How Many Online Listings Does Your Clinic Really Need? A Case Study [Propel Playback]

Online listings or citations are crucial to a clinic's online presence. But how many listings does your clinic truly need for effective SEO? Let's dive into the world of citations, uncover the facts, and review a case study. 

We’ll look at how online listings affect your website ranking on Google and how they affect your Google Maps (Google Business Profile) listing. 

Here you’ll learn:

• What citations are
• Key elements of online listings
• Whether you should pay for citation listing services 
• How and when you should conduct a citation audit 
• How many citations do you really need
• And more 

Whether you're focused on optimizing your visibility or just keeping your business information accurate, this episode offers practical advice to help you navigate the complex landscape of local SEO. Tune in for all the details!

Episode webpage: https://propelyourcompany.com/online-listings-for-seo/

📌Also, be sure to grab our local listing bundle guide: https://propelyourcompany.com/local-listings/

Send in your questions. ❤ We'd love to hear from you!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Clinic
Marketing Podcast.
I'm your host, darci Sullivanfrom Propel Marketing Design.
Today, we're talking aboutcitations and we're asking the
question how many local listingsdoes your clinic really need

(00:21):
for SEO?
Really need for SEO?
Citation are online listings,ranging from ones that you might
be familiar with, like GoogleBusiness Profile or Yellow Pages
, to ones you've never evenheard of.
Local citations are multiple,consistent mentions of your

(00:42):
company's information on websitedirectories and other
properties found online on theinternet.
Years ago, search engines likeGoogle used these mentioned
factors as trust signals, but isthat still true?

(01:02):
Well, that's what we're talkingabout today.
First, let's talk about yourname.
Your NAP is your name, addressand phone number.
We want to make sure that yourcompany name, address and phone
number, along with your websiteand other prevalent information,
is consistent throughout all ofyour online listing.

(01:27):
Now, before Google became thepowerhouse that we know it as
today, it used to rely heavilyon gathering data points by
looking at other listings to seeaccuracy.
Well, that's really not thecase as much anymore as it used
to be, but there are key timeswhen you need to make sure that

(01:53):
your information is correctonline and sometimes invest in
either a citation cleanup orinvest in your citation your
local online listings.
First up is when you're a newbusiness.
Obviously, when you're a newbusiness and you're just getting
started, you're going to havezero listings, right, because

(02:15):
you're a new business.
So you want to make sure thatyou go through the actions of
gaining online listings to helpGoogle and your potential
patients or customers find youwith ease.
Again, we want to focus onthose critical elements your

(02:35):
name, your address, your phonenumber and your website.
There can also be times whenyou should do citation cleanups.
This includes if your name,your address, your phone number
has changed or if any of yourpersonnel the doctors working
for you have changed, when keyentities associated with your

(02:58):
business perhaps the companyname, address, phone number and
website have changed.
You want to make sure that yougo through and conduct what we
call a citation audit and acitation cleanup.
Now, if you're a member of ourDIY SEO program, ready Set Rank,
we do a deep dive into thisprocess in the Ready Set Local

(03:22):
section.
If you're interested inlearning more about that DIY SEO
program, you can do so byvisiting propellyourcompanycom.
There are two ways to do acitation cleanup.
You can either do it manuallyor you can go through a service.
Now, there are tons of servicesout there.

(03:42):
These include Bright Local,whitespark, yext, moz Local and
more.
If you are in the category ofneeding to clean up your
citations and you don't want todo a manual audit and do the
manual process of cleaning themup meaning you go to each and

(04:03):
every listing, make sure youhave a login and manually change
your information then it mightbe worth going to one of the
providers to help you clean upthe citation.
If that is the category thatyou fall in, I suggest that you
check out Bright Local or WhiteSpark.
Those would really be the onlytwo that I would recommend for a

(04:27):
citation cleanup.
Yes, I know there's tons ofthem out there and, yes, I know
there are tons of companies outthere that promise that they
will get you all of these locallistings.
Sterling Sky recently did areally interesting case study
that I want to mention and we'llinclude the link in the notes

(04:48):
associated with this episode.
What they did is they took twocompanies.
They took a company that was ahandyman and they took a dentist
and they added 50 citationswere built for both the dentist
and the handyman, and what theywanted to do is look at see how

(05:12):
this actually impacted rankings,and I think it's very important
to note that there are twotypes of rankings.
Right, you have your local packranking, that's your Google
Maps section ranking, and thenyou have your general listings

(05:35):
on Google.
Well, when it came to the mappack, it had barely any
improvements at all.
It did have impacts on organicresults.
Those would be the organicresults in Google below the
Google map pack.

(05:56):
But I think this is what'sreally interesting is that it
was apparent that over time, itreally wasn't worth it.
A month after the citationswere submitted, only about 26
out of the 50 remained for thedentist, and after six months,

(06:19):
this dwindled down to just two.
And for the handyman theyexperienced a similar drop, with
only two out of the 50 againremaining after the six months
of being indexed.
So do I think that you shouldpay one of these services that

(06:40):
claim that they will get you allof these amazing citations?
Is it really worth it?
Not necessarily, as we can tellfrom the case study that we
just went through, but if youare just starting out, or even
if you are an establishedcompany, you do want to make

(07:01):
sure that you do have localcitations online.
So this leads us to thequestion how many citations do
you really need for SEO?
And I'm going to tell you aslong as you have between 10 to
20, you're doing all right.
You don't need to go out thereand try to build 200 listings.

(07:22):
But I think what's reallyimportant is to start by
identifying your audience andwhere they search online for
their information.
And if you had to prioritizewhich citations you should focus
on, that would be your GoogleBusiness Profile listing your
Yelp, apple Maps, bing, business.

(07:43):
If you are in the healthbusiness, it should probably be
health grade.
Facebook, instagram, BetterBusiness Bureau, yellow Pages,
yahoo, waze.
Focus on the way your idealaudience searches for
information.
You want to make sure thatevery map listing for your

(08:04):
business is correct Veryimportant.
We want to make sure, ifsomebody's searching directions
to come find you, that they canfind you.
We also want to make sure thatyour listings again have the
name, the address and phonenumber that match your website.

(08:25):
All right, let's start to wrapthis up.
While citations can sometimesboost organic rankings, they
have little to no impact on yourGoogle Maps, google Business
Profile listing in the localpack ranking.
Additionally, many of thesecitations fail to stay indexed

(08:46):
by Google, which means they havediminishing returns, so the
life and the value of them areminimal.
However, there are times whenyou do need to invest in your
local listings, like wementioned before.
That would be if you currentlyhave inaccurate information
about your business, if yourcompany has changed or updated

(09:07):
any entity related to thebusiness, like the phone number,
the name or the address, or ifyou are a new business.