How your dental patients can leave you a review from their phone

Have you ever stopped to wonder why Google makes it so difficult for happy dental patients to leave a review of their favorite dentist from a mobile device? There's really no telling why Google makes it so hard for patients to show their trusted tooth tactician some social love. So we won’t concern ourselves with the why, we’ll just focus on the how.

WARNING: Google's method of capturing the mobile review from users on the go may very well change for the better, and let's hope so. Soon! But until then, here is how patients can review your dental practice from their mobile phones. There are basically two ways:

1. By downloading the Google Maps app from iTunes or Google Play
2. By using their mobile browser (Internet) to access your Google+ Local (or Google My Business) page.

We're betting that Google makes this disruptive mobile review process easier for consumers in the coming months, but for now let's explore the steps involved in these methods.

Mobile reviews via the Google Maps app
This is by far the easiest and most well known option for patients to lend some social proof to their dentists.

Here is the step-by-step breakdown, courtesy of Jessie Low from Whitespark.ca, a local SEO think tank consortium of gurus up in the Great White North. There's no shame in our game – copying geniuses works just fine for blog posts and assembly lines.

1. If patients don't already have the Google Maps app on their device, they'll need to go to the App Store to install itp. (Android users have this app by default.)
2. Patients will then need to login to their Google+ profile. If they don't have a Google+ page, they will need to sign up for one.
3. Then they can finally get down to the business of writing a review for your dental practice by opening said Google Maps app on their phone or tablet.

From here it's just a hop, skip, and a jump for patients to leave their favorite dentist a review from their mobile device via Google Maps. Once in their Google Maps app they will need to:

1. Enteryour practice name and city.
2. Select your practice page.(They can also use their current location to find a business listing if they are still at the practice while leaving the review.)
3. Scroll down and click on the "Rate and Review" section.
4. Write a review about their exceptional dental office visit experience, the highly attentive and personal staff, the modern decor, the state-of-the-art technology, and so on.
5. Last but certainly not least, click on the "Publish" button.

Mobile reviews for dentists via a mobile browser
Thishack comes courtesy of another local SEO authority located in Upstate N.Y., Mike Blumenthal. This one might strike a nerve of happy-go-lucky dental patients and turn them into vexingly uncooperative reviewers, and the fault lies with Google, not your dental practice, unless of course you have 16 duplicate listings for your single practitioner practice.

With this mobile browser method, in order to write a review of their favorite dental practice, patients will first require the direct link to your Google My Business page from the local search results for your practice (i.e., business name, phone number + city, state/province).

You see, Google made it impossible to simply link to your specific G+ listing from a mobile device. Your dental patient willing to write a digital review will be redirected to no review wasteland because that link to your Google My Business page will not have the review option available.

But, herein lies the workaround – if you provide patients with the correct link, accessed from a desktop search, that search result will show the oh-so-important little pencil icon that works on a mobile device. To get the link to your verified and properly categorized, citationally consistent Google My Business page, you will have to perform the local search on your desktop or laptop. It is currently not possible to get these results via your mobile browser.

Remember: you will first need to search out your Google My Business page on a desktop or laptop computer to grab the necessary link, making it possible for patients to leave your practice a review from their mobile device.

Here is how this incredibly time-wasting yet integral step is accomplished:

1. Go to https://plus.google.com/local
2. Search for your practice Google My Business page (the good one if you have dupes)
3. Copy that link (and keep it somewhere convenient for future dissemination).

Copy that link from your desktop or laptop browser bar. This is the link you'll send to patients, or make it available in the office, in order for them to leave you a review directly from their mobile device.

Here's what your patients gracious enough to still want to leave you the review will need to do:

1. Open their mobile browser and login to their Google account. (If the patient doesn't sign in until after they click the link you provided, they will be redirected to the G+ App or page, no man's land with no review or pencil icon.)
2. Go to the Google My Business link that you’ve given them (from your desktop/laptop search, mentioned above)
3. Click on the pencil icon
4. Now it's just a matter of your loyal and patient dental patient taking time to rate, review and publish their POV!

There's two ways dentists can get more Google reviews from mobile devices
Sounds simple enough right? Yeah, if that sounds good to you there is surely some direct mail or yellow pages rep out there eager to help your practice acquire more new patients.

But if that doesn't sound so convenient, click here w to grab your 100% FREE & 100% CUSTOMGoogle Review Display Toolkit.

Chris Barnard is the managing partner at Social Dental Network, a digital marketing agency specifically for dentists. Chris leads the charge in developing and executing cost-effective and sustainable new patient acquisition and retention campaigns driven to maximize bottom line ROI. Social Dental Network specializes in new patient acquisition, social media management, local SEO, email marketing, and mobile app development for dentists around the world.