MAPS PhD Expert - Jack Hopman · The chiropractor's Applied Kinesiologist's listing could also be linked to a page on the business site that ranks high, and the chiropractor could

MAPS PhD Expert

Latest Knowledge Is Your Greatest Asset

What are Practitioner listings, and what do you

do with them?

If a business owner is listed by their personal name,

instead of a business name - such as a chiropractor,

dentist, doctor, attorney, real estate or insurance agent,

or a financial planner, they are referred to as

Practitioners.

Most often, people search for them by name and not by

location. Their GMB listing on Google Maps is for the

person, not the place.

Here are some of the most common questions regarding Practitioners/Practices:

What Rules does Google Have regarding

Practitioner Listings?

Google does not consider practitioner listings to be duplicates, and will not remove them or merge them.

If a person leaves a review on a practitioner listing, Google frequently refuses to move the review to the practice listing.

There is an exception: if there is only ONE practitioner in the practice (only one dentist, one chiropractor, etc.) Google WILL merge both listings. Google's rule regarding single practitioners is: there should be only one listing, and it should be formatted as: [brand/company] - [practitioner name]

Practice listings and Practitioners listings are connected. There is an internal feature in Google that connects practitioner listings with practice listings. They compared it to the feature that exists that puts one listing inside another. This is not something that is visible, and you'd never know of the connection unless you thought to ask GMB support.

If you are a solo practitioner, what do you do?

Where you are located has more to do with the answer than whether or not you are a solo practitioner. If you are located in a large city, you'd probably benefit more by merging your listing. This way, all of your reviews will be in one location. If your practice is in a smaller city or town, you might gain greater benefit from having two listings, since it's very possible to end up with both listings ranking in the snack pack. At the moment, it appears that Google does not have any way to automatically check to see that these are duplicates, or automatically merge them, so, unless they are reported as such, leave them be. Rankings are not impacted by moving listings.

While moving a listing will impact what is displayed in the search results, the ranking itself is not affected.

There are a few directories that do not merge listings, which may hurt the consistency of the citations. If a merger of two listings for a solo practitioner is requested of Yelp, they will comply, and will also merge the reviews from both listings.

Yelp's process is opposite to that of Google. In Yelp, the listing will appear as: "Solo Practitioner Name: Solo Practitioner Company" (John Doe: XYZ Company)

This seems to not really be a big deal since Google is more able to "Normalize Data".

If your practice has a number of practitioners,

should they all be verified?

If a practitioner in your business does not have a Google My Business listing, do NOT create one for them if your intention is to rank your practice as high as possible.

Having more listings simply creates more competition for your business ranking.

Also, if the practitioner decides to move on from your firm, it could cause problems down the road, since, according to Google's rules, the practitioner would own the listing, not you (the practice).

It is most important to verify the listing that you want to have ranked, and then point that listing to your homepage.

Do not include the website in any additional listings; or, you could point additional listings to the profile page. If you want or need to monitor and reply to reviews of other practitioners in your office, having a verified listing will make this process easier.

If there are a number of practitioners in your office that

have different specialties, it's a good idea to rank their

specialty listings. Such as a chiropractor who also

specializes in Applied Kinesiology for example.

The chiropractor's Applied Kinesiologist's listing could also be linked to a page on the business site that ranks high, and the chiropractor could also rank to the page that is organically the highest for chiropractic related terms.

Doing this will accomplish a great deal more with the pages instead of creating competition for yourself.

Another example might be a law firm. If there are a number of attorneys with different specialties, the listings could be optimized for "law firm", and then the individual specialties like: estate law, divorce law, business law, etc.

Setting the listings up in this way allows your firm to benefit from organic rankings for a number of different keywords.

If you had intended to try to monopolize the snack pack with the same keyword, Google has filters that prevent the same site from appearing too frequently in the results.

It's almost impossible to accomplish three in the 3 pack, unless your business is in a tiny, specific niche.

My Practitioner Listings Outrank the Practice

Listing. What do I do?

If the outranking listing is that of the owner, it would appear that Google prefers to feature the practitioner.

Think clearly about your goals. Do you want to rank quickly, or be mindful of long term security?

If a listing is ranking well and it's for an employee, it's possible that they will leave your practice at some point (and, according to Google, they own the ranked listing).

If the ranked employee leaves the practice, they may continue to rank well, or even outrank your firm, so make the best long term choices instead of the fast results.

If your business is in this predicament, it is recommended that the practitioner listing be edited to minimize this future impact by removing all but one category, and linking to an inner page on the website, not the homepage.

Then, go to work on boosting the ranking of the practice by asking for reviews, and making sure that the reviews are linked to the homepage of the site.

Frequently, it's faster and simpler to build an existing ranking practitioner's listing. But it's better, over time, to encourage Google to accept the listing of the practice as being the strongest.

Bear in mind, this process takes longer and is more labor intensive.

The age of the listing is a tremendous factor in how the listing ranks. It's important to do a thorough background check of the history to make sure you are making the correct choice.

A Practitioner Left the Firm. What Should I Do

About Their Listing?

It's most upsetting when a practitioner leaves your office. The practitioner owns their listing, so it's not possible for you to eliminate it.

Google's suggestion of marking the listing as closed is not of any use since the patients of that practitioner will likely think that your practice has gone out of business.

Here's a better option:

1. If the practitioner's listing is verified with GMB, see if it's possible to have it unverified.

Google is likely to deny you access, if you don't already have it, since Google deems the individual as the owner of the listing. 2. If you are successful at unverifying the listing, you may have the listing marked as moved to your main practice listing (which MUST be verified).

If the practitioner verified the listing themselves, you might try contacting them and asking if they'd change their info to that of their new employer. (another reason to not verify a practitioner)

After a Listing has been Marked as Moved, What Next?

Between 1 to 3 days following a Google listing as being marked “moved”, these things will happen.

1. No one will be able to locate the listing because it will totally disappear from Google Search and Google Maps – nobody will find it – accidentally or on purpose.

2 Because no one can find the listing, a “permanently closed” message will not appear either.

3. The OLD location – with a 302 HTTP status code - is now set by Google for MAPS url. When the MAPS url for the old location is loaded, you will be forwarded to the NEW location.

4. Any reviews for the listing that has been closed SHOULD automatically be transferred to the NEW listing. Important Note: Follow up to make certain that this does happen.

5. The Map Maker listing for the former location will not vanish. However, it will be pretty much impossible to locate unless you have the specific url and the old CID number. Since Map Maker does not have a MOVED status, the listing will stay with the “PERMANENTLY CLOSED” status. It is vital that everyone working in Local SEO completely comprehends the BEST way to treat duplicates. They must record the CID numbers for every listing that they find. If you have the CID number, it’s possible to locate the Map Maker listing for the employee who has moved. It is not possible to locate the info without the CID number.

It is believed that Google is working to find a solution so that its users may present the edited information through Google Maps. This way, it wouldn’t require people to get in touch with Google My Business whenever this change is required.

At the moment, a “Moved” button shows up on Google Maps beneath the “Suggest an Edit” option.

Supposedly, there should also be a box below, that lets you add the correct data for the new location. At this moment, that box is not visible.

Clicking the “Moved elsewhere” button won’t fix the issue and does not make the “Permanently Closed” listing go away, either. The big, red bar that reads “PERMANENTLY CLOSED” still shows up.

If you just select “Moved elsewhere”, it won’t carry out what’s been explained above and won’t make the “Permanently closed” listing disappear.

Selecting the button just gives you the red “Relocated” message.

The listing that is on Google Maps and in the search results still displays that huge red closed banner.

What's the best way to Build Citations for a

Practitioner?

It's best to focus heavily on niche citations for any niche that has practitioners.

An attorney ought to be listed with Avvo and a dentist should be properly listed with HealthGrades.

There are a tremendous number of social media sites and directories that give you the option of more powerful features for an individual as opposed to businesses and this is a good thing for you to take advantage of with practitioners. LinkedIn gives individuals the option to list several links (on their profile page) to various sites and even allows them to customize the anchor text. Business listings on LinkedIn cannot do this.

What to do?

Decide what you want for your practice – long term. Don’t use short term gains because you are in a hurry or afraid that it will take too long or not work.

If your goal and plan is to build a long term business, verify YOUR name and your business. Focus the attention on the SERVICES offered by the various practitioners in your practice and create specific pages for those services. Direct traffic to the PAGES – NOT to the practitioners. If you DO decided to verify a practitioner, make sure that YOU are the one to do the verification so, if the practitioner does leave your practice, you will be able to unverify them.

Keep your eye on your long term goals.

Disclaimer

Google's algorithm (the rules and guidelines that determine which business listings they display at any given time to any given individual) may have changed since this document was published.

While the steps outlined above were working for us at the time we published this document, Google may have changed its procedures since then.

With MAPS PhD we constantly keep up to date with Google's latest changes.

Copyright 2016 - All rights reserved.

Jack Hopman, http://www.jackhopman.com

You may not copy, sell or distribute this document

without advance written permission from the author.