Chiropractic SEO In 2017

Last Updated: May 6, 2019

Chiropractic SEO or search engine optimization is a confusing topic for most doctors. To most chiropractors SEO is a mysterious term that is thrown around by chiropractic marketing companies. It's more simple than you are lead to believe and in this post I hope to shed some light on what it's all about in 2017.

What Was SEO In The Past?

SEO used to be about fooling Google. It was a silly game of building junky backlinks, doing blog comments, and creating useless profiles to make your office look more popular to Google. It was a game of building the biggest pile of garbage and whoever had the biggest pile of garbage won. At one point in my years as a chiropractor I had a computer running three installations of Microsoft Word each of which had three installations of SENuke (My favorite SEO program at that time).

I was literally building over one hundred thousand junky backlinks to my website. Towards the end of the dark ages of SEO that was the game and it took that level of junky backlinks to compete. It was a relief when Google dropped the hammer.

The Lights Went Out

Around 2012 Google started handing out penalties to websites that it felt were cheating the system. Basically everyone doing SEO was cheating Google so the industry went into chaos. Overnight huge companies went out of business. I used to wake up every morning with my box full of new SEO advice from top guru's. After the hammer came down the SEO world went silent. No one was talking because no one knew what to do.

Where SEO Is In 2017

Today SEO is no longer about cheating Google. It is instead about providing excellent information that Google and it's users want to see. It's about having a very well designed website that pleases Google and provides a patient what they want quickly and efficiently.

Google has gone from looking at a small factor like backlinks to looking at hundreds of variables. Google also uses Rank Brain today. A learning program that can change the important ranking factors as it sees fit. This means that there is no longer any effective way to game search. You're only hope is to dot all the I's and cross all the T's. You have to make sure you're overall presence is cleaner and better than every other chiropractor in your area. In almost all cases you'll need an expert to help you.

At Inception Websites we scrutinize every square inch of our websites. No detail is too small. It is the small details that determine rank today.

The SEO discussion goes on and on, but I hope this helps to shed some light on the topic. For the most part SEO is something the average chiropractor does not have enough time for. I got into it early and I loved it. As the complexity has grown I've grown with it, but if you're just starting out today you have quite a mountain to climb.

Here are Some of the Factors of SEO:

1. NAP INFORMATION

One of the most critical factors of SEO today is something we call NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number). Google loves consistency. They want to make sure you are who you say you are. If your NAP is incongruent across the internet you are going to have ranking problems. NAP issues happen most often when a chiropractor changes their business name, or their website address, or they move their office. An expert can help you overcome these issues, but there is almost always some residual damage. Some of the directories that contain your business information can be hard to track down.

2. KEYWORDS

Keywords are a topic that few chiropractors understand. Everyone seems to know they are important, but they don't really know what they are. A keyword is a word that people might search for that you want to rank for. In most cities you want to rank for "Chiropractor Green Bay" or whatever your city is. Your main keywords need to be listed in the following areas:

Meta Title Tags in the Code
Header Tags on Pages
Dispersed Throughout the Page Content

You want to have your primary keywords as well as variations of your primary keywords in the content of the articles of your website.

3. AUTHORITY OR LOCAL BACKLINKS

Backlinks are still a factor in rank, but not all backlinks are created equal. Instead of links from junk websites you need to look for links that are relevant to your industry. Another option is looking for links from your local community. When Google sees that local businesses are supporting you they are likely to rank you higher.

An example of a local link would be this. Let's say you support the local soccer organization. That local soccer organization probably has a website. If you can get them to put your logo on their website as a sponsor then you have a way to generate a local link. Google will see that link and they assume that the soccer organization supports your chiropractic office. This vote of confidence if very valuable in Google's eyes.

4. TRAFFIC IS KEY

The largest change in SEO is something very few people understand. The big secret is that Google is only looking at content that is being used. Let's say for instance that you are blogging every week because some SEO person told you it will help your website rank better. That used to be true, but it's only true today if people are reading your blogs. If you're posting blogs that no one reads then Google ignores them. If no one cares about your post then Google doesn't care either.

If you can show Google that you have the most traffic or that you have the most social comments or shares then you will be successful. If you're posting tons of unused content then Google will probably ignore you.