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Hi there. My name is Michelle Grasek. I am the host of the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast and a practicing acupuncturist. And today we’ll be talking about how to optimize your Google Business profile so that you rank higher in a Google search and can get more patients. And before we dive in, I’d like to take a moment to thank the American Acupuncture Council for the opportunity to be here with you today.

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Alright, let’s get into the slides. Okay. So today we’re going to talk about, first, how does your Google business profile actually impact your search engine optimization? And for the sake of brevity, I’m just gonna call the Google Business profile your profile from here on out, instead of saying the whole phrase.

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We’ll talk about why it matters, and then we’ll talk about how important it’s to complete every section and make it keyword dense with the keywords that your ideal patients are looking for, the kind of people that you wanna treat more of. And then we’ll talk about some very specific steps to increase your visibility.

Basically to get Google to pay more attention to your business and your profile. So let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Many of you are familiar with this already, but a Google Business profile is essentially a free resource provided by Google where you can fill out all of the. Important, relevant information about your business to help people decide if they wanna work with you, if they feel like you’re a good fit.

And I like to think of your profile as having two main purposes. One is so that potential patients. Can learn about you, as I just said, and decide if they wanna keep researching. Are they interested? Do they wanna click through to your website? Maybe they decide they are interested and they can just click through and make an appointment from your profile without even making an appointment, or, sorry, without even going to your website first.

But that first function is. For the potential patients, it’s information for them to make a decision. And then the second function of your profile is really to let Google understand what your business is all about and what you like to treat and who you like to treat so that it knows when your business.

Is the relevant answer to a question that someone has typed into Google. So let’s think about the purpose of Google or their goal for a moment. So we’ll take a tiny tangent here. Google’s goal is to provide the best possible user experience, which means providing the most helpful and relevant and correct answer to whatever question someone types into a Google search.

And. Your Google business profile, obviously because it is owned by Google, is a direct line for Google to better understand. Who you are and who you want to treat, so that when someone types in a question, for example, acupuncture near me, or natural pain management near me natural fertility remedies, et cetera, then Google understands whether or not your business is the answer to that question.

And really what we’re doing in. Filling out your profile as completely as possible and packing it with keywords is you are helping Google help you, right? Because if your business, if you are a fertility specialist, if your business is the best answer to a question such as natural fertility remedies, you are me or acupuncture for fertility near me, then Google wants to know that it wants to help you.

It wants to rank you higher in a search because it cares. About that user experience. Do you remember? Ask Jevs, I’m really dating myself right? No one uses Ask j Eves anymore. I don’t even know if it exists because it did not provide the most helpful and relevant answers to a search query the way that Google did.

And Google does not want that to happen, right? It doesn’t want to become like Ask j. Eves. So it really actually wants to provide the best answer. So again, what we’re doing in filling out your profile as well as we possibly can is helping Google to help you find the patients who are a good fit for you.

Okay? And it’s important to remember that, I think it’s 77% of people when they’re picking a new healthcare provider, they are Googling first, they’re doing an internet search to learn what they can about different healthcare providers in the area, and they’re really looking for reviews, right?

And so the reviews are just one portion of your profile that really matters to potential patients. But. We really, we can’t underestimate how important your Google business profile is for people who are in the market for a new acupuncturist. Okay? It makes a big difference in whether or not they’re going to pick you.

And because your business profile is so integrated with Google and helps Google to understand your business in a big way, that means that your profile can really impact where you show up in an organic search, where you show up in the map pack. And I’ll exit the slides really quickly and show you what I mean when I say that.

I googled acupuncture near Cana, which is a town close to where I live. And the first thing that comes up is called this part is the map pack. Okay. So you can see there’s. A sponsored this person paid for ads, right? And then it’s the same person right here happens to have the most Google reviews.

That’s probably one of the reasons that they’re ranked at the top of the map pack, not just that they pay for advertising, but this here is really the map pack, the top three. That were chosen as the most relevant for this search query. And then you have the map. And then of course, as you scroll down, you have the organic search results in a list.

So your Google business profile can really impact where you show up on these pages. And I will click right here. And this is the Google Business profile. Okay. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, you could see all the different sections and we’ll talk about the ones that are the most important.

But really you want to fill out every section. So if you pardon me, I’ll come back to the slides here. If you take only one thing away from this talk, it’s that the more complete. Active your profile is the more likely you are to rank above your competitors. And active simply means that you are regularly adding things to your profile.

And that could be new images or videos. It could be updating your office hours to make sure they’re correct. If you change them, and it would also be adding what are called updates. Sometimes they’re called posts to your Google business profile. Basically, Google prefers accounts. They prefer profiles, they prefer websites, social media, et cetera.

When they’re creating your search engine optimization score and deciding where you rank, they prefer profiles that are updated regularly instead of. Stagnant or abandoned, right? So if you set up your Google Business profile, when you set up your business, I don’t know, five or six years ago, and you haven’t touched it since then, Google’s going to consider your business to be less active and less relevant than the people who are updating their profiles regularly because Google, again, really wants to provide the best answer to someone’s question and.

Businesses that are regularly updated simply look more relevant. Google can trust that business is active. It’s running maybe it’s busier. Basically someone’s paying attention to it, and so it is going to prefer to show that business compared to a profile that has not been updated in a long time.

Okay. So before we dive into all these tips, I would say that if you already have a Google business profile, which is probably 90% of people watching this, maybe 95 remember also that Google, any software, anything on the internet is constantly being updated. They’re always adding features and sections.

So I would really recommend using this opportunity to go back into your. Profile and scroll through every step. Let Google walk you through and see if there’s any sections that have been added that did not exist when you first set it up and fill those in completely. I would also recommend adding some new photos and making sure that you start posting updates, which we’ll talk about in a moment regularly.

But even if your profile’s all set up, just go back through and make sure it’s complete. And I have some recommendations for using keywords in different sections. So let’s get into that now. So when we talk about your profile being complete. You also want to make sure that you are incorporating keywords that your ideal patients might be searching for, because again, you are pretty much teaching Google when you are the right answer to a person’s question.

Okay? So think of it this way, if you are a fertility specialist, but your Google profile doesn’t say anything about fertility, and someone types in fertility, acupuncture near me, and you have a competitor who’s. Profile talks about how they mostly treat fertility patients. Obviously Google is going to rank that person higher in the search because it’s more relevant to the particular question at hand.

Okay. So if you know that you have a niche and you want more of a specific kind of person, you have got to talk about that person, their symptoms, their goals in your Google business profile. When I’m talking about keywords, I am talking about, what are the things that people are searching for in relation to fertility, right?

You can brainstorm what are all the questions that your ideal patient might put into Google that could potentially indicate that they’re a good fit for you and lead them to acupuncture and your website. Okay? And of course, if you’re an orthopedic specialist, you or you only treat runners, whatever it is, you would wanna think about those keywords instead.

So let’s talk about your profile briefly. Some of these things will be obvious. Again this is also for people who are just filling out their business, Google business profile. So when you are. Initially setting this up, and you can go back and change this if you’ve already set it up, as I mentioned, and some things don’t match up like they should, but you have to make sure that your business name, address, and phone, what’s called the nap or the NAP, are identical across all different platforms on the web.

So if you’ve got your Google Business profile, you’ve got your website, maybe you have a Yelp account, maybe you’re on, I don’t know, MapQuest your. Business name, address, and phone number have to be identical. An identical address. Means literally identical, right? However you write like suite one or like room 400 has to be the same on each one.

Why? Because this consistency again indicates to Google that your business is reliable and trustworthy and professional. Okay? If you’ve got a different address, for example, if you moved and you never updated those. Other platforms like Yelp, where if you changed your office hours and they’re different across every platform, it’s confusing and it doesn’t seem as the inconsistency isn’t as professional for Google.

It’s going to rank other businesses higher who have that consistency, right? Because it’s all about that user experience. It wants to feel confident it’s providing the right answer to a person’s question. Okay? So make sure that your name, address, phone, and I personally think office hours as well are identical when.

When you’re filling out your profile to all the other places where they’re found on the web, okay? And then the category you wanna choose is acupuncturist. I know this seems obvious, but some people choose wellness like a wellness center because they’re not sure. But if you are not a legit wellness center, and what you want is more acupuncture patients than choose acupuncturists.

Remember we’re teaching Google what kind of people to send us. We’re teaching Google about our business. So if you’re an acupuncturist, choose acupuncturist. Okay. And then for services or treatments, this is a great opportunity to incorporate those keywords that we were talking about earlier. You have the chance on your profile to put in each kind of service that you offer.

So I would list them out all individually. Include everything that you offer. So you could say initial treatment, follow-up treatment. You maybe you have cosmetic acupuncture. You offer cupping separately. Guha facial separately. Okay. And then for each of those, you have a description area. So really maximize that descriptive area with those keywords that your ideal patient might be searching for.

So you could say initial treatment, and then you could expand upon that. So of course you would say 90 minutes, $150 initial intake and treatment for, and think about your specialty or your niche or the things you love to treat, right? For example, for pain management, digestion, and anxiety, et cetera.

Okay? So take the opportunity to put some of those keywords in the description for your services. And then of course, in your business description, this is a space where you can. Absolutely maximize on those keywords. So you have 750 words in this space. I would max it out. That’s my recommendation. Make sure that you say your business name and your location and mention the.

Treatments or the services that you offer, but also be sure to talk about the symptoms that you treat symptoms, conditions. And you can even describe your target market if you like. Again, if you have a niche, you could say, treating marathon runners, helping them recover from injury so they can perform at their best or so that they can, run their, continue their training while they’re recovering from injury.

Feel free to describe your ideal patient in your business description, and if you have any awards or PR like media that you were featured on, all of that is social proof. I recommend putting that in the business description as well. I. Okay. The next thing of course is, and this is obvious, you definitely wanna put your website and your booking link on your Google business page.

Photos and videos are very important and I mentioned earlier I adding new ones. This is helpful again, because Google likes to see that your business is fresh. It’s relevant, it’s active. Someone’s paying attention to it, so you don’t have to, have new professional photos taken. Just take a picture of a new corner of your office that looks attractive on your phone and pop it onto your, profile. Okay. And put a caption, use keywords in the caption, ageless acupuncture treatment room where we help patients have babies, we help them improve their fertility naturally. Something like that. Okay. And you can now add videos to your profile 30 seconds or less. And remember.

Google loves rich content like photos and videos, so you definitely wanna add a video and it can be very simple. Just do an office tour where you walk from the outside of your building into your treatment or into your reception area. Show your treatment rooms, okay? You can put a little text on top of the video if you know how that just says, office tour.

Okay. I wouldn’t use audio. I don’t think people are listening to audio on these videos on your profile. You can add captions if they’re speaking but make sure you add lots of rich content like photos and videos and add new ones. I would say once a month. So the next suggestion I have is that there is a section on the Google Business profile where you can ask and answer your own questions, and I highly recommend doing this.

You can ask a question as the business owner, but it will show up as a anonymous, and then you can answer that same question and that the answer will show that you are answering as the business owner. So let me show you what this looks like.

Okay, so on this profile you see you’ve got the Google Business profile over here on the right. So if we scroll down, you’ll see this question that says section that says questions and answers, see all questions, and then there’s a button to ask a question. So what you really wanna do in this section is ask the questions that your ideal patients might be putting into Google and ask the frequently asked questions that you truly get all the time from your patients.

See, for example, can acupuncture help with IBS? Oops, that’s not what I meant to do. And then the person answered and there was a bunch of keywords in the answer. Okay. So really think about what are the questions that your ideal patients might have like that. Let me go back a minute. Think about the questions that are helpful for people to make a decision to come see you, right?

Like to help them know if you’re the right fit for them. And so that’s one category of q and a. And then the other is what are the questions that they might be putting into Google that you wanna show up for? Okay, so again, if you’re a fertility specialist, you could ask, how many treatments do I need for fertility?

And then answer the question with lots of keywords. How does it work for fertility? And answer the questions can you help with this specific thing? I’m dealing with this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Again, you’re just teaching Google about your business so it knows when you are the answer to a question that someone puts in.

The next idea that is really important is adding regular updates on your Google Business profile. And I’ll exit and show you what that means. So sometimes these updates are referred to as posts. So you can see here they are in this section. And if you scroll through, you can see previous posts. Okay.

And if you click, you can see that. You get a little bit of text, whoops, sorry. But not a ton. And then there’s a call to action button with a link that you can choose what to link it to. But these are not really blog posts and they’re not really social media posts. You could think of them as just updates or announcements.

I do think that if you are writing blog posts sharing them in the Google Business profile as an update and. With just a couple sentences saying, Hey, are you struggling with IBS? I recently wrote this article about acupuncture for IBS. Click here to read more. Or if you already know you wanna try acupuncture for the symptom, click here to make an appointment.

But the idea here is that you are including keywords. That description of the update and that you are posting updates regularly. So most experts say, Ooh, once a week. If you could do once a month, I’d be really happy with that. Twice a month is super. I think every week is if if you’re feeling super organized and motivated, but just try to be regular about it again, because Google prefers when your profile is active.

Okay. We talked about images already, and then the last thing, which I’m sure does not surprise you at all, is an emphasis on collecting reviews because this is also a way to show Google that your business is active. When you are regularly getting new reviews and think about these reviews, what people write, especially if they share about their symptoms, is going to be filled with keywords that your other patients are going to be searching for.

Okay? The way that I tell my marketing students and marketing clients to think about reviews is to make it a strategy. Have a strategy where once every four to eight weeks and put it on your calendar once every four to eight weeks you are reviewing. The people that you’ve seen in that timeframe, look for people who you’ve seen like four to eight times who are consistently happy with their results.

They like acupuncture, they like you. Basically, you’re looking for people who feel like a slam dunk to write you a five star review, and then email them your request, and I suggest emailing. You can ask them verbally, but also follow up with an email because you must send them the link that goes directly to your.

Review page on your Google business profile. Do not expect people, if you say, Hey, will you write me a review? And they’re like, yeah, I’d love to. They’ll probably won’t do it because they won’t remember. Even if they have good intentions and they have to figure it out for themselves. They have to Google your business.

They have to find your profile. Then they have to figure out, where do I leave this review? What do I click on? It’s not gonna happen. If you wanna actually. Get reviews, you have to send them the link. And so when you sign into your Google Business profile as the owner of the profile, there’s a section that says Get more reviews.

If you click on that, it will give you the short link that goes directly to the page where all they have to do is click the number of stars, type the review, and hit submit. Okay, so that’s gonna make a huge difference in the number of reviews you actually get is sharing that direct link. Okay? And I put on here consistency wins this game because I.

If you are regularly asking patients for reviews, you are over time going to accumulate way more reviews than people who are passively waiting for their patients to do it for them because they won’t do not expect your patients to do this work for you. Even the ones that are very happy, very few people are thinking to themselves.

I should write this business a review, especially if they’re not business owners. It is not top of mind. You have to be the one who asks them to write a review. Okay this is like a crash course in Google business profile and I’ve given you a bit of homework, some things to think about, but really, again, if you take nothing away from this, just remember.

Nothing away from this except this concept that the more complete and active your profile is, the higher you’ll rank in a search. Okay. So I do hope this was very helpful and you are always more than welcome to ask me questions. Feel free to send me an email. Oops.

Feel free to send me an email, michelle@michelleGrasek.com. I love answering your marketing questions and yeah, thank you so much for being here. I’d like to thank the American Acupuncture Council. One more time for the opportunity to be here with you.

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