The Impact of SearchGPT on Podiatry Clinics

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing. With me, as usual, every week, it is big Jim Mac. So Jim, how are doing today?

Doing alright here, Tyson. It's gray and rainy here in the Northwest, but I'm hanging in there.

Yeah. Kansas is sunny and hot. We we only have two two seasons hot and hotter. That's usually how it works. But it's no.

Well, it's been a few weeks now since I've been back from The States, and it must be even when I was over there. Oh, was that late October, early November? Even in Arizona and Nevada, you could really feel the temperatures from one week to the next just we were there for two and a half weeks, and you can feel the temperatures just dropping so fast. So we were glad we were glad to get out.

Yeah. No snow here, but it definitely is one of those things where, you know, if it's 10 degrees Celsius or around 45 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy. I honestly, I'd prefer to be around zero Celsius or, like, 32 degrees and snowing because this the wet rain is just I don't know. I I kinda forgot what it was like life was like in the Northwest. So.

Yeah. I suppose it's yeah. Because when it's snowing, it's just like it's snowing. You're ready for that. When it's at 10 degrees something, it's cold, but it's not freezing.

And if it's wet, yeah. Wet wet's never good. Doesn't matter doesn't matter where you are. If it's wet and cold, it's terrible.

No worries. Yeah. That's how it goes.

We said I'm gonna experience that in Liverpool in October in February. Somebody said, oh, you're going to Liverpool. It's cold and wet. I'm good. Great.

I'm really looking forward to it. Okay. So what are we talking about today?

Yeah. So today, we're gonna jump into a topic that's kind of brand new out there, and that's SearchGPT. And we'll talk about the kind of impact it might have for podiatry clinics moving forward. I'm sure everyone in the audience has already heard of ChatGPT and these different AI models, but SearchGPT is basically OpenAI's kind of web browser or web web search tool that incorporates some of the machine learning and AI aspects of ChatGPT, but kinda goes out and searches the web and tries to bring back different results for whatever queries or questions people are asking. Especially, you know, whenever you're looking at the search, everyone's used ChatGPT, that the area underneath the search bar now has like a little globe in it.

If you touch the globe, click on it, then it'll do more kind of a thorough online search for whatever questions you're asking or information you're trying to gather.

Is that on the paid version or is it on the free version as well?

So I believe it's on both. I have the paid version. It's definitely there. But I'm not Yes. I will.

I'm not a % sure it's on the the free version. So definitely, I'd you know, if one of the readers wants to let us know, that would be great.

Yeah. Well, I'll check this. Like, I have the paid version. So and sometimes it's hard when you have the paid version of something to try and find out what the free version looks like. But I know my wife only has a free version.

So I'll You'll have ask her.

I see. Can you give a cheap version and tell me, do you have this?

Oh, absolutely.

So so what do people need to know about this?

Yeah. So it's really important to know is that, you know, right now, the dominant player in in all kind of searches, right around 90% of all searches still happen on Google. And also, you know, things like Google reviews, Google business profile, these have a huge you know, you have to have those things optimized to really be seen locally for patients that are looking for your services. So SearchGPT has the potential to maybe disrupt some of this. You know, Google's had a monopoly for such a long period of time, And it will have an impact because, you know, a lot of even myself, a lot of people have shifted to, like, I wouldn't say totally ignoring, but definitely prioritizing Google above all other websites.

For example, you know, there's different websites like Vitals and Healthgrades and Yelp and Zocdoc where you can people can leave reviews for you. But like most people, you know, say right now, it doesn't make sense to use this other ones. You should always get Google reviews. But the thing about SearchGPT and ChatGPT is that they're kind of a competitor of Google. They are aligned with Microsoft and Bing.

Oh, yeah. So so you might see that some of these, you know, were kinda secondary review websites or search engines like Bing and stuff that, you know, those might become more popular because SearchGP is not gonna train their data on any Google properties. So they're not gonna be looking at Google reviews anymore. They're not gonna be looking at that stuff. So it's still really new, but it's something that people need to be aware of because in, you know, three to five years, maybe there's gonna be, you know, a gradual shift away from Google and its monopoly towards something like SearchGPT or maybe some competitor in the AI space we don't know about yet.

That's quite interesting because in my in the world's greatest podiatry business book, It's No Secret, It's Money in Podiatry. Back when I had hair ten years ago when I wrote that book, I actually mentioned that in the book that Google at the time is the big player. And I'm going, yeah, nearly everybody's using it. We don't know the next ten years what's going to happen. So it's quite interesting that this is what's actually happening.

They Google has dominated, but now there's a there's a new player. And and if you're using ChatGTP already for doing certain tasks, if you're there, more than likely you're gonna use it for search as well.

Now, yeah, that's that's a huge opportunity there. And like, yeah, like you were if you're getting into ChatGPT, it makes sense to use the web browser, the web search aspect of it. And another aspect that people need to be aware of too is that, you know, the the way that Google ranks pages or shows pages, you know, is very Google centric. Right? They're trying to keep people on Google properties, show Google Ads, but, you know, there could be not all users like like that aspect of things.

Right? So search GPT and other ones in the future, they might, you know, search for more instead of just using Google reviews, like I said, they're gonna use maybe seven or eight non Google review websites to try to aggregate information about you know, if you have 20 reviews on all these different websites, maybe that's a signal that search g p search g pt would prefer over, you know, 500 Google search 500 Google reviews, for example. So you might have to spread out some of the tactics or the things you're doing or the people you're working with in your marketing. They might have to change the way they're doing their work to in order to stay ahead of the curve if this becomes more popular moving forward. But, yeah, that that's definitely something to to consider.

It's exciting space, though.

It's something that's always changing. Right? Like we talked about previously, the minute you think you get it all figured out

It changes.

The second that Google's gonna cheat.

I got an email from someone today, this somebody else, I don't know, And the email that came through is a newsletter I'm part of, and it says, oh, here's the five biggest changes that Google's made last month. And when you go through them, you go, it just never stops. You constantly have to be on top of this sort of stuff. But can I just ask you a question? This going go back in history a little bit.

So Google owns YouTube, but YouTube prior to that who owned YouTube prior to Google owning it?

It was a startup. It was just a like a a start a technology startup. No really I mean, started by some, like, guys in their twenties, some technology folks. So, yeah, it was They

did well.

Not really owned by anybody large at that time.

Yeah. No. It's only because, like, Google knew or probably were aware that people are going to be using that platform to search on. So now they own And

Other

So it makes you wonder what what their response is gonna be to search GBT. They're not gonna just sit there and take it.

They'll for sure. And they already they already have their own AI model called Gemini. Right? So it's one of these things where, you know, I mean, they might and you're seeing that. And if you search Google Now on Google Now, you're gonna see a lot of AI generated results, which is not necessarily a great thing because if, you know, they may not they don't need to click to your website anymore if Google's basically, you know, utilizing all the information from all these websites and giving them answers to their questions.

They may know you know, you may see traffic go down to a lot of different websites. But it definitely is, you know, an area where, you know, potentially you know, a lot of people are very reliant on Google, you know, whether you're paying for Google Ads. They said you're trying to dominate the the the Google Maps, Google reviews. So, you know, the if you're totally reliant on Google, you may have to change the way you're doing things because there could be additional trusted platforms and other expert resources that, you know, ChatGPT or SearchGPT is using in the future. And, you know, I'll I'll outline kind of five things I think people can take action on

Yeah.

Moving moving forward to make sure that you're you know, maybe maybe it's not gonna like I said, it's maybe it's gonna be three to five years, but something to be aware of or make your marketing agency you're working with or consultant so they're staying on top of the game as well.

Yeah. Three to five years, though, is a long time in the tech industry. I mean, like I said, things just change so quickly. Like, even with ChatGDP. How how long has ChatGDP been around for now?

Maybe a couple years at its current iteration, I think.

Yeah. Maybe was it three years ago we were first talking about it on the podcast?

I'm thinking about two, but that maybe yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember when we first spoke about it, it doesn't seem that long ago, how far it's moved since then and have, you know, versions of it. And now if you mentioned chat DTP, probably if you mentioned to my mom who's, you know, almost 80, would probably know what it is. Probably would have heard people talking about it. Yeah.

It's just it just it's like common common knowledge now. So and that's only been in the last two or maybe three years. I don't think it'll be three to five years before before this just totally radically changes.

No. For sure.

So what are the five actionable insights for podiatrists?

Yeah. Number one is something we touched on a little bit already. It's just prepare for this kind of market share shift from Google. Right? So right now, they're 90%, but that is it may not stay that way forever.

So if you see Google slipping down into the eighties or the seventies, that's probably a clear signal that things are moving towards, you know, maybe it's Apple's AI, their Apple intelligence or, know, Bing Bing has a chat incorporation of some of these features. So it's something that maybe it's time to test new platforms. Right? So you have your Google business profile built out. Maybe you need to see is there an equivalent thing on Apple?

Is there something equivalent on Bing that your marketing agency or maybe yourself can go and make sure you're creating that Google Business profile on these different providers and these different platforms? Because if, you know, you don't wanna be cut, you know, kind of well behind the pack. You wanna make sure you're staying on top of things. So it's important to test some of these new platforms. Also, you wanna make sure, like, just diversify a little bit.

Or maybe if you if you already have 400 or 500 reviews and you're well ahead of the competition, maybe this time to shift over some of those those reviews to different platforms. It's you don't necessarily have to you don't wanna be so reliant on Google moving forward as long as you're super competitive there right now.

Okay. So you're saying if you've dominating Google is not stop, but just take some of that time and effort and put it into some of the other like Bing, for example, and get some reviews over there. Put yeah. Make an effort because if it does shift that way, then you're gonna be ahead of the curve again.

I just wanna be a little bit more diverse as far as making sure that at least you have an outpost there. Maybe you don't spend a lot of time with it right now, but if you see things moving in that direction where you see that if you search on search GPT and it's showing Yelp reviews or Healthgrades reviews there, you know, maybe it makes sense to to send a few reviews that way or make sure that you have your whatever the equivalent Google Business profile is set up on those different platforms because, you know, it's kinda like things change slowly and then all of a sudden, you know, it's not something that, you know, you just wanna make sure you're keeping an eye on things and you're not gonna get caught being surprised if Google gradually does go down. Because at some point in time, Google will have competitor you know, there was advertising before Google, and there'll be advertising and, marketing after Google online.

Yeah. We suppose even if you think of Facebook, for example, the people who were really smart were the ones who looked at how can you use Facebook for business. And they were the ones that were creating, like, business pages early before everybody else was actually doing it. And whether it was Instagram or even if you think of TikTok and those sort of things, there's the people who adopt these things early tend to do really well. And when and when the masses sort of follow, then the it's a lot more competitive space.

So, yeah, I think it's a good idea to get people thinking about this now.

Yeah. Also, like I talked about, you wanna strengthen your presence on multiple review sites. You don't want all of your eggs in the Google reviews basket as long as you have, you know, a significant lead. You know, if I'd say, if you have, you know, 50 more reviews than competitors or a hundred, it's time to look into maybe shifting some of your reviews over to Yelp Healthgrades vitals, not just Google. There's different types of software that can be used to really, you know, facilitate some of these other I use some software called GatherUp, and it allows you to create kind of buttons that go directly to, you know, when you send out the email or the text message, you can make sure that when they receive that and they click on the link, you can cut you know, maybe it's one month you do health grades, one month you do vitals.

There's a chance to kind of feed some of those different websites those reviews so you're, you know, more likely to maybe benefit if if SearchGPT and these other AI models are looking for non Google sources of, you know, of your expertise and and for reviews.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So what's what's the the next point?

Point three is you wanna demonstrate trustworthiness and expertise in your content. So what that means is that like the way that Google's gonna rank web pages or the way that they rank web pages right now is based off of links, kind of the the kind of the behind the scenes stuff, you know, like, is there an h one, h two? There's a lot of technical SEO aspects of things, but maybe with this search GPT, that will all change. Maybe it's how many different websites you're listed on or maybe they'll they'll rank other websites that, you know maybe it's not gonna be about links at all. Maybe it's about, you know, different types of signals that, you know, maybe it's you'll get points for being, you know if you're a speaker, maybe it knows you know, it can it can tell you spoken on this topic Yeah.

At a podiatry meeting by just the context of things that Google couldn't previously do just by crawling for links and by looking at the technical SEO of a web page. So just wanna make sure that you're kind of making, you know, good content. But also, you know, whatever whenever you do activities even outside of your website that those things are going you know, being recognized and documented somewhere online. Also, it's important to make sure you're verified on things like health grades and soc doc and just make sure that you have that verification because maybe that's something that these these AI models will look into is like, you a verified provider on different websites? Maybe it's even, you know, are you board certified?

I can kinda tell these things by having this context that just Google bots didn't have in the past.

What I find interesting with this too is especially where people will use ChatGPT to write all their content for them, and they put no thought into it. Right. So to come back to down the track, if search GQET knows that you have not put one bit of effort into the content that you've created, you've purely used them to create it for you, the trustworthiness won't be there with some of your content because it knows you're lazy.

No. Absolutely. You have to kinda create, you know, content that really is is, you know, it is relevant, but also just very engaging and very, you know, information rich. Right? So addressing concerns that, you know, patients might have is is always great information to put on your website because if people are asking for you know, have questions about different types of treatments or diagnosis and those things, obviously, you're not gonna be treating through your website and that kind of stuff, but, you know, having information on the the diagnose and treatment pages on your website that's very thorough, like, you know, because they're having some blog posts on different topics around there.

Just making sure it's readable for patients. That's something that AI might be able to tell us. Is this something that a normal patient could read and and benefit from? Because it does have like you talked about, the context is super important and certain words, not just keywords, but just the way things are written to a certain level to make sure that it's it's for the patient. Right?

We're not our websites are not for us to talk to other doctors necessarily. It's to talk to patients to make sure that they can seek great care. So you also make sure you wanna refresh content. This is something that maybe Google might do a little bit, maybe chat search GBT will do better is that, you know, making sure that information is updated. Right?

If you have outdated information that's on your website, maybe that's not something that not somewhere that search GBT would wanna send someone because, obviously, you're you're not keeping up with the the important advancements and trends in medicine. So something maybe AI will prioritize that, you know, pages are refreshed and updated to match what's in the scientific literature. Maybe they can scan a database of what the best forms of treatment are, if that doesn't show up on your website, you know, maybe you're not gonna get the traffic coming to your website. The last point I would say is just, you know, make sure you're staying agile and kinda monitor monitoring these AI driven changes. Like I said, it's not gonna happen next week.

It's not gonna happen in, you know, three or six months from now. But maybe in a year from now, maybe 10% of Google's market share in search has disappeared due to search GPT and other forms of things. Maybe maybe Gemini, their own AI agent will adapt this and maybe it'll maintain market share. But at some point in time, someone's gonna eat Google's lunch and kind of take a chunk of their market share away. So you don't wanna be so reliant on Google that, you know, your business has a negative has an event negative impact on your business because you just weren't staying on top of things.

Like I said, when you work with, you know, an expert or, you know, a marketing consultant or an agency, they'll they'll take care of this stuff for you. But being knowledgeable yourself will help you have good conversations and really make sure you're kinda like skating to where the puck is going and not necessarily where it's at. So it's a really, really important thing to to be aware of. Like I said, you know, Google kinda snuck up on a lot of old practices and a lot of folks, you know, ten or fifteen years ago, you know, they would have never considered having search ads. Right?

But now Yeah. I would say almost every good clinic is utilizing targeted search ads because they're just a high ROI opportunity for your clinic. But, you know, we don't know what's gonna happen with the search GPT. Maybe they'll have some form of paid advertising on their platform moving forward. They're gonna be looking for business models to be sustainable.

So it's one of those things you just wanna make sure you're taking action, staying on top of things. You wanna make sure that, you know, this can be a great way also, like I said, it's not just you having to do these things, but it's gonna hopefully make better pages for your patients so you can provide great care for them in the future.

Yeah. I think it's true because if you if you look at everything that Google offers and if search g t GPT, it's how you get your tongue around that sometimes, is getting into the search area, then you know eventually it's gonna get into the analytics. It's gonna get into the advertising video. There's gonna be so many aspects of it if it's going to become the main competitor. Maybe.

It may not. It might some might be something completely new Might come up and just shocks us all.

Yeah. A lot of people are wondering it's gonna be you know, there's all this search engine optimization people do to try to make their websites rank well on Google. Right? Everyone's looking for what do I need to do to make sure my websites are ranking well on these AI driven driven search engine. So, yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see the next, you know, six months, year, few years down the road what happens in this area.

So and if anybody has any questions on this or they're looking for someone, reach out to you. You can help more out with all this.

Yeah. I'm happy to help help them learn about their their options and opportunities and help them stay on top of the direction this is moving.

Okay. Anything else on this subject before we wrap up?

No. I think that's good, Tyson.

Okay. Big Jim, I look forward to talking to you next week. And what's the next week's topic? Do you know what yours is gonna be?

I have to look at the schedule. I'm not sure.

I just thought I'd throw it there. I knew you wouldn't remember. It is I know what yours is. It well, it's probably gonna change. I'm not gonna say it.

Okay.

Because mine might change as well. So I I see you know what I like?

I love this It's a cliffhanger.

I like this combination of because we look at marketing differently. You you're very much the in the online world of doing all that sort of stuff. And I'm more the feet on the ground traditional type.

Operations.

Yeah. More operational marketing. Whereas, like, I I totally understand how the chat GTP and the guru. I understand how that works, but I don't I don't do the nitty gritty of it. I would say to Bill, hey, this is what you need to do.

This is the game plan. Your ideal client, let's work for that, and then you're gonna talk to him and get it get get all the boxes ticked. So it's good collaboration, which was one of our early I think it was our first podcast we did together, wasn't it? On Podolsky Legends was the benefits of collaborating with other other people.

Absolutely.

Okay, big Jim. I will talk to again next week.

Have a good time.

Okay. See you.

Bye now. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.