The Evidence Based Chiropractor Blog
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Chiropractor SEO Tips and Strategies: How to Improve Your Google Ranking
With the surge of websites on the Internet, it is essential to use SEO optimization tips to have a high Google ranking.
SEO is a powerful marketing trend you can use to make it easier to get traffic to your chiropractic website.
Optimizing your website is not as difficult as you may think. This is a process that requires simple SEO tips and tricks to get your website to stay on the first page of search results.
Follow these SEO techniques to improve your website ranking.
SEO Tips and Tricks
The most important step for the optimization of your website is to perform keyword research. People buying products on the Internet type specific keywords in search engines to locate websites.
Choosing relevant keywords and optimizing them increases the visibility of your website. There are various online tools you can use to check the search volume for keywords that pertain to the products you're selling.
Use this SEO practice to generate frequent traffic from your target audience. Keyword research contributes to your ranking potential in Google listings.
Update Your Website with Interesting Content
Do you update your chiropractic website with fresh content?
Sticking to a content strategy ensures your website will stay active. You can retain your first-page position in search engines implementing this strategy.
Without regular updates, your website will become inactive and your online visitors may lose interest. That is why you need to put in the effort to increase your traffic with health content that people want to read.
Perform Social Media Optimization
You can achieve a great web presence for your business using social media optimization techniques. This is an important step that is sometimes overlooked.
When you use optimization techniques on social media platforms, more people will find your profiles. This step makes the process less complicated for people to connect with you and to discover your chiropractic website.
Popular social media sites have high web authority. So, you can develop quality backlinks leaving your website link on these sites.
Even if you have a new business, you can still reap the benefits of creating social media profiles and writing information about your business. This helps to inform the public about your chiropractor business and allows you to build your target audience.
You can also add social media buttons to your blog or website. It is easier for people to share your content when you integrate these tools on your site.
To retain an increase of traffic to your social media profiles, you need to use keywords. Optimize your social media profiles with relevant keywords that search engines will find.
It is also necessary to target the right keywords and phrases in your social media posts.
Remember, consistency is key for your social media optimization strategy. Build relationships on social media sites and be consistent with the content you create. Use this strategy to improve the organic search results of your site.
Boost Your Website Ranking With Mobile Optimization
Why is mobile optimization so important to website owners?
Millions of people use mobile devices to find services and to buy products on the Internet. For this reason, you need to make your website mobile-friendly.
Focus on adjusting your website to suit the needs of your mobile visitors. People using mobile devices should have an easy time navigating your website to learn about your business and buying products.
How should you optimize your site for mobile devices?
Optimize your content and videos to make them compatible with mobile devices.
Use high-quality images and optimize them.
Use a responsive website design.
Make your website scrollable. With a scrollable website, a mobile user has quicker access to your information, your site is more interactive, and there are no interruptions.
Write short paragraphs for your mobile visitors. This makes it less challenging for people to read your content.
Having a mobile-friendly website assures you that people will have a quality experience.
Optimizing a website can lead to an increase in conversions, the pages load faster, and meet the expectation of online users.
Use Influencer Marketing
Reach your target audience and drive traffic to your website with influencer marketing.
Influencers play a major role in your SEO strategy. Influencers such as bloggers, forum users, and other online professionals can help to boost your website ranking.
The best influencers have high domain authority websites.
Getting a backlink from these sites to your website increases your website visibility in search engines. Influencers are also beneficial for generating a buzz about your business and writing about your chiropractic practice on their sites and blogs.
Get Multiple Reviews
For your local search ranking, you can get multiple reviews. Business reviews can raise the visibility of your website. There are many places on the Internet for people to write reviews.
Patients that are happy with your service will be eager to leave a five-star review. Good reviews also help to attract new patients to your practice.
A consistent stream of positive reviews can increase your ranking on Google.
Implement the Best SEO Trends
Maintaining your position on the first page of Google is critical.
Devise a comprehensive marketing plan that improves the exposure of your website.
Since search engine optimization techniques are constantly changing, you need to be aware of the newest techniques. By learning about the latest SEO tips and tricks, you have the chance to increase the performance of your website.
If you enjoyed reading this article, visit our website to listen to our podcast.
Optimizing Your Chiropractic Website for Free Organic Traffic
There are only two ways to get traffic to your website: organic (free) or ads (paid).
Why is traffic to your website so important? New surveys show that over 75% of your patients will visit your website before scheduling an appointment in your practice.
With a majority of your future patients visiting your site before scheduling their appointment, your website must be a significant part of your overall chiropractic marketing strategy.
The quality (and content) present on your website can attract or repel patients. It can make or break your practice.
Ideally, your website should be optimized for chiropractic specific SEO and generating at least 80% of its traffic organically. You may want to supplement or add to your free traffic by occasionally purchasing ads. But be careful, just like a drug, you don't want to become addicted to paid traffic. The price will continue to rise, and the results will continue to diminish over time.
Optimizing Your Chiropractic Website
Here are a few simple tips to help search engines understand the content on your site.
1. Look good in the search results using the tips below.
A. Your page title is used as a suggestion for the title in search results. Describe your business in a concise, informative phrase. Your title tag should be descriptive of your practice as well as enticing.
B. Domain names are an essential part of search results. Choose a descriptive and easy-to-read domain name for your website. Sub-pages should also be easy to read. For example, use www.stellachiropractic.com/services instead of www.stellachiropractic.com/prodid?12345
C. Meta descriptions are page summaries often used by search engines on the search results page. Write unique descriptions for each page in 160 characters or less. Be sure to include your targeted keywords in the meta-description. The goal of your meta-description is to entice the person searching to click on your website.
2. Help search engines understand Your images
Images on your website can either dramatically help or hurt your ability to be found on Google. Large images can slow down your website and cause your rank to suffer. Once you compress your images using a tool like Squash, you'll want to use the following three tips to help the search engines understand the pictures on your website.
A. Give your pictures short, descriptive file names.
B. The “alt” attribute describes the image. This helps search engines understand what’s in the picture.
C. Write a short caption on the page below each image. Put important information in the text rather than images.
3. Update, keep going, and stay consistent
Provide useful content and keep it up to date
Your website is like a virtual storefront. You wouldn’t leave a store unattended for six months. Keep your site fresh by starting a blog, announcing new products, services, and special events. Remember to put yourself in your patients' shoes and make sure you provide them with the information they need.
If you need help updating the content on your website check out The Smart Chiropractor. We provide docs with all of the content they need on their website, social channels, and more to get more new patients, attract more followers, and drive more visits to their website.
More information and support directly from Google
Google’s Webmaster Academy offers free step-by-step lessons and short instructional videos.
Looking for more advice on how to optimize your website? Read Google’s SEO starter guide:
Google’s free Webmaster Tools helps you understand and improve your website, get timely alerts on problems, and find answers to questions.
Chiropractic SEO | 3 Tips to Rank Higher on Google
Here are three simple and easy to implement tips to help your chiropractic practice rank higher on Google using SEO.
Marketing your chiropractic practice through search engine optimization, or SEO is critical as patients search online for doctors before making an appointment.
Here are three simple and easy to implement tips to help your chiropractic practice rank higher on Google using SEO.
Marketing your chiropractic practice through search engine optimization, or SEO, is critical as patients search online for doctors before making an appointment.
SEO that is "working for you" can help you climb up those Google rankings, get more exposure for your practice,, and ultimately see more new patients walk through your front door .
The Top 3 Chiropractic SEO tips are
Compelling headlines- how to create clicks and drive traffic
Imaging sizing- keep your page speed lean and mean
Update your content- Google likes new stuff, don't let your website get digital cobwebs
1. Compelling Headlines
How to create clicks and drive crazy traffic
Your headlines, or subject line, is the "hook" of your article. Is it compelling enough to get people to click?
There is a fundamental framework that you can utilize to make sure that you have a compelling headline- ask a question, solve a problem, and include targeted or specific keywords.
Asking questions is pretty straightforward. "Have you been suffering from chronic headaches? Discover how the experts find relief" would be an example. If a person in your community was searching for information regarding chronic headaches- I can nearly guarantee they will click to discover your information based off of that headline.
The second headline tip involves problem-solving. Try creating a compelling headline focused on the benefit or solution you can provide to the most commonly asked questions in your community. For example, "3 Exercises to Eliminate Low Back Pain" is an excellent example of a headline that peaks interest, hints at solving a problem, and has the potential to stimulate a lot of clicks!
And as always keep your targeted keywords in mind. In the above examples, I included "chronic headaches" and "low back pain" in my headline to get extra Google juice by adding the keywords in the title!
This table will help you get started:
2. Image Sizing
Google loves a fast website (and pictures slow things down)
Today's modern websites are typically loaded with beautiful pictures. The catch is that every single one of those pictures takes up a lot of "space" on your web server. When someone heads over to your website, Google has to queue up the images so your visitor can see them.
If your photos are big (and you have a lot of them), this can end up costing you precious seconds of load time. And the slower your load time becomes, the more likely it is that you are going to be pushed down the Google rankings.
Slow load time is considered poor user experience, and Google will do anything possible to eliminate it. I recommend asking your website provider if all of your images have been squashed (literally)! Software tools like Squash allow you to trim your image sizes but up to 90%, while they stay looking sharp and crisp.
Even squashing just a few pictures can make a dramatic difference in your overall page speed.
So speed up your Web page. Better that user experience and help Google push you up by keeping your image size small.
3. Updating Your Content Consistently
No one likes digital cobwebs
Let me set the stage. You're excited to buy a new product after you hear all about it from your friends.
So you head online and click over to the website only to discover it hasn't been updated since 2014...
Hmmm...now you're wondering- will they ship the product if you order it? Have they changed business models? Is anyone home?
It doesn't inspire confidence!
The same applies to your website. People are skeptical of chiropractors, to begin with. If a prospective new patient heads over to your website and it looks like it was created back when "dial-up" was a thing- there is a high likelihood they will keep looking.
Also, by not updating your content- Google will start to push you down the rankings slowly. And your competitors, who are producing a bunch of updated content, will overtake your coveted positioning- taking your traffic and your patients with them.
Not sure if you can keep up with the content? Join us at The Smart Chiropractor, where we will give you everything you need to stay up to date (blog posts, social graphics, videos, videos scripts, patient handouts, and more.). Or look at your websites greatest hits. If you have some previous blogs that performed well and get a ton of traffic, update them every year or two!
So in short, make your headlines compelling, keep your image sizes down and make sure that you are updating the content on your website. Those are three key aspects to help Google help you push you up those rankings get more people onto your Web site more traffic to your website and ultimately more people into your practice.
If you loved that information, be sure to subscribe to The Evidence Based Chiropractor YouTube Channel. Each week we put exclusive videos at the intersection of marketing and research, showing you how to grow your practice.
Create a Chiropractic Blog to Drive Massive Free Traffic with SEO
SEO or search engine optimization is how people find your website when they search Google for a chiropractor. Being at the top of the list is crucial. But you can you get there for free? Consistent, high-quality blogging!
SEO or search engine optimization is how people find your website when they search Google for a chiropractor. Being at the top of the list is crucial. So how can you get there for free? Consistent, high-quality blogging!
Blogging is essential if you want to drive massive traffic to your website and more new patients into your practice. When you have a blog that you actually update, it is going to get more people onto your site, it's going to get more people into your practice, and it is going to help spread your message- your unique health care message- in a way that gets maximum impact.
Your Chiropractic Blog Can Drive MASSIVE Free Traffic to Your Website via SEO
So when I say blog, you might be thinking, "those things have been around forever. I don't know if it's right for me, it seems kind of passe". I want you to get that out of your mind. Blogging gives Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all the other search engines an opportunity to find your practice.
If you have a website and it's just a single page, like a click funnel, but you've made it awesome and loaded it with keywords, you are still fighting an uphill battle! That page is only a single opportunity to showcase to the search engines what you and your practice are about. I want you to have hundreds, if not thousands of opportunities to showcase your practice! That is why blogging is so important.
So I want you to think of a blog like multiple opportunities to show different facets of you and your practice to the public, to the community, to your audience, because that's really what a blog is all about. It gives you the ability to have your own territory and not rely only on Facebook or Instagram or all these other channels and platforms that can change their algorithm any day of the week. Controllable assets, like a website and blog, are a great thing to have a business and market effectively over a long period of time.
Every time you publish content to your blog it gives you the opportunity to control your message. And these messages can grow over time. Keep in mind that every chiropractic blog that you produce gives Google an opportunity to "see" your keywords. So if you have ten blogs posts, fifty blog posts, or one-hundred and fifty blog posts you have the chance to exponentially increase the number of keywords that you're hitting relative to your practice. And it also gives all of the search engines a great deal of context for what you're practice focus. Maybe it's natural healthcare, alternative healthcare, chiropractic fitness, stem cell, multidisciplinary care. Either way, by consistently publishing blog content you will be providing more information to hype your SEO. And the more data that you provide to Google, the more information that you put out there, the better job it can do to find the right people to get to your website.
Search engines are in the business of serving up the best and most specific answer to a query on their platform. That is why a blog is by far and away the best way to improve your search engine optimization. The other thing that is fantastic about a blog is that over time it can evolve. It doesn't need to be your" grandfather's blog" where it's just text on a page.
You can make it engaging with pictures.
You can add in video content.
You can even add infographics and gifs.
As the search engines have increased their abilities throughout the last five to ten years, their ability to understand images and video embedded into your blog has dramatically increased. So what do I mean by that? Previously it was only the keywords was all about the words on the page. But now the pictures themselves give context clues to the search engines. When you give Google more data, it will find highly relevant people to give your page more exposure. These people are more likely to come in and be patients.
Adding video and images also gives you the opportunity to have that page becomes more dynamic. If a patient or person goes to your blog and it's just a million words on a page, and it looks like the next great American novel, it's difficult for somebody to get through. Mostly, it's poor user experience. But if you see a paragraph, and then there's a beautiful picture, another paragraph, and perhaps a little video- now your blog starts to become a really compelling piece of your website that can keep people engaged for a long time.
And guess what happens?
The longer people stay on your page, the higher the page will rank in Google. They love people hanging out on the page because in Google's mind that means you are delivering the goods. Your page gave the exact information that the individual person was looking for. And when somebody hangs out on your page for a while and clicks around, in Google's mind that tells them, they did a good job matching you up. Guess what happens as that starts to occur across multiple pages?
Your overall ranking will go up, and you will start to drive massive traffic to your website with organic search engine optimization.
You can almost think of it like lottery tickets. If you have just a home page or only one blog you have one ticket to win. You don't have a high probability of getting the jackpot. But if you create high-quality content across hundreds of blogs, your essentially buying hundreds of lottery tickets. You just dramatically increased your chance to win!
Tactical Tips to Improve Your Blog and SEO
One tactical tip when you put out a blog is really try to stay above 350 or 400 words. Now you don't need to go up to 8,000 or 10,000 words necessarily, but if you can get between 300-1200 words, you're in a great spot. If you only have 50 words on a page and maybe one image, the search engines may believe you have a "landing page" or squeeze page and Google will begin to steer traffic away from that page. If you have at least 300-ish words in the blog, then you are telling Google that you have done your homework that you have put some time into providing context for your information. Getting over 300 words will also keep people on your page longer and allow you to hit more keywords.
Finally, remember to keep your blog dynamic. If you have a video relevant to that topic of the blog, put it in the middle of it. It's a great way to get engagement, grab additional keywords, and to keep people excited about your content. If you have a beautiful picture, throw that on there and share it to Instagram.
The bottom line is that if you put out high-quality content consistently over a long period then you will be rewarded with a massive influx of organic, free traffic to your website. So if you have been on the fence about starting a blog, you can clearly see I would encourage you to do so. Blogging allows you to climb the rankings on Google, drive more traffic to your website, established subject matter expertise and more. It has been one of the biggest reasons The Evidence Based Chiropractor has been successful for many many years. You can do the same for the people in your community, and build your practice in the process!
If you have any questions about blogging or any questions on platforms, leave them down below. I'll be happy to answer any question that you might have, and that is why you need to start a blog today.
Chiropractic SEO- Your Guide to Rank #1 on Google
Chiropractic SEO, or search engine optimization, is a crucial component of modern chiropractic marketing. Learn the system we have used to get top rankings in Google!
SEO. Oh sweet SEO.
Search engine optimization.
This is probably the most important and most misunderstood aspect of building a website that converts prospective patients or visitors into actual patients.
The reason SEO, or search engine optimization, is so important is approximately 70% of clicks go to native search results (not ad’s). And, approximately 70% of clicks go to the top 5 results for the keyword which is searched.
So yes, if you search YOUR CITY CHIROPRACTOR and you are not in the top 5 results then it is very likely you are getting next to zero clicks to your website.
And often, being in the top 5 doesn't cost any money at all. You just need to give Google the information necessary to find you. You need to be a relevant result.
Remember that all of your marketing efforts work together. They should play nice. When you have good traffic coming in daily from Google this will help build your email list (a certain percentage of visitors should always convert to your email list via an opt-in).
Then you should use your Facebook pixel to re-target these visitors on social media. Even more advanced marketers could use a pixel from Perfect Audience and begin re-targeting across the entire web.
Personally, this is something I overlooked for a long time with The Evidence Based Chiropractor. But then, I saw Tommy Griffith, SEO Chief at AirBnB and formerly of Paypal, speak and it started to all come together.
I am willing to bet their are a few very simple tweaks you can make to your website right now that will boost your Google rank.
I bring up Google because they account for nearly 85% of search engine queries. For local businesses lets face it- Google is the master and we are all puppets.
The challenge with Google is they pretty much don't release any data on how or why they make any decision regarding search ranking.
Thanks Google.
But, all is not lost. We (and by “we” I mean people way smarter than me) have figured out the how and why of Google results.
This topic alone could take up thousands of pages in a book, but we will break it down to a few simple keystones you can implement immediately.
Here are a few tools you should be using and we will dive into what each one does.
Jump to a specific part of the article by clicking the link below:
WEBMASTER TOOLS
MOZ
PAGE SPEED
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools, now known as Google Search Console, is ground zero for optimizing your chiropractic SEO. Basically, this tool will show any “problems” with your website.
See, Google can be finicky. If it encounters a problem with your website they know the user experience will not be great.
User’s don't like problems.
Potential new patient’s don’t like problems.
Google doesn't like problems.
And you get slapped on the wrist. Which means you get a lower ranking for errors on your website.
The nice thing is that Google will tell you about every error. But you need to ask. And the Google Search Console is the place to ask. You just quickly enter in your URL and it will give you a variety of tools to look at any problems with your website.
Also, you can upload a sitemap. A sitemap is literally a “map” of your website. This gives Google additional information to easily crawl, or search, your website. That is a good thing because it will give them additional information to match your site to potential visitors.
So, when you first get into the Search Console you will be able to see your Crawl Errors, Search Analytics and Sitemaps. Sound complicated, but its not.
The Crawl Errors are when Google is having a hard time finding content on your site. Essentially, they are “error” which is making it confusing for your content to be found. Not a good thing.
But, you can check your Crawl Errors at anytime and correct them. Thank you Google.
Next we need to look at Search Analytics. Using Google Analytics is one of the best ways to discover the nitty-gritty of your content and its performance. However, Search Analytics is also a nice little tool for you to take a quick look at your progress (or lack of progress).
Finally are Sitemaps. As we reference above, a sitemap is literally a map of your site. It allows Google to quickly find and index the content on your site. The easier you make it for them the better your results will be. So make sure you have an updated sitemap uploaded. Usually you can find them as an extension of your site with .sitemap/xml
MOZ
Moz is an awesome service company that provides super-high quality web analytics. Basically, they have a tool set that gives you a plethora of information to make your site more Google friendly.
Their suite of tools includes an open site explorer, SEO tool, Keyword search tool and others. Keep in mind some of their tools are paid and not free. And the paid tools are best for professional SEO specialists and marketing types in larger companies.
For most chiropractors they are overkill (they are professional marketing level products) and won’t give good return (they are also somewhat pricey).
BUT, their free tools are exactly what you need to help build a great online home.
Let’s look at a few tools.
The Moz open site explorer tool should be an essential part of your chiropractic SEO toolkit. This tools allows your to research backlinks, finding backlink opportunities and get a fantastic overall feel for your website.
Everything that Moz creates is very easy to use. And Open Site Explorer is no different. Simply enter the web address you want to investigate into the search bar and click search (also great for searching competitor’s sites).
The Moz tool with then create a complete profile of your page including Page Authority, Domain Authority, Inbound Links, Social Media links.
Links to your site are still an essential component of getting great SEO. This Moz tool will help you see where you stand. Also, don't forget that you can pump in your competitors website also and see who is linking to their websites. This will give you a great opportunity to reach out if you have a piece of content which is more complete or more current. In other words, Moz Site Explorer is one of the best “research” tools out there. You can literally build a list of opportunities to improve your sites SEO.
Domain Authority and Page Authority are proprietary Moz stats/numbers that help determine your link authority. They analyze the potential of your page/site based on a variety of factors (including links) and then give you an easy to digest number.
The higher the better. For instance, Wikipedia has a Domain Authority near 100. That’s a nice place to be!
But, do not be discouraged if your Domain or Page Authority is not 100. It may even be around 20. It’s ok. It takes time. But as you develop a ton of links from reputable site (with high domain authority) you will notice that your SEO begins to improve and you will place higher in the organic search results for your targeted keywords.
PAGE SPEED
Checking your page speed is also a really good idea. If you website is loading slow it will affect the ranking, but it will also make it much more likely that a visitor gives up before even reaching your homepage.
In the game of page speed- seconds matter.
Reducing your loading time by literally 1 second can make a HUGE difference in user experience. And when Google is ranking search results it will nearly always choose the faster site to list above the slower site.
And don't forget mobile!
Almost 50% of all web traffic is now mobile. Fortunately a vast majority of website are now mobile friendly. Make sure yours is. This is not an option. You site has to be mobile friendly to compete in search rankings now.
The biggest issue my website had initially was image size. “Big” images can drastically slow down your website loading time. It is really really easy to resize images that load 10 or even 20 times faster. Sometimes the resizing of images will be called “compressing” images. For our purposes its the same thing. Reducing the file size to improve load time.
There are a few other items which can really drag down your page. They are:
Page Speed Drags
Remember, improvements to your page speed work in 2 primary ways.
First, you can decrease your load time. This will help keep people from pogo sticking off of your website, which is a huge killer of SEO.
Second, it will give you an advantage other other pages with similar content.
The bump in SEO for page speed is all about user experience. Google wants happy searchers and quick load times are a big first step.
So there you have it. A few simple steps you can dive into to boost your page UP the ranking chart and get more eyes on your practice and more people in your front door.