Ep. 133: Does Google Maps Matter?

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Hey Walkins welcome listeners, this is Hannah from Patient Care Marketing Pros. I wanted to hop on before we get the episode started just to let you know what this episode's about. It is a clip from our most recent webinar that we held on May 23rd called "The Google Maps Playbook." In this episode, you're going to hear Michael and Nick talk about the importance of Google Maps and how it can help your clinic grow and reach your ideal local audience. If you would like to access the full webinar, as this is just a 20-minute clip and the webinar was about an hour long, you can access the link in our show notes. In the full webinar, they go over ranking strategies like keywords and how reviews can be helpful and stuff like that. You'll also get access to our workbook on how to rank on Google Maps. It's an eight-step process to get your clinic ranked, as well as access to our top keyword sheet and all that fun stuff. We hope you enjoy the episode. Feel free to access the full webinar again; that link is in the show notes, and we hope you enjoy it.

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At the end of the day, does Google Maps matter now? We're going to say yes, right? Correct. Some people just assume if I'm ranked number one on Google, that's great. But actually, the map pack is probably the more important number one position than the traditional organic SEO side. We're going to show you some stats real quick in just a minute. But at the end of the day, if you do a search for urgent care near me or urgent care in your city and you're not in that top three, there's opportunity. If you're that person who wants to get to that 40-60 patient a day mark, that's one of your first checkboxes. If you're not on that side, that's a to-do list. Let's get after that; let's make that happen.

A study here shows that 71% of the clicks are on organic results, while search ads have 11% of the clicks. We do a lot of Google ads for a lot of clients, and Google ads is a pretty big player in that. But you can see right there, there's almost a 7 to 1 ratio going on. The thought process has always been, for us when we approach this with our clients, and I think even you as the Urgent Care Clinic owner or the operator thinking of it this way: you want to utilize Google ads to put you in that placement until you're able to build up your organic and your map section. I'm not telling you to get rid of your Google ads, but what you want is for Google to naturally and organically put you out there. That's where you really start making momentum in your Urgent Care space. The best scenario to me is when your Google ad shows you're number one in the map three pack. The fact that you're showing up in every spot where they just can't get away from you.

Like I say, follow you around the internet like a crazy ex-girlfriend, right? We're not even going to use Facebook ads for that. In this scenario, one of our clients is listening right now, and you can see they're showing up multiple times. That makes all the difference. We see that the second we see one of our clinics hit that map three pack in the top three, we just see a natural increase in call volume. It starts stair-stepping really quickly. It really does work; it's an amazing thing. Putting that emphasis and making sure you guys understand what the map three pack is, the importance of it, and why it should matter to you.

Reviews aren't driving every single bit of that. They're not. I added a cool little slide you're going to appreciate here later to break that down. Hannah doesn't even know about it; I think I saw that. I was working with it this morning; it's right up here on the screen. Let's keep going. So yes, Google Maps does actually matter and we're going to go through how to make it better for you.

This is just an example of a tool we utilize that showcases how a location is ranking. It's called a Google map heat map. You've probably heard of heat maps before, traditionally on a website where it shows you where the clicks are. This is that Google map heat map. What it shows is how you're actually ranking on the map with your competitors. Green is better, the darker the green the better. Red is bad. It's not perfect. If we took this and ran it right now, it would change again; it's a moving target. But at the end of the day, when we see this grid fill up with green, we know we're in the right position. For you guys, you only need to cover two to five miles and then you're making great progress with your location.

Speaking about this, Michael, you were talking about depending on when you do a search and run this heat map, you'll see the changes. I've been testing some things recently, specifically with regards to Google Maps, because Google Maps is 100% built on relevance. They want to make sure you're showing up in the right search at the right time, in the right area, to the right person when that search is made. Well, here's the deal: if you're closed, you're no longer relevant for that search, and so you're not going to show up. I was getting frustrated receiving text messages from a potential client or somebody saying, "Hey, I'm looking right now, we're not showing up in the map three pack." I started to realize they're closed right now. That person has time to do that search before they open. I'm going, "What is the deal here? They're showing up organic, their ads are working, everything is working correctly, but they're not showing up." What's going on here? I realized they're not showing up because they're closed, so they're no longer relevant to that search. Google Maps is relevant. If you're not open at that moment, you're not relevant. At the end of the day, if it's 10:00 at night and you're not a 24-hour clinic, it's going to prioritize the 24-hour clinics because it wants that result to be exactly what that search needed. If I'm doing a search for urgent care services at 10:00 at night before I do a search for ER near me, I've got to find the closest ER. It's going to say, "Here's an urgent care that's open right now."

We have a couple of the PM pediatric styles where they're only nighttime, and that entire message is different. They open

at 6:00 p.m. and close at midnight or whatever. Completely different model, but there's importance behind that. I want to do a quick shout-out and say hello to Andy who just joined us.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about on this heat map is one of the things that you'll notice on the right side is the differences in colors. A lot of times, you'll be ranking very well close to your clinic in one area, and then you go to some other spot and you're not ranking as well. There are a lot of factors that play into that. We're going to talk about some of that today. A lot of it is going to be your directory listings and the way you run your Google ads if you are running Google ads.

I pulled some live data from a current client of ours. This is their Google business profile data. If you're curious what your data looks like, log into your Google business profile, go to business profile settings, and you'll see a stats section where you can get these types of stats. At the end of the day, this is where it's so powerful because the ratios I'm going to show you real quick of searches versus the number of calls is incredible.

This is an urgent care in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is just 30 days of data. In 30 days, 2,600+ searches showed the profile end results. These were the top four searches: urgent care city name, urgent care near me, just urgent care, because people are relying on Google Maps to show them. I'm actually going to show you how important the map app is; it makes an impact. Then people flip it; they'll say the city then the urgent care. This is how people search. Notice, 655 searches are just "urgent care" and the city. That's why when we talk about localizing content, this is why it's so important; this is how people search.

I wish I had a whole thing about comparing the word "X-ray" with a hyphen and without a hyphen. The general public does it wrong, and people have to think about that. It's so fascinating. The ultimate thumb on the nose to every competitor out there is to name it "Santa Fe Urgent Care." We have one that we work with in a city called Chelsea, and they're a great client, but we're always number two in the map three pack. The reason why is there's an urgent care called "Chelsea Urgent Care." That's literally the name of the company. People are searching the company, but they're really just searching the city.

Here's a breakdown that's fascinating to me. In 30 days, 8,000 people viewed this business profile. This is just a regular urgent care, not a massive one. Their numbers are probably in the 60 to 80 patients a day range. Look at how this search is broken out: 67% of searches are on Google search on your phone, meaning they went to their phone, opened up Chrome or whatever, went to google.com, and typed in "Urgent Care Santa Fe." 67% of them did this. 18% did it on their actual computer, which is interesting because I honestly thought it would just be all phone, but 18% are still using a computer. They may be at work, feeling terrible, and need to find urgent care.

COVID kind of shifted those numbers with laptops being issued at home so much. Look at this: 13% are using the Google Maps app on their phone for directions, which showed the profile. That's incredible to me. That sounds like not a huge number, but 13% of your potential patients are coming to you through the Google Maps app, not through google.com, not on their laptop, but through their phone or their iPad on the maps app. Then 2% are using Google Maps desktop, which makes total sense because what do I do? I search on the computer at work, find it, and then go to my phone and type in the directions to see how far it is from me.

This brings us to our first optimization for Google Maps. You have to design your website for a mobile phone, not for your desktop. Our team designs a website with a mobile-first approach. I bring that up because I want you to go sometime today after this and check your website on your phone. Ask yourself, "Is this easy for me to navigate?" If it's not easy for you, it's not easy for your customers. Is it easy for me to call? Is it easy for me to schedule an appointment? Can I do everything I need on this device? The mobile-first thought process is going to help you become more relevant on Google Maps. They look at bounce rates, which are when someone quickly leaves your website because they couldn't find what they were looking for. We live in an instapot society now, where you have to instantly be able to convert. That conversion may be they're calling from your business profile. Is your business profile set up as well as it can be? Do you have the green circle? If you ever log into your profile, you know what I'm talking about.

Here's an example: in 30 days, 2,600 searches showed the profile and 1,300 calls were made in the same timeframe. Look at that. Is it a 50% conversion rate? Not necessarily, but 1,300 phone calls means they tapped the call button from the Google business profile to talk to somebody at that urgent care. Which is insane. This brings you to the second most important thing: understanding that your Google business profile is more important than your website. If your profile isn't properly optimized, this is what you're missing out on. We track a lot of data and see that calls made off a Google business profile are 10 to 20 times more than calls made off a website. People would rather just call you directly from Google than click over to your website. That's good and bad because it puts too much power on Google, but it means you've got some mind share if they're not even bothering to check out your website.

At the end of the day, Google, if you do everything they say to do, sometimes isn't enough. Then your website's that push to get more out there. It's a symbiotic relationship; it's the moon and the Earth. If you're fascinated with stats and have call tracking turned on for Google business profile, it's just a button. It also gives you cool data. Most calls are missed on a Sunday at 8 am. If your clinic opens at 9:00 a.m. on Sundays, people naturally start calling before you open, and it's marked as a missed call. If your missed calls are that high, Google might derank you because they see missed opportunities. They don't want that because that's not what the consumer hoped for. If you think Google doesn't know what's going on at your clinic, this should be a sign. Google tracks the calls and knows if they were missed.

My recommendation is to make sure you have an after-hours fallback to answer a phone. Many of you use online schedulers like Solve or Athena, where an automated system can schedule these people without a human. I would highly recommend checking your call log data with your phone system to see how many missed calls there are and look at the times. Some clinics struggle to keep up with phone intensity, and if I'm three or four rings in, I assume you won't answer. I might hop to the next urgent care because we know urgent care struggles with patient retention since it's just a quick transaction to them. It's retail at the end of the day. Look at your call logs; are things being missed? This should motivate you because missed calls can derank you.

Yes, Google Maps drives traffic, and you can't 100% rely on pay-per-click alone. That's a great strategy if coupled with good SEO and Google Maps strategy.

Some of the biggest changes we're seeing now include Local Service Ads (LSAs). LSAs have been around for five or six years, originally starting as a locksmith program, then moving into home services. We have home service clients in our Nick the Marketer Legacy agency, and about 20% of their lead volume is from LSAs. LSAs mean local service ads. The reason we bring this up is that it has not been available for medical until now. Medical just opened up in a few markets and is very new. Urgent Care is an opportunity, and we'll talk about that. But fair warning: Google can change their policies, so stay updated.

Google serves up paid ads in the map as a result, and having a strategy for that is huge. The map three pack showing up on a Google search is an important part of the strategy. Here's what the map pack ad looks like: it's a traditional map three pack, but with an ad, it becomes a four pack. Fast Pace Health is shown as sponsored at the top of the map three pack, and most consumers don't realize it's an ad. LSAs are just another layer to click through, and they make it seamless for people to click the call.

This is the new anatomy of a search. When someone searches for "urgent care near me," the first thing that pops up is the local service ad, then a Google ad, followed by an ad in the map three pack, and finally the organic SEO at the bottom. Google makes no money when you show up organically in a search. They provide the service to be the most relevant platform and then prioritize monetization. People do click ads, but most clicks come from organic search.

If you're showing up in the organic SEO part, chances are your map three pack is activating to a certain degree. If you like to access the full webinar, which I absolutely recommend, you can find it in our show notes. Sign up there, get our workbook, keyword sheets, and access to all our other resources. Don't forget to subscribe on YouTube, follow us on Spotify or Apple, and leave a review. Let us know what you think about the episode, if you have any feedback, or if you'd like to be a guest. We would love to have you on. Have a great rest of your week.