search market and are looking at purchasing companies that aggregate and make sense of a review and it’s meaning.

A lack of reviews is at best a neutral indication of the quality of your practice and at worst a strike against you for being completely absent of these reviews.

You should be constantly scouring the web for your name and the name of your practice. Check out my post on controlling your online reputation on this blog for more on the subject of automating this process.

If you are finding disparaging reviews about your practice you can try to remove them or hire a firm to remove the defamatory posts.

Do: Start asking your patients to submit reviews of your practice.

Don’t: Ignore these reviews and neglect to manage the reputation of your medical or dental practice online.

Q:  What should you do if you find a disparaging remark about you or your practice online?

This is important because many of your patients are savvy users of the internet and may look to see if they can find reviews about you or your practice.

If the remarks are not pervasiv (they are not found on multiple websites that are ranking well) you have a lot of options.  In essence, you are going to reverse SEO that page or SEO other results to outrank the disparaging comment.

First, let’s take a scenario:

Dr. Ben Richards has been running a successful physicians practice for 9 years.  One of his patients has a bad experience with Dr. Richards billing department.  The patient claims that they were overcharged and not properly reimbursed after the insurance provider was billed.  The patient logs into a health care review website and posts a disparaging comment about Dr. Ben Richards.  The result is ranking #3 in Google for the term ‘Dr. Ben Richards’ and #2 in Yahoo for the same term.  What should Dr. Richards do to protect his practice?

Here are some online reputation management tips to keep in your arsenal if your name is bringing up an unwanted search result:

1. Diplomacy

Contact the owner of the forum or message board and ask them to take down the defamatory remarks.  Explain your case nicely and many times they will remove it.  Review the terms of service on the forum to see if there are any caveats that could be used to bolster your case.

2.  Reverse Link Building

Links to the defamatory post are causing that post to rank well.  Find out who is linking to that page by logging onto Yahoo! and doing the following command:

link:defamatoryposturl

Contact the webmasters that are linking to the post and ask them to remove their links to the negative content.

3.  Take charge of your name online

If your name is common you may not have a problem but if it is uncommon the search results for your name may return some good, bad, and ugly.  Create profiles on strong reputable domain names including:

Digg.com

Amazon.com

Healthgrades.com

etc, etc

Find any place you can build a profile for your name on a strong domain.  These strong domains will eventually outrank the disparaging result.

4.  Build links to your profiles to ensure that they are indexed and taken seriously by the search engines.  Log onto places like Yahoo Answers and other forums.  Leave good, relevant responses (not SPAM) and drop a link back to your profiles.

In rare cases you can contact an attorney and bring a suit against the defamatory website but many times these suits backfire.

Do:  Monitor your online reputation and take action to protect your practice.

Don’t:  Assume that your online reputation is safe; the Internet is designed to share information and you mustn’t assume that all information is accurate and benign.

Your reputation could be challenged at any moment and this post is designed to keep you “in the know” about what is being said about you or your practice online.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a powerful tool that has many uses for online marketers but can also be used to manage your online reputation. I will include a link to Google Alerts at the bottom of this post.

Set up Google Alerts using keywords that relate specifically to you or your practice. Use as keywords:

• your name
• the name of your practice
• your address
• your telephone number
• names of your customer facing employees
• etc

For example:

• Hayden Dell
• Dell Family Dentistry

Dental Marketing Tips: Use “quotation marks” around these search terms or you will receive alerts on things such as family dentistry and dell family.

When Google finds these search terms it will email you and give you the location, so that you can investigate.

Look for a post on how to banish those disparaging comments next week.

Let me know if you have questions or comments by posting in the Comments section. I will be happy to help.

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Here is a link to Google Alerts