(Entry was posted by Michael W. Roberts on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 07/18/2013).

Should we spend more time going after third-party listings?

A few questions for your SEO`ers out there.

I`m doing a lot of work with doctors and medical practices now. When we work with the medical practice, we have a fairly straightforward time of setting up and verifying local listings. When we work with individual doctors, it gets a little more complicated.

Doctors must use the same phone number on their websites as the hospitals with which they are affiliated. Additionally, doctors working with larger hospitals have answering services on the phone instead of an individual operator.

The Questions
Should we spend more time going after third-party listings like Healthgrades, Vitals.org, etc? These web properties don`t provide a link, but they do help patients find the doctors.

Is there "SEO value" to claiming these listings?

Thanks for the help!

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Justin Y: I'd say yeh. In this current situation I think it helps expand their reach but the only downfall is being able to track where the leads are coming from. It's still a citation with or without a link.
Those are my thoughts.
Santiago Ibarra Cáceres: I don't understand what you are trying to achieve? What are your goals? Are you trying to improve the Doctors' websites rankings?