SCAM Alert - Google My Business

We hear you've been getting calls and even we get calls. A strange number rings, there's often a pause, and then a recorded message states:

Dear Business Owner, Numerous attempts have been made to verify your business location. This is our last attempt to reach you. Your business is at risk to be removed from Google's Search Results. Press #1 to speak to a Google Operative Now.

Sounds important, right?

Well, it's a scam.

Is Google removing your reviews? This might be why...

A case of disappearing reviews and what to do about it…

By: Johanna Bannis

According to the 2017 Local Consumer Review Survey, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation - an important statistic when growing your business. As such, they can play such an important role in the ongoing success of business practice. So what happens if reviews that you work hard to cultivate are being removed? Business owners are confused as to why some reviews are being removed from Google. Particularly, it seems strange that a review can be published and then, not long after, mysteriously disappear.
Well, there's a reason for this:
Google has specific criteria for reviews and may filter any reviews (over time) that don't adhere to it.
You may inadvertently be asking for reviews incorrectly, or have otherwise run afoul of the rules without realizing it. If you've checked out the Google criteria and still don't feel that the reviews should have been removed, then continue reading to find out if any of these situations below apply to you.

Tips for Creating Mobile Friendly Newsletters

It's no surprise that mobile usage in recent years has increased drastically. Today's mobile users often consider phone calls and text messages secondary functions on their devices, while everything from using social media apps, browsing the web, and of course checking emails are their primary uses. As of March 2017, data shows that 54% of emails were opened on a mobile device. That number continues to increase.

If you're using email newsletters as part of your practice's marketing strategy, it is important to create mobile friendly e-blasts so your message is delivered and properly displayed to all your recipients. To make your newsletter mobile friendly, here are a few tips to help guide you during design.

Related Article: 5 Examples of Great Dental Newsletter Practices

  1. A Clean, Responsive or Single Column Design

  2. When optimizing for mobile, it is important to realize that the limitations of screen space is the primary driver. Crowd it at your peril. Mobile users are willing to scroll down the screen, but not pinch and zoom in to read through the text.

    A responsive template uses CSS to help control the layout of the e-blast on various screen sizes, most usually displaying multiple columns on a desktop, and single column on smaller screens.

    A Single Column layout is an even simpler responsive layout that stretches the width of a single column up to a usual maximum size of about 600 pixels (which will increase as screen resolution gets better and better over time.

    Either solution, will allow you to create a design that is mobile friendly, concise, and to the point, providing an optimal experience for your readers. A single column template becomes the lowest-common-denominator approach, while a responsive design allows you to take more advantage of desktop sized screens. Why not always go responsive? Because there are a surprising number of mail apps that don't yet fully support the CSS media queries’ which enable this functionality. So you might end up doing extra layout work that can't be taken advantage of on some email apps.
    Remember, the greater the viewing experience, the higher amount of engagement, and the less chance of unsubscribers.

    Here's an example of a newsletter for Toronto Children's Dentist, based on a 600 pixel wide responsive design. Much of the content is split into two columns on the desktop and shows as one column on smaller screens with the images shown above each text section.

16 Things to Do Along the New TTC Extension

By: Aiman Ghori and Faiza Akbar with an introduction by Oren Baum


Infrastructure projects like subway extensions are once in a generation in most parts of this country. They help connect all citizens and expand our knowledge of the place we live. As part of UpOnline's Canada 150 activities, we decided to send staff to visit the new Line 1 subway extension in our hometown, and take a different perspective: Instead of all the great sights, sounds, and other benefits that commuters now have in getting downtown (or anywhere along the way) quickly, what do midtown and downtown Torontonians, many without cars, now have access to by going NORTH on the new extension!

You might even find some new destinations for you and your families this holiday season. Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year from everyone at UpOnline!
  1. Downsview Park Station
  2. Downsview Park is the first stop on the new line one extension. Surrounded by an industrial area it is located in Canada's first national urban park of the same name. Its design uses a unique combination of colors and textiles to creating a dynamic atmosphere that reflects the surrounding area.

    There are several family friendly activities that you can now visit thanks to the construction of this stop.

3 Rules for Creating Interactive Content


By: Aiman Ghori
Marketing on social media is not like marketing on legacy mediums like television or newspapers. Websites like Facebook and Twitter allow for heightened immediacy in interaction between buyers and sellers that the previously mentioned mediums do not allow. This has led to the development of a whole new set of rules when creating content for prospective clients.
Customer engagement, service visualization, and content customization are some of the few elements that can and should be refined as much as possible to incite customers to interact with your office.
Below we outline 3 rules to keep in mind when creating content for your practice.

Customization

By trying to cast a wide net and appealing to a large audience, chances are you won't appeal to many. Audiences are usually able to easily differentiate between meaningful content and content that is generic. Content that is personalized and contextualized for a specific audience is more likely to attract user engagement. Content, whether it's a social media post or a blog post, can be as broad as users who live in a specific country, or as narrow as targeting neighbourhood blocks. There is a heavy saturation of content online and users are constantly receiving an influx of information as well as ads telling them to buy their product or service. However personalization allows your practice to gain the attention of prospective customers.

There is plethora of variables you can use to identify the kind of audience you want to attract and ultimately engage with, but that is only the beginning of customizing your content. From there you have to decide what the best way is to use the information you have on prospective clients and how to make the content interactive to keep them engaged with your practice.

Read More: 9 Benefits of Having a Newsletter for Your Healthcare Practice

Interactivity

Now that you have an idea of who you want to customize your online content for, it's important to figure out how to implement it. After attracting consumers to your service, you want to keep them engaged and turn them into customers. This is where interactivity comes in. If your audience comes to your social media page or opens your e-newsletter and finds there is no meaningful content they value, they will leave pretty quickly and most likely will not come again. So, it's crucial to create a unique interactive experience that will keep them coming back every time you post or send an e-newsletter.

Some ideas to throw around are: online polls, infographics, and possibly the simplest, genuinely engaging with users through comments or emails.

Online polls allow you to ask your audience directly what is it they want from you or the industry in general. Polls are a great way to find out how you can customize your content further. Using the results from those polls you can create engaging infographics that can be displayed back to the contributing audience. In this way they will be connecting with you as well as others in our audience. Try mixing and matching different ways to interact with prospective clients to find the one that works best for your practice.

Read More: Are You Using Social Media to its Full Potential?

Value

In the midst of all this content creation and interactivity it's easy to see your audience as a target rather than what they are, individuals. Individuals appreciate being valued and feeling that the service provider genuinely cares about their needs so the newsletter article you are sending them or Facebook post you're showing them should reflect that. Consumers in this time lean towards practices that put in extra time and effort to reach out to them and acknowledge their loyalty if they are a long time customer. This doesn't have to stop at a generic thank you, although that is very important as well, but goes beyond that. Personalization and interactivity should be interwoven in the way you appreciate customers/patients as well as in the content you create to attract prospective clients.

Read More: How to Capitalize on User-Generated Content

Making regular content for your online pages and newsletters is already a step in the right direction to gaining interest in your practice and the rules outlined above will only boost your image. Personalizing your messages to cater to your specific audience and keep them engaged with interactive content will build brand loyalty. Patients will appreciate the effort put in to give them meaningful information that is relevant to their needs.

To learn more about how to customize your online content and how it can benefit your practice, contact an UpOnline representative today.