Your Google Business Profile – Avoid This ‘Management’ Scam

Why you don’t need to pay monthly fees for an agency to manage your Google business page

Over the last few months we’ve had a couple of clients approach us to say that they’ve signed up with a third-party agency that approached them and offered to manage their Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) for £149 + vat per month. Sadly they signed up to 12 month contracts for this on the back of being promised “wonderful” things in terms of Google rankings and new patient enquiries.

I was instantly suspicious and asked one of the clients to send references describing the service that they signed up to and ‘benefits’ that it offered. Here’s what came back in terms of the supposed benefits:

• Management and otpimisation of the business’s Google Business Profile page
• Advice on Google reviews

That was it – no assistance with helping the business to rank better in Google local search, no citation building, no actual assistance with the reviews process. So in reality they’d signed up to a 12 month contract at £149 + vat per where they were receiving effectively nothing on an ongoing basis.

What the agency was actually doing was checking over the existing business profile to make sure simple things like addresses were set up correctly, a few photos added, opening times checked etc and that was it. At best this would represent just an hour or two of work. After this, pretty much nothing else was happening!

Is this a scam?

It would be quite difficult to prove that this is actually a scam as a company could claim to be carrying out management of the business profile in the background – but even if they were, this might amount to 30 minutes of work every couple of months to make a few checks, maybe upload a few new photographs etc.

To make any real difference to the value of a Google Business Profile page and to help a dental business appear more prominently in local search results, much more has to be done. Of course the agency knows this but there was no mention of this when they sold the service.

For sure, it’s a huge waste of money to pay lots of cash for a service offering minimal benefit and for work that can be done very easily (and quickly) by the local dental team.

What do you need to do to optimise your Google My Business Profile and local search position?

The analogy here is very much like what you need to do with a website i.e. the on-page and off-page optimisation. On-page optimisation is the initial set up of the website to make it receptive to Google and then periodic checks back to maintain certain elements. Off-site optimisation is the consistent, ongoing process of building up new links to help the website rank.

Similarly with a Google Business Profile, you need to get the initial optimisation right and then check back periodically to make sure it’s still fine – however this input is relatively minor. Much more work will be required to build the reviews that are a key driver for ranking in the local search results. At best the agency mentioned above was only doing the initial part of this and then very little else. By the time the business realises what is happening, it’s often a year or so later and after they’ve spent a lot of cash for very little reward.

Here is a basic check-list for managing your own Google Business Profile:

• Claim your Google Business Profile using an account owned by the business owner – never let a member of staff or agency do this on your behalf in their account!
• Optimise the Business Profile carefully and in accordance with Google’s instructions – this is really quite straightforward and does not really need external assistance. Be sure when entering your address and telephone number that they are in the exact same format as you use on your formal business stationery and on your website. This consistency is important for Google optimisation more generally.
• Check back to your profile quarterly to make any adjustments. If you wish, you can also check back more regularly than this and use the messaging system that Google provides to make announcements to your patients.
• Build reviews – this is perhaps the most important thing you can do to help your website appear in Google’s local search results. Remember that reviews must be entered independently by your patients in their own Google account and on their own device – you cannot do it for them.
• Investigate other important techniques such as citation building to further help your business become prominent in local search results.

Summary

You certainly don’t need an agency to manage your Google Business Profile and very definitely not subject to a 12 month contract at £149 + vat per month! It’s easy enough to set-up and then look after yourself and you’ll be “quids in”.

However, simply setting up a Google Business Profile on its own isn’t sufficient to help your enter the local search rankings – you’ll need to do a lot more, including building reviews, to help this. Here you may need the advice and support of a bona fide agency as it does need experience and focus to do properly.

Do you need help with this or any other facet of how to make your dental business prominent in Google? Please get in touch with the SEO team at Dental Media by calling 01332 672548 or using the website contact form and we’ll get back to you with free, friendly advice.