How to Get More Google Reviews for Your Medical Practice in Texas
Updated: Oct 18
Google Business Profile, called Google My Business until 2021, is the free listing that shows your practice in Google Search and Maps, with your Google reviews, hours, phone number and directions.
For a medical practice in Texas, the Google reviews on that profile are often the first thing a new patient reads.
Key Facts About Google Reviews
Google reviews: what patients do | ||
Finding | Number | Source |
More likely to visit a business with a complete Business Profile | 70% | |
Used Google to read reviews (2024) | 81% | |
Read Google's AI review summary first (2025) | 48% | |
Would decide on the AI summary alone (2025) | 18% | |
Never read online reviews (2025) | 4% | |
Is Google Business Profile Free?
Yes! Google Business Profile is entirely free of expenses.
The website publishers do not charge any hidden costs for its usage. The free Google Business Profile tool is your personalized business manager who manages how your business platform appears on Google Search.
It also lists and maintains the appearance of your business on Google Maps. Both the Google Search and Google Maps are inclusive of the name of your business, location and working hours. It further monitors and notifies you about the customer reviews.
It accomplishes the task of adding relevant photos and informing you about how and where the people can search for you.
How Google Reviews Help Your Practice Rank Locally
Google Business Profile emphasizes three critical criteria of relevance, prominence, and distance. The amalgam of these three criteria is the basis on which Google ranks your practice locally.
This analysis assists Google Business Profile in rating the business that satisfies your search needs regardless of the location. It means Google prefers the practice that it finds the best fit for your needs and rates it ahead of others.
You may thus get the notification even for the farthest business ranking first if it satisfies your requirements completely.
Let us take a more in-depth look into why Google Business Profile considers the three criteria of relevance, prominence, and distance.
Relevance
Relevance means precise. Relevance represents the exact or near to exact search results for the term being searched. It thus becomes essential for the business entrepreneurs to add all the relevant information about their businesses.
The more the information about a particular business is available, the more is it understood by Google Business Profile and better it ranks your business.
Prominence
Prominence reflects how well known your practice is. Google looks at information from across the web, such as articles, directories and links, plus your Google review count and score (Google's local ranking guide).
For a practice, that means more Google reviews, a better rating and more local mentions can lift you above an office that's a little closer to the patient.
Distance
Distance works with Google Maps: Google measures how far each practice is from the person searching.
It does not stop in tracing the distance of the business from the onlooker’s location; it also directs the person to reach his final destination. Google Business Profile calculates the range of the business entity from the user within a fraction of seconds.
How Google Reviews and Your Profile Raise Your Ranking
Google Business Profile simplifies the process of increasing your businesses SEO ranking.
All you need to do is follow the below steps to rank your business higher with the assistance of Google Business Profile.
Complete your Business Information
While registering your business with Google Business Profile never leave any stone unturned. This is the fundamental principle of every business to succeed in their online promotion.
Completely enter the entire details of your business. Your listing on Google Business Profile should reflect as a bible for your business. Include the business-related information such as the physical location and phone number of your business, business categories and attributes.
Be energetic on Google Business Profile. It should not happen that you entered the information at the launch of your business and failed to update it with the change in working hours.
Keep your hours, phone number and services current. Google's help center explains how to edit your profile.
Verification of your business location
Verify the location of your business entity so that it ranks better across the Google Search and Google Maps.
Accurate Working Hours
Accurate inclusion of the business working hours is the pre-requisite for any business entity to rank higher on Google Business Profile. It also includes your business working hours on holidays and in the case of the special events. This accurate and precise information about your business working hours lets your clients know when your business is operating. This information gives them the confidence to drive to your business within the working hours.
Review Management
Review management plays a significant role in defining your business viability. Be active on Google Business Profile and keep responding to the reviews raised by your clients.
Remember to react positively to every review irrespective of the positive or negative tone of your clients.
Here is how Google reviews worked for two of our Texas clients.
You don't need hundreds of reviews to rank. A complete profile, regular posts and steady new reviews matter more.
Photographs
Adding visual effects hold the visitors for a long haul. By adding photographs demonstrating your products, services, business location and the other necessities make it convenient for the clients to go through your website.
How to Set Up Your Profile to Get Google Reviews
Follow the steps mentioned below to add your business in Google Business Profile
Setting up a Google Business Profile for a practice | |
Step | What to do |
1 | Go to business.google.com and sign in with the practice's Google account |
2 | Add the practice name exactly as it appears on your sign |
3 | Pick the most specific category, such as Cardiologist or Dermatologist |
4 | Add the address, phone, website and hours |
5 | Verify; Google chooses the method, often a video or phone check |
6 | Add services, photos and a first post, then share your review link |
10 Ways to Ask Patients for Google Reviews
Ask your customers to review your business listing
The role of the business entrepreneur accounts of prime importance here. It is his duty that this task is communicated to every single employee of every individual business. Ask your customers for review plays an essential role in direct customer reviews.
To ask your customer to review your business listing, you need to maintain a healthy relationship with them. This feature is mostly applicable in the case of those employees which deal with the customers daily. It can be related to the spread of word of mouth.
Educating Customers
Many customers might be such that they know about your business, however, lack the technicality to cast their reviews. In such scenario, it becomes the prime responsibility of the business employees to educate and guide their customers to generate review.
Personalization
Personalization goes hand in hand with the customer-centric approach. Here the business entrepreneur needs to maintain a healthy relationship with his long-term customer. Receiving a personal email from the business owner makes the customers worthy of their reviews.
Process Simplification
Keep the process of posting reviews short and simple for your customers. For this, you may make the best use of the bulleted text with special hyperlinking.
Alternatively, a more straightforward step involves direct copy and paste of instructions from Google Business Profile. The later one is preferential as Google generates short and crisp review sentences for your business.
Third-Party Tools
If you are into a franchise model business or your business serves multiple locations, collating and managing reviews becomes a nail-biting task. Here, to simplify your process, you can make use of the third party tools which expedite the entire process as a cakewalk for you.
Multiple touch points
You can ask your customers to review your business across different platforms. This multiple touch point feature is inclusive of review on social media, in-store or office review and review over a call.
No Incentives
Don't offer anything for a review. Google's review policy bans payment, discounts or free services in exchange for reviews, and so does the FTC's 2024 rule. Ask every patient, happy or not, and send the link the same day.
Respond to your business reviews
Be vibrant on the social media platforms and wherever your customers possess the liberty to post a review about your business. Respond to every review. It engages your customers that you acknowledge their reviews for the betterment of the services being rendered.
Email your business signatures
This includes adding a call to action statement in your updated business email signatures. Such a call to action statement can help your business to generate a more substantial number of reviews per month.
How to Reply to Google Reviews and Complaints
You can deal with the Google Business Profile reviews and complaints either through the desktop or the mobile.
With desktop
Search your practice name on Google while signed in to the account that manages it, open your profile, and click Reviews. Pick a review and click Reply.
With Mobile
The separate Google My Business app was retired in 2022. On a phone, open Google Maps or search your practice name in the Google app, then tap Reviews to reply.
Tips for Replying to Patient Reviews (HIPAA-Safe)
Maintain politeness and avoid being personal.
As a business entrepreneur, you need to maintain courtesy and decency while you reply to a customer review. Never get into an argument with a frustrated customer. Winning a dispute over a frustrated customer is impossible.
Avoid burning bridges. Whatever you write as your response should be legible to your target audience. Keep it short and crisp. Moreover, you need to assure that your responses comply with the Google Business Profile local content policy.
In healthcare there's one more rule: never confirm that a reviewer is your patient or mention their care. A Dallas dental practice, Elite Dental Associates, paid $10,000 to settle with HHS after replies on Yelp disclosed patient information (HHS).
Replying to Google reviews in Texas: safe vs unsafe | |
Unsafe | Safe |
"We're sorry, Maria, but your root canal went as planned." | "Thank you for the feedback. Please call our office manager so we can talk." |
"You missed your follow-up visit on March 3." | "We take every concern seriously." |
"As your doctor, I can tell you..." | "We're glad you had a good experience." |
Ass stated earlier your responses to the customer’s feedback should be short, crisp and appealing. The customers generally are await of your more concise and genuine responses.
Appreciate your reviewers for posting their product feedback.
Additionally, in case you have some new information updated with your business product, respond your happy customers with the updated information. You don't need a long reply to every review; a short thank-you is enough.
However, maintain an equal ratio of replying to positive as well as negative reviews.
You know that your business product reviewers are your existing product customers. So there is no need to bubble up the customers to post reviews by offering them incentives.
If you have any additional information to be shared with your existing customers, share it politely. Do not present yourself as a salesperson.
How to Remove Fake Google Reviews
Before you proceed ahead with the removal of the fake reviews, assure that you have read the Google Business Profile policy. Here, you need to be patient with your Google reviews as it takes several days for a particular customer review to be assessed.
In case you find a customer review violating your Google Business Profile policy, you may highlight the same by flagging it. Once the review is flagged, the profile team will complete its assessment.
If the team finds the review to be violating the policy, it will be entirely removed from your Google Business Profile.
With desktop
Find the review on Google Maps or Search, click the three dots next to it, and choose Report review. Google removes reviews that break its policies, such as fake or off-topic ones, not reviews you simply disagree with.
The same steps you need to accomplish with the mobile app of Google Business Profile.
How Many Google Reviews Does a Texas Practice Need?
Fewer than most people think. Waco Heart & Vascular reached 1,540 Google Maps calls with fewer than 30 reviews. Steady new reviews and a complete profile matter more than a big total.
Can I Reply to a Review That Mentions the Patient's Treatment?
Yes, but don't repeat or confirm any of it. Thank them, and invite them to call the office. See our Google My Business guide for setting up the profile itself.
Related guides: HCAHPS scores and patient satisfaction
