Seo For Chiropractors: How To Rank Your Business On Google

You know you are one of the best in your business niche - so why can’t anyone find you on Google? It is frustrating when you know that you are giving your best in your chiropractor's business yet sales are low, the waiting room is always empty and customers are few (I understand your pain). But that is about to change!

We live in a digital world where it is beyond having a physical location and website to have a booming business. In a world where millions of companies are trying to gain the attention of your potential customers, you need a solid SEO strategy that will put your business in the limelight where potential clients can see you and book your services.

Before we go any further on how to increase sales and expand your reach using SEO, let’s take a sneak peek into what SEO is all about and why you must pay attention to your SEO strategies.

What the heck is SEO, and why is it important?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms, SEO is all about processes and activities that are aimed at improving your website’s visibility on search engines. The higher your visibility, the higher the chances that people will click on your website, and book your services.

Let me use a scenario so that you can understand this better. Let’s say you search for ‘best restaurants in Las Vegas; there’s a 90% chance that you will click the first three pages you see on the search engine, and more chances are, you’ll get the perfect restaurant before you even exhaust the first page of the search engine. Those pages you clicked were SEO optimized, and they get 80% of all the customers looking for similar services. That’s how important SEO is

Why is chiropractor SEO marketing so important?

As a chiropractor, you love what you do. Not just that, you want more people to experience your top-notch services, generating more income for your business. Unfortunately, there are other chiropractors around that are also struggling to get the same customers that you want. So, what makes the difference between the chiropractor with space and the one who is always booked out? - SEO marketing.

SEO marketing is important to your business because

• It drives 51% of traffic to your website: Seo drives more than half of your potential customers to your website. Imagine if you are losing that amount of traffic because of a poor SEO strategy. Whew!

• It helps you become an authority in your field: Everyone wants to consult the best. People are looking for the best real estate agents, the best web designers, and the best chiropractors. With solid SEO strategies, you can improve your users’ experience and build your authority as one of the best in your field.

• 91.5% will click on the first five websites on the first page of their search results: Let me break this down. Let’s say a person searches for ‘Best Chiropractors in New York’; that person will likely click on one or more of the first five websites that pop up and will place an appointment with one of those first five websites. This means that those first five websites in your niche are getting 80% of people who require chiropractors' services in your locality! How alarming!

In the digital world, SEO is one of the make-or-break determiners of a business. That is why I want to teach you how to optimize your website in a few steps so that you can increase your sales, and with time become one of the most sought chiropractors in your state or country. So, are you ready to dive in?!

Optimize Local SEO for your website.

Most of your Chiropractor patients are around your locality and one sure way to get them to know your business is by paying attention to Local SEO. Over 46% of 3.5million daily searches on Google are focused on local businesses. People are always looking for ‘Chiropractors near me’, and the results are websites that have optimized their Local SEO. So, how do you optimize your local SEO?

• Make your information (location, phone, company name) consistent on all platforms: Google crawls your site's information to determine what your website stands for, and when inconsistency is spotted in the rendering of your location, it may affect your SEO ranking. Therefore, make sure that your NAP - Name, Address, and phone number - on every page ( the best place to add this information would be the footer area ) of your website matches your Google My Business NAP.

However, avoid putting your NAPs on an image because Google cannot crawl images, which will disadvantage your site. The best way to position your NAP for crawling is to add it to the footer of each page. You can also include it as a crawlable HTML text on your site.

• Add a location page to your website: Another way to improve your local SEO is to add a location page that contains your address, customer reviews, and other business information. Not to worry, we will get to that shortly.

• Add a Google Map on your page: You can add a Google map showing your address on your contact page.

• Optimize your Google My Business page: Optimizing your Google My Business Page (which is often overlooked by businesses) will help your local rankings. We will be looking at that in the next step.

Optimize Google My Business

Google My Business is a platform created by Google to list your business so that people in your locality can find your services and products. Unfortunately, business owners undermine the power of this tool for SEO optimization.

First and foremost, if you don’t have a Google My Business account, please create one now.

In case you already have one, let's optimize your account to get the best out of it.

Here are some things you need to pay attention to:

Your NAP

Having a different NAP from your GMB (Google My Business) can hurt your SEO ranking, decrease credibility amongst your customers, and get them confused.

For example, using 'St.' as street on all your websites, and using ‘street’ in your Google My Business listing may affect your ranking. Stay consistent even in the little details.

Address

Add your business’s physical location and your contact information. Ensure your address is clear and understandable because it will be displayed publicly. Don’t forget to outline your business contact as well. If you use a call tracking number, input that as the primary number (that is what your potential clients will see), then you can input your local number in the secondary slot.

Services

A lot of Chiropractors overlook this, but you shouldn’t. Make sure your category and services are as specific as possible. 84% of business profiles on SERPs come from discovery searches i.e. specific searches of products and services. Therefore, make sure you outline the services you provide and choose specific and related categories.

Tip: Be specific. If you are a Musculoskeletal Chiropractor, make sure to put it there. If you focus on Children's Chiropractic services, make sure to include that. Be specific to the latter.

Hours of Operation

Indicate your hours of operations and hours of holidays. Always remember to update your hours of operation when there are changes.

Images of your actual office

Another mistake I have seen business owners make on their GMB profile is either using no pictures or opting for poor-quality pictures. Include pictures of your physical locations - the exterior and interior images. This lets people know that you are an actual business. Also, include pictures of yourself when doing this. However, make sure that each of your images is of high resolution.

Tip: Make it a point of duty to upload images at least once. Businesses with photos have 35% more clicks than those without photos. Therefore, uploading photos of your services regularly is crucial.

Tip: Geo-tag your photos to increase your chances of getting discovered in your locality.

Use relevant keywords in your description.

Writing a good description under your ‘from my business’ section can contribute greatly to your GMB ranking. When writing your description, make sure you.

• Use the description to showcase what makes your business unique.

• Exhaust the number of characters available.

• Include specific keywords that your target audience will likely be looking for.

• Don’t repeat information that is already contained in other sections of your GMB

Turn on your Messenger: You can turn on your Messenger under your Google My Business profile so that your potential customers can text you directly. Doing this will save them the stress of going to your website or figuring out how to communicate with you when your profile pops up on Google searches.

Ask for reviews from every customer.

Reviews are one of the ranking factors that Google considers. That is why business profiles with more reviews rank higher on Google searches. For example, when you search for a service or product on Google, business profiles with solid reviews come first.

Google understands that reviews drive customers, and they will trust a business with numerous reviews over one with none. Besides, reviews are a great way to convince potential customers that your services are good. Statistics show that over 60% of customers check reviews before buying a thing.

Make it a point of duty to ask all your clients for review after each appointment. You can start with your long-term clients.

Here are some of the ways you can go about it.

• Make it easy for customers to leave reviews: If you want your clients to always drop reviews, make it super easy for them. You can create a review shortcut link, or add a review page to your website.

• Reply to reviews: Well, it may not seem that important but it can encourage other clients to leave reviews and also make your potential clients perceive you as someone who cares about your clients’ opinions.

• Let your customers understand the importance of leaving reviews: Another way to encourage your clients to drop reviews is by making them understand that their review is not only beneficial to your business but will also answer the pain points of other people.

Keyword research

Keyword research is one of the most important SEO strategies in a business that cannot be overlooked. So, pay attention to this section. Keyword research is not all about looking up keywords that are similar to your business, it is about looking for keywords that potential customers are searching for and will drive more traffic to your site

Find out how to carry out keyword research that will rank your chiropractor's business in weeks.

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Here are some of the ways to get the best out of keyword research

Discover and decide the keywords you want to rank for

Ever heard the phrase "It all starts with a plan?". The first thing you should have in mind are keywords you would like your business to rank for. Having some keywords you want to rank for will make the process easier. There are tools like Ubersuggest and Google Ads Keyword Planner that will help you brainstorm the keywords in your field.

Watch out for keywords with low search volumes.

Keywords with high search volumes signify that there are a lot of searches containing that keyword, which means that a lot of businesses will be targeting that same keyword. While you can implement these keywords, you must target relevant keywords with low search volumes. Keywords with little competition give you a higher chance of ranking. If done well, you will be the go-to chiropractor for clients searching for that keyword. For example "chiropractor Seattle" has a keyword difficulty of 30, which is high, for a new website, but "best chiropractor Seattle, " has a keyword difficulty score of 12, which means fewer people are competing for this keyword, and it will be easier to rank.

Also, pay attention to long-tail keywords. For example, ‘chiropractor price’ is a short-tail keyword that isn't specific enough, because the price will vary depending on the location and many other factors, Chances are, you won’t rank with that keyword. But if you target a keyword like ‘best chiropractor Seattle’; you'll have a higher chance of ranking for this keyword because of how specific it is.

Not to bore you, but I have free resources here that will guide you in performing keyword research in a few minutes. Get a copy here.

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Use the Google autofill feature.

You can also use the Google autofill feature to determine what your potential customers are looking for.

Start by typing a word on the Google search bar, you’ll notice Google completes the words for you or bring other suggestions. Those will give you a hint on what people are searching for. However, while this may be helpful, you don’t see how competitive the keywords are, which is very important when determining what keyword to use for your website.

Older websites that have established their authority have higher chances of ranking for competitive keywords, and it will be hard to outrank them. That’s why it is best to use keyword tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs, which give you accurate data on every keyword planner and target low-competitive keywords.

Google Keyword Planner gives you results of keywords that people are searching for and the search ranges, and it's a great tool to get more keyword ideas for your industry.

With Google Keyword Planner, you can discover what your potential customers are searching for and the volume of these searches. Unfortunately, it only gives the range of searches. An example of the search range is 1k to 10k, which, I think you would agree, is very broad, and it doesn't give you good data to determine how competitive those keywords are.

However, if you are serious about your SEO game, I would suggest Shineranker and Neil Patel keyword planners, these two keyword planners are more detailed and comprehensive. Fortunately, they offer free plans to test out.

When you use a keyword tool, it gives you an overview of the keyword. You get to know the cost per click, the search volume, the difficulty in ranking for that particular keyword and so much more. For example, a 100 means that the keyword is very difficult to rank, while a 0 says otherwise

Tip

• Find keywords that are less competitive to rank for. For example, try combining service with location and see what comes up.

• Try to think like your potential customers. What will they be searching for? What services will they need? This will help you discover relevant keywords that will pull your customers in

Add citations

Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (also known as NAP) on other platforms different from your business’s platform/website.

The more citations you have, the more authority of your website, which leads to a higher ranking. Citations can be structured or unstructured. A structured citation is when your NAP is mentioned accordingly on a platform, e.g. Google My Business, Yelp, Super Pages, Facebook, etc.

An unstructured citation is when one of your NAPs is mentioned in blogs, online forums, other business platforms/reviews, etc.

When building your citation, make sure each piece of information is accurate. Let your information be consistent on every platform. When your information is inconsistent, it sends a red flag to Google, which may affect the credibility and authority of your website.

How do you build your citations?

Citing your business on Google, Bing, and Yahoo local listings, data aggregators, and high domain authority sites can help you gain more visibility and better rankings in the search engines.

Many businesses have a lack of citations and this is why they struggle to rank locally. Local Search Rankings are very localized, so if your competitors are on top of search results, it means they are building citations.

To ensure your business performs better, you have to give yourself an advantage over them.

On average, you will need about 50 citations. And if you don't want to build them manually, which could be time-consuming, here is a service that can build your citation for under $50 https://www.citationbuilderpro.com/

Another great way to build your citation so that your business listing ranks is to consult a local SEO expert. I have seen a lot of business owners coming to me for SEO tips, and I discovered some little details that are impacting their SEO. You can sign up for an SEO audit of your website here.

Optimize your web pages.

Business owners usually think having a beautiful website will automatically gain their online recognition. Unfortunately, millions of websites will probably never get discovered on Google searches.

Having a website for your Chiropractor’s business is highly commendable but that won’t guarantee your website appears on search engines, it is how optimized your website pages are that will be a determining factor.

So, I am about to walk you through some ‘magic’ steps that will guarantee an improvement in your website’s SEO ranking. Let’s go!

Meta descriptions

While meta descriptions may not directly impact Google ranking factors, it still does a great job of providing optimum user experience and direction for search engines. A meta description is an HTML text that describes what your page is all about.

When writing your meta description, make sure

• It contains keywords that will help your SEO ranking

• It accurately describes what that page is all about

• It is short, concise, and straight to the point

Make sure to have at least 500 characters of written, original text on each page.

Google crawls every page on your website to find out what it is about. The content found on those websites affects your ranking. That is why it is super important to make sure that every page contains relevant keywords and has enough content of at least 500 characters of written original text.

If a page doesn't have much content, or it has duplicate text from another page, Google won't rank this page. If your website doesn't have enough content, but it is original (not duplicated from other pages), your website won't keep up with Google algorithms.

Title tags and headings

A title tag is an HTML text used to determine the importance of each sentence e.g. H1 to H6. Including appropriate Title tags and headings in your website will allow search engines to rank the importance of each section and orient search engines on what your website is about.

Not only that but having title tags and headings improves users’ experience and lets them navigate to sections they need on your website’s pages. It will be hard for your website to rank for specific searches if it doesn’t contain title tags and headings.

Therefore, make sure that each section contains appropriate headings and differentiate the importance of each section by using title tags.

Interlink pages

The power of interlinking cannot be overemphasized. You build your website’s authority and consistency when you interlink pages with one another. Interlinking means linking your content/articles or pages, like the service page or about, page to other pages on your website.

Google crawls your website to help your website run. The number of interlinked pages you have on your website will help Google determine what your website is about and the amount of authority you exercise in your business line.

The higher the links in your content, the higher the chances of ranking. Therefore, make sure you interlink similar content or pages to your website.

Optimize your images

I see a lot of websites that post images with poor quality and bad descriptions. Images and fonts contribute to the loading time of your website. The slower your website loads, the more customers you are losing. Statistics show that website conversion rates drop by 4.5%, with each second added to the average load time. Therefore, ensure that your images are web-optimized.

You can use this tool to help you reduce the size of the image without reducing its quality. https://tinypng.com/

Also, make sure you don't use too many fonts. I suggest limiting your fonts to two or three fonts. Don’t forget to edit the name of your images and add keywords. So, instead of leaving your image’s title as 234.png, add one of your website’s keywords.

Lastly, ensure that you add alt text to all your images. While alt text is for those with a disability or when your images fail to load, it can also help when Google crawls your website. Besides, adding alt text helps improve your users’ experience.

Use keywords in URLs.

Never forget this rule of thumb - Always optimize the URL of a page with keywords similar to the page’s content. Let’s say you have an About page on your website; there are millions of pages named About out there. So, instead of doing the same, use your web real estate wisely. Instead of About, name the page “Seattle-WA-chiropractor”. It's way more descriptive of what the content of the page is about, and it will help your website SEO.

Tip:

• URLs don’t contain spaces or special characters, so use hyphens to separate your words.

• Avoid using ‘and’, ‘or’ etc when optimizing your URL

Add Google Analytics to your website.

Google Analytics is arguably the best tool out there for monitoring, analyzing, and refining your traffic. This powerful tool gives you an insight into who is visiting your website, the traffic source, and the highest visited pages. If you are serious about expanding your business online, Google Analytics should be your friend.

For example, you can use Google Analytics to find out the conversion rate of your website. If one of your pages experiences high traffic, let’s say the service page, and there is an abrupt reduction in the checkout page, that will give you an insight that there are some user experience issues you should pay attention to.

Maybe the process of ordering a product is tedious or not straightforward, or the product page copy isn’t convincing enough.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that has great, useful features that can drastically change your business. To get the best out of Google Analytics, you can decide to hire an expert or read extensively on how you can use Google Analytics to your advantage.

Tip

Connect your Google Analytics with your Google Search Console to get the best out of Google Analytics:

Trust me, connecting these two tools is mindblowing! You get to experience the full features of Google Analytics when you use Google Search Console. With these two tools, you will be able to get deep insight into queries, the keywords people are using to discover your content, and the target keywords you want your pages to rank for.

Submit your website to Google Search Console

Before your website can rank, Google crawls and indexes the content on your website, and it usually takes weeks or months to get to this point. To accelerate this process, you must submit your website to Google Search Console to be crawled and indexed. Once it is crawled and indexed, your website’s rank journey starts. To submit your website, all you need to do is head over to the Google Search Console and follow due processes.

While Google may be one of the most popular search engines in the world, we still have other popular ones like Bing and Yahoo; therefore, don’t forget to submit your website to these platforms as well.

Conclusion

As a chiropractor, SEO is an important tool in your business. Your sales, expansion of your online presence, and authority depend on your SEO strategy. I have developed a few things that can change your business. If you pay attention to everything I have outlined in this article, you will see a significant change in your website ranking.

However, if you want to take it a step further or you need help optimizing your website and you don’t have a clue why your website is not ranking, you can reach out to me. We will work together to find out what is wrong and how to improve your sales.

Also, if you are a new website owner who wants to find out the best keywords that will work for you, and how to fully optimize your website, Feel free to book a consultation session with me.