What does claiming mean anyway? Claiming is used to provide customers with valid, accurate information about the brand for which they are searching. From a customer experience perspective, claiming quickens and enhances the customer’s ability to find information about your local brands, services, and products in one sweep.

As more patients shift to voicing their opinions online, medical practices are faced with claiming, updating, monitoring and responding to feedback across more sites than we care to count. As these sites continue to gain traffic and clout, they are showing up on the front page of search results for your medical professionals and your practice – and that means what’s on those sites is more important than ever in helping you attract and retain more patients. Research shows that 44% of patients are looking online to research their physician, and 1 in 5 are using online physician rating sites.

When you claim your business page, Yelp allows you to edit your business information. Because people often use Yelp to find new businesses, it is important that your information is accurate. Updating your information will inform customers and show them you care about your online presence.

Once you have claimed your business page, you can start responding to Yelp reviews. This means you can make public or private responses to each customer. When you respond to reviews, it shows customers you care about their feedback, and are willing to create a better customer experience.

Yelp’s analytics will help your business know if you are gaining traction with customers. Yelp tracks user views, customer leads, and revenue.

Claiming your business provides valuable perks and tools. You will be able to edit your business info, manage reviews, add photos, track analytics, and much more. If you complete your profile and use Yelp’s tools, your leads and conversion will be higher because you will be providing a greater customer experience.

Local SEO is an important part of your marketing strategy, and it should extend to the other major search engine, Bing.

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, has a local directory which functions similar to Google My Business.

 Bing Places is a vital directory that will not only boost your SEO score but make it easy for customers to find you no matter where they’re searching.