Over the years, we’ve been asked if a doctor can have multiple Google Business Profiles countless times. The short answer is yes, a doctor can had multiple GBPs, but there’s a lot of nuance as far as whether this is the best decision. In this video, I’m going to go over the different scenarios and when a doctor should have one Google Business Profiles.
Doctors Can Have Their Own Google Business Profile Separate From Their Practice
My name is Frank, I’m the founder of Sagapixel. We do digital marketing for medical practices, and obviously we have more than one client that has multiple locations. We also have clients that have more than one practitioner at that location, in which case there will effectively be more than one Google Business Profile for that office. Let me explain.
Scenario A: Sole Practitioner with One Office
In scenario A, we have Dr. Frank. He owns a pediatric office in Philadelphia.
Google outlines very clearly what you should do right here: An individual practitioner should create their own dedicated Google Business Profile if they operate in a public-facing role and they can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours:
They also add that if a practitioner is the only public-facing practitioner at a location and represents a branded organization like Philadelphia Pediatrics, it’s best for the practitioner to share a business profile with the organization.
Now honestly, here they’re saying that it is best for you to do it; it doesn’t mean that you have to share the same profile. There is an advantage to having them separated, namely that you can occupy two spots in the map results versus just one.
Scenario 2: Two Doctors, One Practice
In scenario number two, Dr. Frank owns Philadelphia Pediatrics, and he has a doctor that works with him, Dr. Jill.
In this case, there should be a Philadelphia Pediatrics profile, there should be a Dr. Frank profile, and there should be a Dr. Jill profile.
Philadelphia Pediatrics should be listing the hours of operation Monday through Friday 9 to 5. Dr. Frank’s listing should be listing hours of operation Monday, Wednesday, Friday—the 3 days of the week that he’s there—9 to 5, the hours that he’s there. And Dr. Jill’s listing should be listing Monday, Tuesday, Thursday—the 3 days of the week when she is at this office.
This Should Impact Your Review Acquisition Strategy
In this scenario, there should be a review acquisition strategy where some of your patients are prompted to leave reviews for Philadelphia Pediatrics, some of them are prompted to leave them for Dr. Frank, and the ones that see Dr. Jill obviously should leave them for Dr. Jill.
Scenario 3: Two Doctors, Two Offices in Different Parts of the City
Now in scenario 3, Philadelphia Pediatrics is doing great and they’ve now opened up a location in West Philadelphia and Northeast Philadelphia.
What should they do now?
In this case, there should be a listing for Philadelphia Pediatrics in Northeast Philadelphia as well as one in West Philadelphia, as well as the original listing.
But it is not advisable to open up individual listings for Dr. Frank and Dr. Jill in each one of these offices. It is almost certain to create confusion. Inevitably you will have someone that Googles Dr. Frank that ends up finding an address that’s the wrong listing. They end up going to the wrong office.
In this scenario, I would leave Dr. Jill and Dr. Frank as having Google Business Profiles, but probably set them as service area businesses because each one of these offices is going to be too close to one another really for Google to determine which one should be ranking for these searches anyway. It could also, as I said before, create some confusion as far as where someone has their appointment.
And from an SEO/marketing standpoint, your focus should be on getting the individual listings for the Northeast Philadelphia and West Philadelphia offices ranking in those areas.
Of course, now that you have these multiple listings for your practice, you’re going to want to know what you can do to start getting them ranking in the map results.
How Should You Handle Getting These Profiles Ranking in the Local Map Results?
This isn’t a video that’s specifically on that, but let’s run through them real quickly. First, you have to have a review acquisition strategy.
Get Reviews—And Encourage The Reviewers to Mention What You Do
You have to actively be working towards getting more reviews to each one of these listings. Do whatever you can to prompt people to use keywords like “oh this has been my son’s pediatrician for X number of years” or whatever a trusted account is using in their reviews, using the keywords that you’re hoping to get your practice ranking for, will help you to achieve that.
Fill Out Your Profile as Completely as Possible
You want to make sure that each one of these listings is completely and thoroughly filled out. Get pictures of the offices, make sure that there are pictures of the staff, have pictures of the exterior, the interior. Make sure that you have all of the proper categories filled out, have your description completely filled out. Basically make sure your profile is complete.
Link Your GBP to the Most Authoritative and Relevant Page You Can
Make sure that you link your listing to the page that is the most authoritative and relevant to that part of your practice as you can. In other words, having your Northeast Philadelphia office link to a page on your website that’s specifically optimized around “pediatrician Northeast Philadelphia” is probably the way to go.
Structure Your Website to Help Location Pages to Rank Highly
You also want to make sure that your website is structured in a way that it maximizes the amount of page rank flowing to that Northeast Philly page, because the page rank flowing to that page is also going to impact whether the attached listing is ranking in the map results for those queries. And the relevance of that attached page, whether it’s been optimized for “pediatrician Northeast Philadelphia” for example, is going to have an impact on whether that listing is able to rank in the map results for those queries.
Reach Out to Discuss Your Medical Practice’s Google Business Profile
I hope this was helpful. If it was, please consider giving it a like. And if you’d like to learn more about digital marketing for healthcare providers, make sure you check out the rest of our channel. If you’d like to meet with me, go over to our website, fill out the form, pick a time, and we can talk.
