Have you ever noticed when you search for something near you on Google, there are always 3 places that pop up on a map? That's called the Google 3-Pack, and it's the key to having Google become a lead-generating machine for your business.

In today's episode of Beyond Bitewings, Ash welcomes Darren Tessitore, CEO of Thrive Reviews, to unravel the mysteries of local SEO and how to maximize your Google Business Profile to drive traffic. 

Darren sheds light on the importance of frequent updates, active social media engagement, and strategic use of customer reviews to climb up the rankings of the Google Map 3-pack and soar above your competitors without paid ads.

Darren also provides crucial tips on the importance of commenting on reviews while remaining HIPAA compliant. He also talks about how you can incentivize your staff to encourage and ask for reviews, and why it's an important factor when staying on top of Google's local search.

To get in contact with Darren, you can visit https://thrivereviews.net/ or call him at 727.300.1084

If you have specific questions about any of these topics for your practice, or if you'd like to have another question answered on a future podcast, please reach out to the Edwards & Associates team. Please also contact us to find out more about Ash's financial course.

Visit us at: https://EandAssociates.com

Episode Breakdown:

• The Importance of Google Business Profiles
• The science of optimizing Google Business for top-ranking
• Google marketing strategy to boost local rankings
• The importance of social media to your Google Profile
• Automated updating, posting, and review management
• The importance of understanding HIPAA to ensure compliance and avoid lawsuits.
• Lowering the cost for customers

Welcome to Beyond by Wings, the business side of dentistry, brought to you by Edwards and Associates, PC. Join us as we discuss how to build your dental practice, optimize your income, and plan for your future. This podcast is distributed with the understanding that Edwards and Associates PC is not rendering legal, accounting, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with the business advisors before acting on any of the information that is shared. At Edwards and Associates PC, our business is the business of dentistry. For help or more information, visit our website at endassociates.com. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Bitewings. In today's episode, we have a very special guest.

His name is Darren Tesettore. He's from Boston, Massachusetts and he's currently the CEO at Thrive Reviews. Now you may ask, what is Thrive Reviews? Well it's a company that's been dedicated for over 5 years for people all across the country to help them with their marketing, and more specifically, with their online presence. So Darren, how are we doing today?

We're doing great, Ash. Thanks so much for having us.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, Thrive Reviews. Tell us a little bit about what made you start this company and how you got involved in this industry and, you know, how long you've been doing this and plan to do this.

That's a really good question. So here I am one night. I'm sitting in my office and I'm working on some marketing strategy for a large client of mine out on the West Coast. And

Mhmm.

They were they're a local driver ed school. They have about 30 driver ed locations all across the northwest, and Uh-huh. We were optimizing their website and getting their website tons and tons of traffic on Google and all other search engines. But what we noticed is a lot of these searches were coming from people that weren't in their geographical area. Right? So, you know, if you're a driver ed school in Seattle, you don't care if someone finds you that's in Boston.

That's right. Right?

It's not gonna help you any you want that local search. Mhmm. So that's when I I I realized we need to have a solution for these local businesses that are relying on local traffic to come to their store or business or call their location? And that's when we started dissecting this. We started diving in and trying to figure out how do we do this? How do we go in and hone in and target and get Google to find me? And that's when we quickly realized how searching on Google has drastically changed. Mhmm. You've probably heard of the near me search. Mhmm. Right? So if you like pizza place near me, driving school near me, dentist office near me.

Mhmm. Well, what Google's doing when you type that is it's looking for those businesses that match that category that are physically near you. Right? And and that's where we started really looking at how do we get you to rank in that near me search. And it's interesting because, you know, the first thing that pops up isn't the customer's website.

No. Really.

It's the it's their Google Business Profile. It's that profile that Google create for you for free on their map app. So I'll give you an example. Open up your browser on your computer. Type in dental practice near me. You're going to see a few ads and then you're going to see 3 listings from the Google Maps. And that's called the 3 pack. That's the Google Map 3 pack.

It lists those 3 top businesses that relate to what you're searching for that are pulled from Google Maps, and those are Google Business Profiles. So we then started realizing we needed to shift our attention to optimizing those Google Profiles because the customer is not looking at the website first. They're looking at the Google profile first, and then they're going to the website to verify that this customer's this client or that they're searching for this business is legit. And that's what we did. So then we we we've figured out how do you optimize a Google profile? How do you get it to rank in the top of those that 3 pack? And then what does Google want? What are they looking for? What do they need? What are they what are they trying to do? And that's where we've been mastering that for the past 5 years.

Oh, wow. Which is interesting.

Yeah. So it's interesting. It's an interesting take on the search engine optimization. Right? It's if if you have a website that you need to rank for that is selling something to anybody anywhere, then, yeah, your website needs to be optimized. But if you're a local dentist or a doctor or chiropractor or an urgent care or anybody that relies on these local businesses, restaurants, then you need to optimize your Google profile. And if you don't have a Google profile strategy, you are missing a ton of traffic.

Wow. You know, I'm actually blown away the fact that you just mentioned this. Now it's true, I deal with clients and their business needs fairly often, but I don't go into the nitty gritty of, let's say, search engine optimization. And I mean, I've used Google Maps, I still do, and you're right, I get these options, but I never would have guessed that it's separate from what you've already set up online, like your website or something.

Mhmm. Now it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a website because Google is going to literally crawl everything that's connected to your Google profile. So, like, for example, you can connect all your social profiles to your Google business profile

Mhmm.

And you can connect your website. So if your social profiles and your website are out of date or old or not active, Google's gonna think that your business isn't active. They're gonna think that you're not legit, that you're not what this customer's looking for. This customer wants a Mexican restaurant. Well, if your Mexican restaurant hasn't had a review in 6 months and you haven't posted anything on social media in 6 months and you haven't changed your website in 2 years or added anything to your website in 2 years, Google's not gonna list you in that top 3. Especially with the pandemic with so many businesses shutting down, they don't know what's open and what's not. And the only way they know what's open and what's not is by your activity on those different apps. Right? So it's really interesting.

There's this whole new science that's developed around optimization of a Google Business profile and getting that profile to pop up in the top 3 organically without spending any money on ads. Because I don't know about you, but when I look at that those that 3 pack, there's always an ad at the top, and I skip it. I never click on the ad. Right? I'm like, I don't want the ad. That's just what Google is getting. That guy is bidding the most for my keyword. They said I'll pay $5 as opposed to this other guy that'll pay $3, and they're gonna get my attention. And then there it is, and I'm like, I don't want that.

I want the organic one. I want the one that I know is real. Right? Because that's what's gonna pop up. That's gonna be more relevant to me. Guaranteed is the one that's not paid for.

I see.

We all know that now. We know that, oh, that's just an ad. That's just an ad. That's just an ad. There's my listing that I want. Boom. Best Mexican restaurant in Albuquerque. Boom.

There it is.

Wow. Amazing. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about that because I feel like people like me, where we hear SEO and AdWords and we're automatically thinking, okay, website needs to be optimized by an SEO specialist. Certain AdWords need to be put in. I need to put in money. I need to figure out how much money to set aside per month for that, and that's it. And we feel like, you know, it's a cookie cutter method for everyone, but you actually mentioned something there that didn't sound like a cookie cutter method.

You're saying there's more to it and you need to target it and you need to look more into it. And and then you went on about talking about a Google profile and the 3 packs. So this is sounding very, very fascinating and interesting to me. And then while you were talking about this, you also mentioned that, you know, Google's also going to see how active you are, right? So if there hasn't been a review for more than 6 months, it may think you're inactive. So talk a little bit about that. So how often do you think reviews need to come in for a business for Google to think that it is currently active?

That's a really good answer. Good question. So the the first answer to that question is

Mhmm.

More than your closest competitor.

I see.

Right. So, like, I'll give you an example. I have an urgent care customer that's in Northwest Florida.

Mhmm.

Right?

Mhmm.

And they have, right now, about 6,000 reviews.

Mhmm.

Right? And they're getting reviews at such a fast rate that their competitors, their low low closest competitor is at about a 150 reviews. Right? Wow. So every day, they get anywhere from 10 to 20 reviews. Why? Because they have a very specific strategy in place, and they know exactly when to ask for a review, And they have a very simple method that we put in place for them to ask for that review. Mhmm. And then we also automate the ask for reviews. So we send a text and an email to all the clients that leave. So once they check out Mhmm.

And they walk out the door, our text and email will get sent to them asking them to leave a review. But the receptionist will do the same thing. And what they've done is they've implemented a bonus program. So when you get a review and you work through this organization, you get a $10 bonus. So if I'm at reception and I'm seeing a 100 patients a day Mhmm. I can make some money. That's right. I can probably make more than my hourly pay if I if I ask and get reviews from everybody.

So it's a it's a it's a strategy. It is a marketing strategy that they've worked into their marketing budget to pay their staff, to get them reviews. Why? Because if you go anywhere within a 25 mile radius of that business and type in urgent care, boom, they're number 1. Right? So is it worth it for them? It definitely is because who's gonna go to Google and go urgent care and not look at the one that's closest to them with the most reviews? Right? They're just gonna click on it and go, who are these guys? Oh, that's who they are. Let's go. And then they're gonna go to that business. Right? So optimizing your Google profile, let's kinda take a a big picture of where you start here. Overall, what you need to do is the first thing you need to do is you need to make sure the name and your Google business profile is a match for what you need or what your business is.

Okay.

And then you need you need to make sure that your category is proper. Mhmm.

A lot

of people just randomly pick a category. You don't wanna do that. You want it to be a very specific category that targets what you're offering.

Mhmm.

And then you can pick up to 5 different subcategories. I recommend keeping it simple and only picking 3. We've seen people get lost when they start getting into the 4 and 5. Pick 3 subcategories that match. And if there are not 3 subcategories that match, then only pick the ones that do. If it's 2, if it's 1, that's fine. You want to hone in on what your category is. Right? Because that's what Google is going to do.

Mhmm. And then you wanna make sure your description is properly written using highly targeted keywords, and use every single word you can in that description. Google gives you a very specific number of words that you can put in your description. Mhmm. You wanna use every single one of those. Right? I think the number here let me see what the actual number yeah. 750 characters. Use 750 characters.

If you need to go to ChatGTP and ask it to write it for you, then do that. So, hey, ChatGTP. I am a driver ed school in Seattle, Washington, and I want to write my 750 character, Google Business Profile description. Can you please write this and put all the keywords that we need into it? Boom. And then you'll get a nice 750 character word, written description. Go in there and reword it all you need and then post that into your Google Profiler. Yeah. So those are the key things that I recommend doing and then also using your Google link.

There are Google review link. There's an ask for review link in your Google profile. Turn that into QR codes. Give that to every one of your staff that are going to ask for reviews and have them go to that QR code. Super, super easy to do. Anyone can do that. And then just make it a part of your business plan. Ask for reviews constantly.

And then on top of that, you want to respond to all those reviews and respond to them fast. The faster you respond, the better you're going to get, the better you're going to rank. Google's gonna see you as active. There are a couple other things in here that I will recommend. 1 is in your Google profile, when you log in and you hit edit profile. Mhmm. Scroll halfway down the page, and you're going to see a new section there called, social profiles. This is where you can add links to all your social media profiles.

Mhmm. It's fairly new. It came out within the last couple months. You can add, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and Twitter. Go in there and add those if you have them.

It's all the same.

If they're active. If you're not doing anything with them, don't even bother. It's just gonna be a waste. If you're constantly using them and you're active in those profiles, then, yes, go in there and use them and and and and, connect them. And then another thing you wanna do is you wanna add an update. So if you go into your Google profile, business.google.com, log in to your account, you'll see, about halfway down the page, along the top, you'll see something something that says add updates. Mhmm. These are like social posts you can do to your Google profile.

We recommend individuals as often as you can. What was that?

So the individual posts from your social media, not the embedded code for the main handle?

No. Yeah. You so if you're in Google if you're you wanna you wanna connect your social profiles, but then you can also add updates to your Google Business profile. It literally lets you add a picture with a description or an offer, like a special discount or an event. Right? So if you have an event coming up, you can add it here. If you have a special offer like let's say your dental practice that you wanna do, you know, a $99 cleaning, Mhmm. Then put your $99 cleaning offer in there, put your picture, add your title, add your start and end date, and there's even ability to put a link in there or a coupon code so you can link for them to redeem it where they can click the link, go to your web page, and schedule a cleaning. Right?

Mhmm.

So that's an that's a real it's a real post you do within your Google profile. A lot of people don't even use this. Our clients, they do them once a week. We actually automatically do that for them as part of our service.

Mhmm.

We post to their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the Google Business Profile minimally once a week for our lowest level client. We create the content and put it right on their social profile and put it right in their Google Business page. That helps with the local SEO, shows Google that you're going to that you're active and you're doing something with your website and your social media, and it will help rank you even higher. So those are a couple things you can do right out of the gate that are really easy plays. Like, you can you can go and do these today and start ranking higher, which is super important.

Right. Right. Right. And then we'll get the ball started. I completely understand that. But it's not just doing these few steps. There needs to be some ongoing supervision. Right?

Yeah, go ahead to finish your question, sorry.

No, I was gonna say, so for that, you know, I feel like, I'm thinking of my clients and some of the listeners that we have. You know, they have a business, they have a family, and maybe they'll pull out some time during the year to do this and they'll do it. Maybe right after listening to this podcast, they'll sit down and do it. But I'm also trying to think, I'm like, okay, but after that, somebody needs to respond to these reviews. Somebody has to, you know, if there's a negative review, somebody has to address it. And for that, they may also consider looking into a professional like yourself to oversee that.

Yeah. I mean, it's the easiest way of doing it. Right? Like, we we we're a turnkey end to end solution for them. We go in and we update and optimize the profile.

Mhmm.

We connect their social profiles. We also update them in what's called directory listings. Mhmm. There's over a 100 directories across the Internet that Internet that Google will crawl and determine if you are relevant or not. So it's called your name, address, and phone number or NAP score. And what they do is they'll look against these 100 directories to see if you're actually in those directories. Uh-huh. And, yeah, you can go and manually enter yourself, or we just we just update your profile, hit a button, and it automatically updates all 100 of these directories every month.

It'll go and check for changes and then update it automatically for you. It's called listings. If you can go and buy a feature like that for anywhere from, you know, 150 to $200 a month. Mhmm. We include it in our our our packages. We then also post to your social, post to your Google profile. And then we also automate your reviews and train your staff on how to ask for reviews. Automation is important, but having it as part of your business model and having it in your staff's head to ask and making it easy for them to get is super important.

It can't just be an automate and forget about. And I've seen customers do it both ways where they'll just automate and not do anything. And they'll get reviews. Yes. But when they automate and then make it part of their plan to ask Mhmm. They'll get 10 times as more reviews.

Right.

Because it it they're asking. Right? The guy is right there in front of me. Hey. How do we do? Mhmm. Are you happy with our plan our service today? Mhmm. Great. Do you mind doing me a favor and helping me? Oh, sure. What can I do? Can you leave me a review on Google? Here's a QR code.

Pull up your phone and scan this right now and go to that page and leave a review. How easy is that? Right? It takes a second, and you'll get that review. Right? And then boom. There you go. I have a dental practice in Atlanta. Go into Atlanta, anywhere in Atlanta, and type in dentist near me, and they're gonna be number 1. Right? They get over 40 new patients a week because they're getting constant constant reviews. Right? I know 40 a week for a dental practice is a lot.

These guys have had to hire more dentists. Wow. That's amazing. I even had he even referred me to his friend who's a mile away. I'm like, why do you wanna refer me to your competition? He's like, Darren, we are so busy right now. It's not gonna hurt us at all. Like, let him have some business. It's totally fine.

I'm like, okay. There you go. So now we're we're helping his friend right down the street. Wow. And then we're adding updates to profile. And, also, what we do is we actually have humans, not AI. Mhmm. Google will be able to detect AI.

We have humans that will respond to your reviews for you. It's funny. My daughter who's in English, she studied English, went to university, got her degree in English, and then, she runs that department.

Wow. Amazing.

Yeah. So she responds she started by herself, just responding all by herself. Uh-huh. And she decided to hire English students. She's like, look. I don't care when you work, or where you work from. Download the Google Business Profile, Google bit Google Map app onto your phone. We'll give you access to this many accounts.

And then when a review pops up, you click on it, and you respond. And you have 24 hours to respond to all the reviews you get. And we pay the staff. We pay them based on the number of clients that they manage.

Oh, that's amazing. I love that business model.

Yeah. So they they're not you know, they're making money, and it's not hard. Like, they can make, you know, a couple $1,000 a month. Mhmm. And literally just did it in there, still go to school, still have their regular life, still have their schedule.

Right.

And just on their phone and instead of going and watching Instagram. That's

right. Make some money on the side. Right?

Exactly. It's great side money, but it's it's, you know, it's it's good for them too, and it gives them a real world business experience as well. And

That's right.

And what we do is, we train them on how to do it, how to answer it. We train them on HIPAA so they're HIPAA compliant. So that way if it's a dental or a doctor or anyone in those HIPAA areas, they're not going to violate HIPAA. Mhmm. A lot of our clients are dentists, and I had one dentist that was just I don't know what he was thinking. He's just like you know, they get a bad review, and he'd go in there and just bash this person. Well, when you came into our practice to get this root canal, you didn't tell us about blah blah blah. I'm like, you are gonna get sued.

Yeah.

Like, what are you doing? It's a tip. But you're publishing to the world that this guy is a patient. You can't do that.

Right.

So so that's key. Yes. And then also, having the keywords in your responses. So if you're going to respond yourself, we're highly targeted keywords in those responses.

I would have never thought of that.

Yeah. Most people don't. They didn't realize it, but Google will index those those review responses. And they they will go through it, and they'll look. Anyway, those are those are some things that someone can do today. You know, it doesn't doesn't have to be a lot. But if you can't do it yourself, you know, feel free to reach out to us. We'll definitely show you how we do it for you.

Mhmm. And we're not super expensive. Our packages start in $200 a month. Oh, that's

very reasonable.

It's very reasonable and it's geared towards a small business. Right? We're,

we're

a small business. We want to help small businesses. And I I hate seeing these small businesses spend 1,000 of dollars on marketing products that don't get them any return. Right? You will you will make your money back. You watch. When you go and you look at your traffic, you're gonna get on Google. Right? It's it's mind altering. When you start seeing a number of people

Mhmm.

That are going seeing your profile, it will blow your mind. Right? Like, it literally will. You you just be blown away. Like, this one dental practice is getting I'm just looking at his profile right now. He's getting over 10,000 visits a month to seeing his Google profile. That's, I mean, real. Like, there are that many people searching for dentists in in Atlanta. It's mind blowing.

And that too in Atlanta. I mean, that. Wow.

That's a that's Atlanta. I mean, it's a big city. Right? So, obviously, they're gonna get a lot.

There's a lot of competition. But

A lot of competition. So it's it's you know, to keep yours to keep your Google profile above your competition, the the the one thing I recommend doing is making sure you're getting more reviews than your competitors. Mhmm. If you're constantly getting more reviews than your competitors. So look at your competitors. You can go and you can see how many reviews they have and you can see how many reviews they got last week, last month, last year. You can kind of gauge it. It takes a couple minutes of research, but you you can do it.

And when you figure that out, you can go, okay. We need to get at least 2 reviews a day. Guys, our game, 2 reviews a day. Let's go. Alright. We need 5 reviews a day. Whatever it is, you know, make it the game. Make it make it fun.

Get your team involved. Get them excited about it. Make it, you know, beneficial to them. I have one restaurant that that created QR codes for all of the sales staff, all the waiters. So the waiters get a $10 bonus if someone mentions their name in a review.

No. That's a great great idea. Great bonus system.

It's a great bonus, and the the wait staff love it, and they all play the game. They all make a ton of extra money, and this guy's got thousands of reviews because everyone's playing the game. And they ask the people that they know are happy. If the guy's pissed off and not happy with the food, they're not gonna be like, hey, you wanna leave me a review?

That's right.

Yep. Yeah. You know, it has to be it has to be a good review. That was the stipulation. You can't get $10 bonus instead of me the 1 star review.

So, yeah, ask for the reviews from the people that you think had a good experience. Don't just ask them.

That's right. And exactly. Exactly. That's that's the key, you know, and and make it personal. Make it make it help. Can you help me? Do you mind helping me? You know? And but start it with, did I help you today? Did we help you today? You happy with what we delivered? Do you feel helped? Yes. I do. I love it.

Your service is amazing. Awesome. Do you mind helping me?

Uh-huh.

Right? And then you'll be totally surprised. People love to help people that help them. They just do. Especially if they can give back. You know, it's it just makes sense.

And especially you. I'll I'll be honest with you. You know, I've interviewed so many guests with you. I can tell that genuinely genuinely you care. You've shared some nuggets out there in our episode today. And you know, what I would want to do is have you share some of your contact information on the episode so that if there's any listener that would want to dive deeper into this and get some additional, you know, ongoing help, that they have a way to reach out to you.

Yeah. Definitely. No problem. You can email me, Darren Mhmm. Atdaren@thrivereviews.net.

Mhmm.

Or you can go to our website, thrivereviews.net. You can call me at 727300 1084. That's my direct number. You can even text that number. It's a it's a textable number. So if you wanna call me, text me, email me, feel free to reach out. I'm I love helping small businesses, so I do it all day long. And it's funny because, you know, some clients we talk to, they don't have a budget, and they're brand new.

And I'm like, you know what? I'm still gonna help you. And I'll show them how to do it. I'll show them what they can do on their own. We'll walk them through it. And then, yeah, at some point, they'll probably come back and use us, or they'll tell someone else or whatever. It's just the way the universe works. You know?

Right.

You're willing to help people. People are gonna help you. It's just

That's That's awesome.

I love

that philosophy.

It is. And I I kinda decided a long time ago that I'm never going to hold my help back. I know a lot about this. I've been doing this for a long time. Right? I know how it's done, and I'm I have a lot of data on what people can do right now. I am totally fine with sharing that wisdom. If you go and you read my blogs, my blogs show you how to do everything we do. There's there's no holding back.

There's no secrets here. We do use a software to do a lot of the stuff that we do. Yeah. It's a it's a it's a super powerful software.

Mhmm.

We decided that at one point, we were building our own software. We decided to not build our software. We said we're just gonna outsource the software component to a large company that does exactly what we need to do. Mhmm. That allows us to be able to sell it for less than they would sell it to the general public because we buy it in such large quantity. Mhmm. So it makes our price points a little bit lower, makes it more affordable for the smaller to midsize business. Like our like, the software we buy, if a customer went to buy it, it would be $300 a month just for the software.

That doesn't include the optimization of the profile. That doesn't include the responding to reviews. That doesn't include the social media posts. Mhmm. Right? You know, we we have it down to a science and

Wow. That's amazing.

Anyway That's

amazing. Anyway, there should be more people like you, Darren. That's all I'm gonna say.

Thank you. I I appreciate that, and I and I agree. And I think, you know, there's probably a lot more of us out there than you would imagine.

Wow.

But, you know, I I think we've been conditioned to think that we can't give away all of the stuff we know for free or we won't make any money, and I I see it completely the opposite. That's good to know. I literally do. I think we all would end up making more money if we gave away all that we knew for free. Because, for 1, a lot of our clients aren't going to have the time to do it themselves. They're just not.

Mhmm.

They're busy.

Mhmm. So not only a great person who can help you with your Google profiles, but also a great human being. So, you know, he's dropped his, plug. So anyone out there, if you guys are interested in reaching out to him, please reach out to him. And, Darren, it was so great to have you on our episode today. Thank you.

Well, thanks so much for having me, Ash. It's been a lot of fun.

Thanks for listening today. Be sure to subscribe to Beyond by Wings on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or reach out to us on our website. You can also shoot us an email at info at e and associates dot com.