A Warning About Chiropractic Websites
Last Updated: June 25, 2019
If you’re in the market for a chiropractic website there are a few things you need to be aware of. Having been a practicing chiropractor for a number of years I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I understand what it was like to be at the mercy of a website company, and today I oversee and participate in the operations of one of the fastest growing chiropractic website companies. I wrote this article to help fellow chiropractors avoid the problems that most fall into.
Website Services?
One of the biggest traps that chiropractors fall into is the website services trap. As a website company I have power over you. I could make up fantastic things that give the appearance that I’m working very hard when in reality I’m doing nothing. Many of the things that you’re given as services are things that take minutes to do, and never have to be touched again. Websites companies produce large lists of all the amazing things that they are working on for you. What you don’t know is that all of that work is done in the first week.
At Inception we believe in being very open with our clients. We want you to understand exactly what we are doing for you each month. If it were possible to explain our process to every practicing chiropractor we could not handle the volume that would come to us from it.
SEO Tactics?
There was a time that search engine optimization or SEO could be done with automated programs. Google clearly stated that this was against their rules, but they were doing little to stop it. Optimizing websites was as simple as a click of a few buttons.
Today SEO is a very different world. The use of automated programs will almost certainly get you penalized by Google, and thousands of chiropractic websites are sitting in penalties today. Links must be built carefully, and high quality is the rule.
Most companies today say that they do SEO, but the reality is that doing real SEO today is time consuming and costly. Ask yourself if you had 2000 or more clients could you really do any work by hand each month? If you said “No” you’re right and that’s exactly what’s happening in most cases.
If your company says they do search engine optimization ask them what they really do. They should be able to give you specifics like creating YouTube videos, or doing blog posts. Things like directories have little effect and are a onetime service. Learn the ropes of link building and it will be hard to have the wool pulled over your eyes.
On Page SEO?
On page SEO is the downfall of most websites. Today Google uses the Panda algorithm to give your website a quality score. They don’t share this score with us, but it’s a way to determine how good your website is. We think that there are hundreds of things they take into consideration, but some seem to be more important than others.
Having the proper meta data on each page of your website along with things like a privacy policy, terms of service, an h-card, H1 and H2 tags are just a few of the many components. The majority of sites that I look at today do not have any of these. Without these aspects and others you make it very hard for Google to know who you are and what you want to rank for.
Take the time to question your provider about these topics. They should be able to fluently discuss every topic. If they can’t there’s a good chance you need a new provider.
Pricing?
In the chiropractic website field there are a number of providers. The majority of companies have multiple pricing plans and most offer a low cost plan. The lower cost plans look to contain a great deal of services, but do they really? What I can tell you clearly is that any provider offering plans for $100 or less is not charging enough to provide any real monthly services. They may be able to give you access to some global services they offer, but I can assure you that no one is physically working on your website for you.
My thought on this is that you either find a provider that is going to work for you each month and pay them a little more, or you have someone build you a website at a onetime fee. You can host your website for about $4 per month and save a lot of money.
The reality is that about 3 or 4 chiropractors in any given city are going to do well online. You either have to spend what it takes to get to the top where the patients are, or cut your losses and save your money for other things. The internet is a great way to generate new patients, but you need a provider that knows their stuff and does the work.
I hope that his information has been helpful for you. Every week I do my best to educate chiropractors about internet marketing. Take the time to do some learning and you will see a much better ROI.
