Google Plus Pages for Doctors, SUPER confusing..help!

[RickyShockley]

Hi Moz community,

I carefully reviewed all info I could find and still cannot figure how to make this work. I am working for a medical practice that has 4 different office locations in my county. There are also 5-6 doctors and all of the doctors MOVE throughout the week from location to location.

I know (from reading Google's exact guidelines) that they suggest creating a page for the doctor using only their name in addition to creating a page for each location.

How do I set those doctor pages up? What location do I use? What contact info is okay to use etc?

Super lost.

Thanks all!

Ricky

[montana.marsden]

Hey Miriam,

Thanks for the clarification. I've been treating Ricky's situation as if everything was in connection to the practice, not the doctors. To me the doctors are just employees that seem to transfer from office to office a lot. If the pages are for the doctors not the practice than I agree with you completely.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Jacob!

Just to be clear - I am not talking about the practice. That can surely have a Google+ Local page ... 4 of them, in fact, if there are 4 branches. My remarks relate only to the doctors. I want to be sure that was super clear

[montana.marsden]

Wouldn't this situation be similar to what Trugreen is doing? This page for example  Trugreen NJ Webpage has a Google My Business page (link). They show up in the maps and I'm sure they sometimes have contractors go from one location to another.

I don't see why you can't think of doctors as just regular employees. They move from one location to another, but still the point of local search results is to show what local businesses are available in your area. As long as the Google My Business pages are for the practice and not for the specific doctor's it seems fine to me.

If the pages are for the doctors it would be different, I would agree that you shouldn't use Google My Business pages for that. But if it's for the practice then this guideline:

An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent. Please coordinate with your host to have your information displayed on the page for their business within their "Introduction" field.

Isn't really applicable.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ricky,

If the doctors are moving from place to place, that would seem to me like it might fall under Google's guidelines about ineligible business models including holding classes in someone else's building. Let me dig that up:

An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent. Please coordinate with your host to have your information displayed on the page for their business within their "Introduction" field.

So, it kind of sounds to me like your doctors are holding 'meetings' at various locations rather than having a permanent location, in which case, I would be hesitant to create Google+ Local pages for them. By that logic, the same doctor could have a Google+ Local page for 4 different locations ... and that doesn't sound right to me.

Regarding using an email address instead of a phone number ... I'm not sure what you mean. You can't put an email address in the phone number field of the GMB dashboard, so not sure what you are considering there.

[RickyShockley]

Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback but I'm still a bit lost.

1. As I mentioned the doctors ALL move day to day from location to location. That's problem one..still not sure what address information to use for each.

2. In regard to contact info, the doctors don't have direct lines so the number would be the practice number..is that an issue? I obviously don't want to user their cellphones. Should/can I use their email address?

Thanks again!

Ricky

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Ricky,

Good answer from Travis, and the guidelines he links to exactly describe Google's preferences regarding naming conventions for multi-practitioners, etc. Things to be aware of:

1. Because doctors do leave practices on a regular basis, you need to be aware of the closed listing phenomenon: http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/27109-can-closed-google-local-listings-kill-ranking-important-new-troubleshooting-tip.html

2. Google does not delete duplicates for doctors: http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicates-doctor-dentist-lawyer.html  (recommend further research of Linda Buquet's work of doctor/dentist duplicates

3. If you're going to do a unique Google+ Local page for each doctor, be sure it links to a landing page on the site for the doctor ... not to the homepage for the practice.

I'm not saying you shouldn't create a unique Google+ Local page for each doctor, but if you decide to recommend this strategy, do fully research the issues of dr/dentist duplicates and closed listings before you make an official recommendation to the client. Hope this helps!

[Travis_Bailey]

There are grey areas with a bit of wiggle room. That much is certain. I've worked with practices/doctors where you're always routed to a call center. I've also worked with practices/doctors that actually pick up the phone from time to time.

But business is business and people are people. Things can get difficult and messy quick. A lot of doctors are people, engaged in business, as well as medicine. Sometimes business relationships end on bad terms.

Sometimes another local SEO is actively throwing wrenches in your program. It's all local business, so it's always a small world. Say they somehow know Dr. Smith has left the practice.

"Hello, I would like to schedule an appointment with Dr. Smith."

"Dr. Smith has left the practice, may I schedule an appointment with Dr. Jones?"

"No thank you, have a nice day."

Goes on to edit all Dr. Smith listings as closed.

And that's just one potential outcome.

[montana.marsden]

I'm sure the doctors are not personally answering the phones at these places. So using a phone number that's attached to a specific location and provides access to any of the doctors working at that location should be sufficient. That way when a doctor leaves the practice or stops working at any one of the locations you'd only have to update the website, instead of every Google listing that had a phone number.

[Travis_Bailey]

It really and truly sounds like you're about to walk into a management nightmare. The main thing, according to Google's guidelines is; "He or she is directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours." So yes, it would appear that you can have a listing for each doctor at each location, provided the listings accurately represent when the doctors will be at each location.

One may think; "Hooray! I have so many shots at showing up in map packs!" Which may be true enough. But what happens when one of the doctors inevitably leaves for another practice? You may end up with a Closed listing. What if that Closed listing is the only one that displays for certain queries? Now spread that out over five or six locations.

The odds are that things can look pretty grim, given enough time.

If at all possible, select a doctor which is public facing and tends to stay at one location most of the week. The safest bet would be a doctor with some form of ownership. If you're already contractually obligated to provide a listing for every doctor at each location, it can and probably will get rough.

[montana.marsden]

I would do it by office/location not by doctor. I'm not familiar with any specific Google + rules for doctors (that's not my industry) but if all the offices are working under a specific practice name (with one main website) and each office/location has it's own phone number then I would treat them as a type of "franchise" business.

I would create folders on your website (i.e., www.domainname.com/practicename-city-stateabbreviation) for each of the offices/locations and then on those pages provide information connected to the office such as name of doctors, address and phone numbers (connected to the office). Then follow this up by creating Google My Business pages for each of those pages.

After you get those pages set up you'll want to get your address verified (so it shows up on maps) and start pushing reviews for the specific locations, but overall that should do it for you so you start showing up locally.

Hopefully that helps!

-Jacob