How searchable is your hospital?

When was the last time you opened up a phone book to find a local business's number?

People of all ages are now turning to the Web first to search for information on local business and they are doing so in overwhelming numbers. According to a study by 15miles and comScore, 70% of respondents in a recent study cited "online" as their primary source of this type of information.

In addition to instant access to information, people don't want to work hard to get it. With that in mind, how easy is your brand to find on the Web? How accurate is your brand's information on-line? Does Google provide the right phone number and address? Are online reviews via Yahoo and Yelp fair and accurate?

Flowtown has developed a wonderful guide to getting your hospitals optimized on both local search and social media. Here are some highlights:

Start at home.

Your first focus should be on your own website. But don't worry. Improving your SEO does not have to be a huge undertaking. You can make a huge impact on your organic search results in three simple steps:

• Make sure that your contact information is on every page of your site. Additionally, double check that this information is in text format, not an image. Search engines can't read images.
• Created a dedicated Contact Us page for each location, if you don't already have one. Include all of the ways that people may want or need to reach out to you. And don't forget to include a map. Google makes this very easy.
• Finally, create a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) location file. This will help to display geographic data on sites like Google Earth. Here's a link to Google's tutorial on this, but if you need assistance, contact your webmaster.

Stake your claim.

Once you have ensured that search engines can easily find you, it's time to go to them. We've heard time and again about the headaches associated with working with the Big Three (Google, Yahoo and Bing) regarding getting the proper contact information in their directories, but hopefully these tips will help:

Google

• Run a search for your hospital on Google Maps. If a listing exists, click the Business Owner? link on the top right. From there, you'll need to sign in, or create, your Google account to edit or add information.
• If your hospital does not show up in Google Maps, you'll need to log into Google and create a listing on Google Places.

Yahoo

• Search your listing on Yahoo Local. If it appears and you'd like to edit it, click on Enhance your listing in the lower right. You'll need to sign in to a Yahoo account to make changes.
• If you need to create a new listing, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Add a business, located in the footer.
• Yahoo offers an enhanced directory option for $9.95 a month that includes additional photos, promotional link and a description field on top of the basic contact info.

Bing

• Search for your hospital on Bing Local. If one does not exist, you will need to create one through the Bing Business Portal. To do this, click on Add or change your business listing, beneath your search results. You can also edit an existing listing through the Business Portal.

Expand your footprint.

People don't just rely on the big search engines to find information. Explore additional, local search directories to expand your digital footprint. You may want to begin with Yelp, Yellow Pages, White Pages and MapQuest.

Finally, don't forget that people have the ability to write reviews on search results and directories. Make sure that you monitor those comments, just as you would your social media.

How did you get your hospital more "searchable"?

You can read the entire Go Junto blog post by clicking here.