What method works best when doing SEO for Chiropractors? The answer is an easy to remember acronym.
It’s called LOGIC™.
What the LOGIC method does is to feed the Google algorithm a combination of the most important local SEO ranking factors in a way the boosts your website in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS) faster than other methods.
Another LOGIC benefit is that it’s more affordable that other local SEO methods, so you get the most bang for your buck.
With LOGIC you get more new patients consistently, which helps your cash flow and profitability.
We’ll get into the details in a minute, but first I’m going to give a quick outline of what you’ll learn in this article.
There’s a lot of confusion and misinformation about local SEO regarding how to rank high on the first page of Google.
We’re going to break it down for you so that you understand it and have a crystal clear, step-by-step process for implementing local SEO for your chiropractic business.
You’re going to learn…
- What SEO for chiropractors is and how it can help your business
- Where to start the SEO process
- An affordable, time efficient way to implement local SEO
- The strategy and tactics that work for other chiropractors
- How much you can expect to pay for local SEO services
- How long it can take to see results
- Great resources you can use to help you with your SEO
If you want to get more new patients every month without having to chase them, local SEO for chiropractors is your answer.
Why?
Because when people are looking for pain relief, many of them search for help online (mainly with Google), and that’s when you want them finding, and clicking through to, your website.
Local SEO is what puts your chiropractic business in front of these people who are actively looking for help.
If you do your SEO the right way, you get the first shot at helping them. If they see your local competition first, then you’ve probably lost a great opportunity.
It’s that simple.
So, let me show you how to greatly improve your search rankings for your most important keywords.
NOTE: This article was written with chiropractors in mind, but the technical aspects of local SEO are the same for any type of small business. So, if you have another kind of business like plumbing, HVAC, car repair, etc., the same principles will apply to your business, and this article will help you as well.
What Is Local SEO For Chiropractors?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process used to improve the quality and quantity of visitors to a website from the organic (natural) results of search engines (Google, Bing and others).
These search engines use algorithms to determine their rankings using hundreds of different criteria. Algorithms are basically a set of rules used in calculations by a computer.
Google, and other search engines, don’t tell the world exactly what these rules are or the specific criteria they use as ranking factors, but through testing many variables, the most important criteria have been determined.
These algorithms are changed continually in order for the search engines to deliver the most relevant results to those using their search engines, so SEO is always in a state of flux. However, the most important ranking factors tend to stay pretty much the same.
For your chiropractic business, it’s important to note that SEO ranking factors are weighted a little differently for local search versus the results you may see regionally or nationally.
This article is going to give you a proven way to rank consistently at the top of your local Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS).
There’s a little secret regarding local SEO for chiropractors that you’re going to learn here, and it will give you a huge advantage over your local competition.
How Local SEO For Chiropractors Works
There are many good reasons why local SEO for chiropractors should be a priority, and if you ignore SEO, you’re going to miss out on one of the biggest opportunities to build your practice.
You’ll have to watch from the sidelines as one new patient after the other walks through the doors of your local competitors.
Following are just a few of the benefits of local SEO for chiropractors.
Increased Online Presence
When someone is actively searching for a chiropractor online, and your website shows up at the top of the search results, you’ll get the majority of clicks coming to your website.
That means you get your business in front of the hottest chiropractic prospects who are ready to pay for your services.
They want pain relief and they’re either going to get it from you or another chiropractor they find during their online search.
Earn More Trust Through Higher Rankings
When people search online, most assume that the search engine is going to put the most relevant results at the top of the page.
That, in effect, gives these businesses a strong element of trust with the searcher.
Most people won’t even look at page two of the search results, so the higher your practice is on page one, the more clicks you’re going to get, and some built in trust comes with it.
Show Up In Google’s Local Pack
I’ll go into more detail below about the local pack, but you need to understand that having your business show up there (normally three listings just above the organic results) is another way that local SEO can get you more new patients.
If you’re not familiar with what the local pack is just look at the image below.
If you can get your business to show up in both the local pack and at the top of the organic search results, you’re going to get more clicks than your competition.
The factors for showing up in the local pack and the organic results are a little different, but local SEO can get your website listed in both places.
The bottom line is that when you do your local SEO the right way, Google (the most popular search engine by far) will send your chiropractic business new patients every month like clockwork.
Local SEO can help drive new patients to your chiropractic business because you catch them when they are actively searching online for chiropractic services.
The Local SEO For Chiropractors Process
What you want to do at the beginning is to get a good idea of where your website stands currently with SEO in your local market.
In other words, you want to get a current “snapshot” of where your website stands. You do that with a local SEO audit.
That should include some competitor research to see what the other chiropractors in your town are doing.
The result of the audit will show you the gaps you need to work on so you can improve your SEO rankings.
After that you need to come up with a strategy and decide on what tactics to use.
A lot of marketing agencies will over complicate this process so they can give you a “custom” quote that will help them justify charging you more money than you need to spend.
Many will also keep some secrets that you should know before dealing with them. You can learn more about secrets that big chiropractic marketing companies use here.
Let’s go over each of the audit factors in more detail.
How To Do A Local SEO Audit
A good place to start your local SEO audit is to cover the most important factors that Google uses to rank their results.
We’ll focus on Google because they dominate search engine use. Others like Bing and Yahoo pale in comparison, and what works for Google will pretty much work with other search engines as well.
By the way, you may want to bookmark or link to this page because this SEO audit section will also act like a checklist for you to refer to from time to time to improve your local SEO.
Three Things To Check First To Boost SEO For Chiropractors
Before getting into a lot of the audit-related details you’ll find below, here are three extremely important things that will be quick and easy for you to check.
1 – Page Speed
Google doesn’t like slow websites.
If you own a chiropractic business in a competitive market you need to get every edge that you can.
So, the better you handle your local SEO, the better you’ll rank with Google, which will give you the best opportunity to get more new patients.
Basically, page speed is the time it takes to display the content on a certain web page.
Page speed is sometimes referred to as “page load time” or “time to first byte.”
It sounds technical, but “time to first byte” is how long it takes for your browser to get the first byte of information from your website’s web server.
Google doesn’t like slow loading pages because they can’t “crawl” as many pages using their crawl budget, and that could have a negative effect on how your web pages are ranked.
If you have dedicated web pages focused on keywords like “back pain treatment,” “neck pain relief” and others you rely on to bring you new patients, fast loading web pages will help them rank better.
So, what do you do about slow websites?
There are free online tools you can use to see how fast your web pages load. I’ve listed three good ones in the “Resources” section below.
Use them yourself to see how fast your web pages load, and if they are slow you take that information to your website manager. They should already be familiar with these tools.
Once they see what needs to be done, they can give you an estimate for taking care of everything.
If you have a WordPress website there are plugins that can help you with page speed.
Next step…
Run the tests. They will only take a minute or so. These page speed checkers will tell you exactly what needs to be done, but you may need someone with technical expertise to help you.
You can contact your website designer, or you can get good quality help from someone on Fivvr for this. (See the resource section below)
2 – Website Security
If your website isn’t secure then you need to fix that right away for many reasons, and I’ll show you how to do it here.
The bottom line is that it could hurt how well your chiropractic business ranks in Google local search results, and that could cost you new patients.
What Is A Secure Website?
In short, HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) is the secure version of HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol).
Here’s how to tell if you have the proper website security.
If your website URL is preceded by “HTTPS” it is secure. If you see just an “HTTP” without the “S” – or a note telling you it’s not secure – then you’ve got a problem (but, it’s easy to fix, see below).
Following are some examples.
Here’s how you can tell if a website is secure.
It tells you right there in green. Green is good.
And here’s an example of a website that is not secure.
“Not secure” in red… not good.
This Is Why Website Security Is Important
At this point you must have a secure website for several reasons.
First, Google favors secure – HTTPS – websites in their rankings.
Another thing is that if someone who comes to your website sees that it’s not secure, it may hurt converting these prospects into new patients.
How long do you think someone who is looking for a chiropractor is going to stay on your website if Google tells them it’s not secure?
Especially when they consider that a chiropractor is the keeper of personal health information.
You saw how to tell if your website is secure, or not, in the images above.
Here’s something I saw not long ago for a website that wasn’t secure. This is obviously a worse looking warning than the “Not secure” in the URL area I showed above.
If someone searching on Google sees that when trying to go to your website, then don’t count on them ever coming back.
Another thing… an HTTPS secure website loads faster than an insecure HTTP website. So, there’s another advantage.
I think you get the picture.
How To Make Your Website Secure
This is a very easy thing to do.
If you manage your own website, just contact your web hosting company and tell them you need an “SSL Certificate.”
FYI… SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer.”
Your web hosting company can sell you the SSL certificate and help you make sure it’s applied properly to your website.
For me the process took just a few minutes and my website was secure in no time.
My certificate was free from my web hosting company. Yours may offer them free as well, so ask them about it. Otherwise, you might spend around $50 per year on an SSL certificate. Some are more expensive.
Any reputable website builder will already be aware about this security issue and they should have discussed it with you and taken care of it.
However, if you do have someone overseeing your website and it isn’t already secure then just tell them to contact your web hosting company and take care of it. It should only take a day, or so.
If you manage your website yourself, just make the call to your web host and ask for the SSL certificate.
3 – Mobile Friendliness
If your website isn’t mobile friendly then chances are your website won’t be found when someone uses their cell phone to do a Google search.
The great majority of online searches are done using cell phones these days, so your missing out on most of the search traffic if your website isn’t mobile friendly.
If you had your website built within the last few years, chances are it’s already mobile friendly.
It would be malpractice, in my opinion, if someone built you a website that was not mobile friendly in the last five years, or so.
If your website was built many years ago, and you don’t have someone actively managing it for you, then you need to check it now to see if it’s mobile friendly. It’s a quick and easy process.
Here’s how you do it.
Go to the Google mobile-friendly test page, enter your website URL into the box and click “Test URL.” You’ll have your answer in a minute, or two.
If your website fails this test then you need to get the person who built it to fix it. If you have a WordPress website it should be quick and inexpensive to do.
The Insider Secret You Should Use In Local SEO For Chiropractors
Now I’m going to let you in on the details for the secret to local SEO success. It’s called LOGIC™.
If you use LOGIC as the basis for doing your local SEO you’ll get the best results, and quicker, than if you were to use other methods.
You’ll learn more about LOGIC as we go through the local SEO audit process, but for now I just want you to know what it is.
LOGIC is an acronym for…
Links to your website (commonly referred to as backlinks)
On-page SEO
Google My Business
Internet reviews
Citations (and business listing accuracy)
This is your foundation for local SEO success.
These five criteria account for about 80% of the most important ranking factors for Google search. That’s why we focus on them.
Look at the prominence of the five LOGIC factors in the pie charts below that were put together by MOZ.
You’ll see that for the Local Pack the LOGIC factors are in the first five positions.
For the organic results the LOGIC factors fall into the first, second, fourth, fifth and seventh positions.
Behavioral Signals and Personalization are out of your control, so we can’t do anything about them.
Social signals are at the bottom of the list for both the Local Pack and the Organic Results. Most chiropractors have at least a Facebook account, so that will help with the social media.
You’ll notice that they are the same factors, but in a little different order.
This is why we use the LOGIC method when doing local SEO for chiropractors.
For more information on how to use LOGIC as your secret weapon you can get the free ebook.
You may want to build on this foundation later in order to strengthen your local SEO (especially if you’re in a very competitive market), but this is where you start.
When it comes to local SEO for chiropractors, many chiropractic businesses don’t need to go beyond these five factors. LOGIC is all they need.
Auditing Your Links
To see where you stand where your backlinks are concerned, you can use one of the well-known paid tools like the following.
- Ahrefs (See if they still offer their seven day trial for $7)
- SEMRush (See if they still offer their free trial)
- Ubersuggest (See if they still offer their free trial)
Or, you can try one of the free backlink checkers. The paid tools are more accurate, and if they offer a free (or cheap) trial you have nothing to lose, but the free ones will give you an idea of where your website stands regarding backlinks.
See the “Resources” section below for some free options.
What you’re looking for are relevant backlinks (health, medical, local) from websites with high “domain authority” – the more links the better.
Getting these kinds of backlinks to your website will give it a boost in domain authority, and domain authority will help you win the battle for the top-ranking spots of the keywords you’re targeting.
One key benefit of backlinks is that not only do links to a specific web page help that page with your local SEO, links to any page also have an overall effect to help all pages on your website.
You may be familiar with the saying, “All boats rise with the tide.” Where backlinks are concerned, all your web pages gain SEO strength with every good backlink to your website.
Auditing Your On-page SEO For Chiropractors
Where your on-page SEO is concerned, make sure you focus on the keyword you want to rank for. It needs to show up in several places where your web page is concerned.
Keyword Placement
I’ll start by giving you an example here.
If you’re trying to rank for “back pain relief,” that exact keyword should be used in the following places.
- Your URL (for instance… yourwebsite.com/back-pain-relief)
- Your title tag
- Your meta description
- Header tags (H1 – H6… headlines and sub-headlines)
- Content (Use your keyword in the first paragraph and have your keyword density between .5% and 1%)
- Images (Alt text & name of your image)
Pro Tip – Use LSI Keywords to help with SEO for chiropractors
If your readers see you using the exact same keyword, over and over, in an unnatural way it may seem strange to them and cause them to lose interest.
One way around that – a way that Google likes to see – is to use LSI keywords instead of stuffing your web pages with a particular keyword.
An LSI (Latent Symantic Indexing) keyword is simply this: Another keyword phrase (synonym) for the same thing, or a related keyword.
For our “back pain relief” keyword example above, some LSI keywords would be: “back pain treatment,” “instant back pain relief,” “back pain relief exercises,” upper back pain relief,” what to do for back pain,” and “natural back pain relief.”
Want a way to find great LSI keywords? See the “Resources” section below for “Free LSI Keyword Research Tool.”
Keyword Density
Keyword density is how often you use a keyword in your content expressed as a percent.
For instance, if you use your keyword 14 times in an article of 1,500 words, your keyword density is .93% (14 ÷1500 = .0093… or just under one percent).
You’ll find different recommendations for keyword density from all kinds of experts. Here’s my recommendation: .5% – 1%.
I think that if you stay in this range, and use some of the relevant LSI keywords as mentioned above, you’ll give your on-page SEO a nice boost.
Some SEOs recommend up to 2% keyword density, but I think that’s too much and can lead to unnatural, stilted language in your content that people won’t enjoy reading.
NOTE: Don’t obsess over keyword density. Just use your keyword in a natural way and you should be fine.
For information about how to create the kind of content that interests your best prospects, and gives your local SEO a big boost, see “Content Marketing” in the “Strategies” section below.
Auditing Your Google My Business (GMB) Account
When it comes to local SEO for Chiropractors, your Google My Business account is the single most important factor for ranking high in the local pack, and the fourth most important for the organic results.
Many businesses will verify their GMB account, but they don’t optimize it very well and don’t pay much attention to it over time. Don’t let that be the case for your business.
You can use the following as a checklist to make sure your GMB account is set up well and optimized over time.
First, if you haven’t already done so, you can verify your GMB account here.
Once you have access to your account go down the left-hand column, click on each of the topics and complete all of the applicable sections.
Make sure that you are especially meticulous in the “Info” section. Following is a checklist of the most important things to include.
- Primary and secondary business categories
- Business name, address and phone number(s) – NAP
- Business hours
- Special hours (for holidays, etc.)
- Business “short” name
- Appointment links (if you want to go through Google)
- Virtual care link (if applicable)
- Services you provide
- Any applicable business attributes
- Business description
- Photos
Pro Tips – SEO For Chiropractors
1 – Once you have your Google My Business account set up and optimized, you’ll want to review it at least once a week. It would be best to review it daily to check for any new reviews, so you can respond in a timely way.
2 – One thing most businesses don’t take advantage of is using Google Posts. That’s a mistake! For more information on how to use Google posts to get more patients you can click here.
3 – Upload new photos from time to time. Let your audience know what’s going on with your business through photos… like when you get new equipment, offer new services, get new employees, have special events, etc.
4 – Answer questions if you get them. I don’t see this being used a lot by people who search on Google, but if you do get questions then answer them in a timely way.
Auditing Your Internet Reviews
You need to know what people are saying about your chiropractic business online for two reasons.
The first is that reviews play a big role in local SEO strength (See the pie chart above).
The second reason is that reviews have a huge impact on the trust factor, and trust is one of the most important things you must have to convert prospects into paying patients.
When a person’s health is involved, they want assurances that they’re putting themselves in the hands of the right chiropractor.
Good reviews act as those assurances. So, take your online review management very seriously.
Strong online presence + High level of trust = Profitable Chiropractic Business
The Best Places To Have Your Reviews Posted Online
First, I want to give you some numbers to prove why Internet reviews are so important. Here are the facts.
- 92% of consumers read online reviews before selecting a business. (eTailing Group)
- 86% of online users will be searching for a local business at some point in time. (Kelsey Group)
- 90% of consumers say buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. (MarketingLand.com)
- 61% of local searches result in purchases. (TMP/comScore)
- A one “star” overall difference in reviews results in a 5% – 9% change in revenue. (Harvard Business Review)
You need to monitor the reputation of your business on a continual basis.
You should start by auditing the most relevant websites (review platforms) that show up in a Google search for chiropractors.
- Yelp
- Your own website
The reason I mention your own website is because many of my clients are showing up on page one when people search for reviews of their business.
Then check relevant industry platforms like the following.
Receiving And Responding To Your Reviews
Make an effort to collect as many reviews as you can. Ask and you shall receive where Google is concerned, but don’t ask for reviews on Yelp (long story).
You may not want to take the time to respond to all of the positive reviews you get, but you absolutely, positively MUST respond to all negative reviews, and in a timely way.
Once you’ve done your Internet review audit, start working on building up your reviews.
What To Do If You Have Negative Reviews
If you do have some bad reviews (and they are legitimate), the best way to overcome them is to get your satisfied patients to give you reviews on those same platforms.
Many platforms list your reviews in chronological order, so the new ones will push the older ones down and out of sight.
Also, people who read reviews often don’t go past the ones for about the last three months, and they don’t give those older reviews as much weight as the more recent reviews.
For more information on how to optimize Google reviews you can click here.
Auditing Your Citations/Business Listings – A Must For Good Chiropractic SEO
As you can see in the MOZ pie charts above, citations are a very important ranking factor.
Citations and business listings are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are slight differences.
At the risk of confusing you, I’ll point out the differences.
A business citation normally comes in the form of using your business name plus at least one other piece of listing information like your address, phone number or your website URL (address).
So, if there is a mention of your business and a phone number on a website, that qualifies as a citation (with only two pieces of information).
A business listing, on the other hand, must have your full NAP information (business Name, Address and Phone number). They often include your website address as well like this.
ABC Chiropractor
123 Main Street
Anytown, CA 12345
(555) 123-4567
abcchiropractor.com
A business listing qualifies as a citation, but not all citations qualify as a business listing.
There are additional technicalities regarding different types of citations, but that may be more than you really want, or need, to know.
Also, all citations are not created equal. A citation on your Google My Business account is far more powerful than one from an obscure local business directory.
Generally speaking, citations on websites with higher domain authority give you more power for your local SEO.
The bottom line is that you need accurate citations (and business listings) across the Internet on respected websites (high domain authority). The more the better for helping you rank high in the SERPs.
Why You Need To Audit Your Citations/Business Listings
Here’s what the numbers tell us regarding why your citations/business listings are so important other than just for local SEO.
- 43% of local business listings have errors in the address. (Searchengineland.com)
- 37% have a missing or incorrect name. (Searchengineland.com)
- 19% have a missing website URL. (Searchengineland.com)
- 18% have a missing or incorrect phone number. (Searchengineland.com)
- 85% of customers will likely not return to a business if listed incorrectly.
You need to make sure there are no errors for your citations/business listings because incorrect information broadcast across the Internet can cost you new patients.
How To Audit Your Citations
Doing a thorough audit of your citations across the Internet can be difficult on your own without the software to help you do it, but you can check the most important ones manually without spending too much time.
You can also do a Google search to find inexpensive citation checking services.
Or, if you want an in-depth citation audit you can contact me, and I’ll do it for you for free.
Here are some of the most important places online to see if you have an accurate business listing.
- Google My Business
- Bing Places
- Yahoo
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Yellow Pages
- Chamber of Commerce
- HotFrog
- Superpages
- MerchantCircle
- Better Business Bureau
- B2B Yellow Pages
- eLocal
- DexKnows
- Local.com
Pro Tips
1 – Make sure that your business listings are accurate down to each character.
For instance, if you use “Suite” (Instead of “STE”)in your address on your website, make sure that you use it everywhere across the Internet.
If you use “Ave.” in your address on your website then use that same format everywhere. Don’t spell it out as “Avenue” on your Facebook page or your GMB account.
Human beings, Google and other search engines can figure out these different common usages for your address, but inconsistencies could possibly hurt your local SEO. Why take that chance?
2 – If you want a thorough local SEO audit for your chiropractic business, I can help you with that with my Local Market Validation service.
This service will give you a step-by-step blueprint for your local SEO success. Click here to see if I’m still offering a special discount for that service.
Going forward, a good option for cleaning up, optimizing, managing and maintaining your citations and business listings is mentioned below in the “Reputation Management” section.
Strategy – Local SEO For Chiropractors
There’s often confusion between strategy and tactics, so I’m going to define what I mean by each where your local SEO is concerned.
In this section we’ll go over the strategies involved, and in the next section we’ll go over the tactics and how to go about implementing them.
A marketing strategy is a plan for action designed to achieve a goal. This is the “what” you need to do.
Our marketing goal with SEO is to attract new prospects to your website in order to give your sales efforts convert them into paying customers… new patients in your case.
Our plan for our local SEO strategy is to use the following three ways to make your chiropractic business rise in the local search results for your most important keywords.
1 – Long term SEO
You don’t get good SEO results overnight. It will take some time… usually months. See below for more information on this.
Google basically grades on a curve. The more you feed their algorithm what it is they’re looking for, the better your local SEO results will be.
Also, local SEO is a competition.
There may be times when you don’t have to do much (if anything) and end up at the top of Google page one for certain keywords.
Why?
Because your local competition may be doing less (or almost nothing at all) where their SEO is concerned. If they do nothing, and you do something, you’ll end up on top.
On the other hand, if you’re in a competitive local market – and SEO for chiropractors is often very competitive – you may be doing everything you read in this article and still struggle to get to page one for some keywords.
Like I said, local SEO is a competition and Google is grading on a curve. So, you may have to step up your game if you want to win.
In order to get to the top of your local search results, and stay there, you need to do the necessary to rise in the rankings and then monitor and react to algorithm changes and your competition.
2 – Reputation Management
Reputation management works hand in hand with SEO because you’ll be building up your online reviews across the most important review platforms, and that will give you a big boost for your local SEO.
Remember, quantity, your overall rating, plus how recent your reviews are combine for one of the major local SEO ranking factors.
And there’s another major reason for working on your reputation management to help with your local SEO: The trust factor you build up with a strong online review profile.
So, not only will your website rise in the local SEO rankings, having a great online reputation is a critical factor in gaining trust that helps convert prospects into patients.
3 – Competitor research
This is part of what you will monitor.
If you see that your slipping in the local SEO rankings, one of the first things to look at is what your competitors that are ranking above you are doing.
Here’s where you’ll start: See how well they’re doing with their backlinks, on-page SEO, Google My Business, Internet reviews and citations (LOGIC).
If they are outperforming your business in any of these areas, then that’s where you should focus first.
Now let’s get into the tactics.
SEO For Chiropractor Tactics – Building Your Foundation, A Step-By-Step Process
The SEO tactics are simply the actions that need to be carried out in order for your strategy to work.
Earlier we talked about the LOGIC method for SEO for chiropractors. These five local SEO factors are the rock-solid foundation you’ll want to build first.
Unless you know you lack SEO strength regarding one of the LOGIC elements, I suggest you work on them in the following order.
I’m also going to include the three technical factors mentioned above because they need to be addressed as well.
The reason I put them in the order that I did has to do with a combination of their importance and how quick and easy they are to implement.
Some things might not be quite as important, but they are so easy to do you might as well take care of them first.
Local SEO Priorities
- GMB verification and optimization
- Check for website security (Make sure your website has an SSL certificate)
- Make sure your website is mobile friendly
- Make sure your website pages load fast
- Make sure your citation/business listings are accurate
- Improve your on-page SEO
- Do your keyword research and create content based on that research (content marketing)
- Build up your Internet reviews on the major review sites
- Build incoming links to your website (the most time consuming and difficult task, but the most effective one for organic SEO results)
Long-term SEO
Keyword Research
There are a lot of methods and opinions on how to go about your keyword research, but as a chiropractor the most effective and efficient way to start is to find your core keywords based on your business category (chiropractor) and the services you provide.
Working With SEO Agencies
Some agencies will tell you they have to do time-consuming in-depth keyword analysis, but that’s not really the case, especially at the beginning.
So, don’t let that fool you if they try to use it to justify charging you a lot of money for setting up your SEO campaign.
For instance, they may be using high powered keyword research tools that show a good bit of volume (maybe on a national level), but those same searches on the local level will be a tiny fraction of that. So, having your agency go after them is likely just a waste of money.
Besides, you’ll also get the benefit of ranking for dozens of long-tail keywords similar to your target keyword. That’s how search engine algorithms work these days. So don’t get caught up in paying to go after slight variations of keywords.
The Best Keywords For Chiropractors
The fact of the matter is that choosing your keywords when doing local SEO for chiropractors is not rocket science. A lot of it is just going to be using your common sense.
One of the best ways to do your keyword research is to choose your keywords based on the services you provide and your business category.
For instance…
- Chiropractor
- Back pain
- Neck pain
- Knee pain
- Physical therapy
High Buyer Intent Keywords
Another thing you’ll want to consider is going after “high buyer intent” keywords. They are the ones people use when they are ready to make a buying decision.
Two great examples for chiropractors are the words “relief” and treatment.”
For instance, if someone searches for “back pain” they may just be doing research on what causes back pain. That’s called an informational search.
However, if they search for “back pain treatment” or “back pain relief” chances are they’re in pain and ready to pay for you to help them right away.
If you rank for “back pain” you may also rank for “back pain treatment.” To find out just do a Google search from your office computer and then check out the results.
Location Keywords
It’s also good to add the name of the city you’re in like “Atlanta” or “Los Angeles” (geo location).
This is especially true if you want to rank in the organic results for a neighboring town.
I have a client who wants to rank in a town right next to his for “neuropathy treatment.” We use “neuropathy treatment + name of town” and now have him ranking at the top of page one.
You may also want to look at what are called “near me” searches because they are becoming more popular these days.
For instance, “chiropractor near me” is getting more searches than it used to a few years ago (and growing).
Formulas For Your Target Keywords
Here are some formulas you can use when looking for keywords to target.
- Chiropractor + your city (or maybe your county)
- Chiropractor near me (based on proximity of the searcher’s IP address and your business)
- Your service(s) + your city (or maybe your county)
- Modifiers for high buyer intent like “treatment” and “relief”
- back doctor + your city (or maybe your county)
- Neighboring towns + chiropractor
- Neighboring towns + your services
Remember, you can rank in the organic results, the local pack or both. Refer to the MOZ pie charts on this page to see the most important ranking factors for each and prioritize accordingly.
Content Marketing
If you want to attract more new patients, one of the best ways to do it is through content marketing.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, this is the definition of content marketing:
“The marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
The best way for you to do this is by writing posts on your blog.
You’ll also want to distribute it through any social media you use (especially Facebook) in addition to using SEO to draw in traffic from the search engines.
The reason why this is such a good strategy is because…
- It boosts the strength of your local SEO.
- It helps generate leads by attracting more prospects to your website.
- It builds trust with your audience – both prospects and existing patients for repeat business.
- It keeps your audience engaged – your chiropractic business will stay top of mind for when they need your services.
- It will help you build links to your website and increase your domain authority.
- It will help your business to grow a local following.
Content Guidelines – Local SEO For Chiropractors
In addition to points mentioned above in the on-page SEO section, here are some additional things to keep in mind when writing your content for good on-page SEO.
- Write thorough content that fully covers a topic. Your goal should be at least 1,200 words (longer is better). Write in a natural way like you’re talking to a friend.
- Use internal linking: Link to and from other relevant pages on your website.
- Link to external authority websites: If you’re writing about back pain and find a good article on webmd.com that you think would be helpful to your readers, then link to it from your article (blog post).
- Use social sharing buttons. That way people who like your article can easily share it with others.
- Increase dwell time: the longer a reader is camped on your web page the better.
- Good ways to increase dwell time include adding videos, providing useful information, long content (high word count), activate comments at the bottom of your article.
- Format your article so that it’s easily readable with short paragraphs using subheads throughout your content, and use interesting images (and infographics when possible).
Content For Good Local SEO
First you need to cover the basics. That will include the following.
- Your home page
- Contact page
- Include your business name, address, phone number, email address, business days/hours and links to any social media you’re using.
- Make sure your phone number is clickable from a mobile phone
- It’s also a good practice to embed a Google map for your location.
- An “About” page
- A page for each of the services (types of treatment) you provide.
- Your blog – all your articles (posts) you write to attract local prospects.
Next you need to create content people want to read. Following are some ideas.
Popular Types Of Articles
Some content is more appealing than others. Content that doesn’t work well is when you focus on writing about your business instead of focusing on your reader.
Remember, it’s not about you and your business, it’s about what you can do for your patients. Focus on them.
They will be asking the question, “What’s in it for me?” when they read your headlines. You need to answer that not only in the headline but throughout your articles.
Here is a short list of the types of articles your best prospects will like to read.
- Advice from experts
- Beginner’s guides
- “Best of” lists
- Case studies
- Cheat sheets, shortcuts and hacks
- Checklists
- Current local events and news
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- How-to guides
- Infographics
- Inspirational stories
- Interviews
- Memes
- Myths vs. facts
- Quizzes, surveys and polls
- Resources for solving health problems
- Reviews and comparisons of products and services
- Roundup articles
- Solutions to problems
Reputation management
The reason reputation management is so important where your local SEO is concerned has to do with some of the things mentioned earlier.
One is that your online reviews are an important ranking factor for local SEO.
You’ve seen that in the MOZ pie chart above, and we’ve gone into the details earlier, so I won’t belabor the point here.
What you’ll need to do for the most part is to continually monitor your reviews as you’ve learned about in the “Auditing Your Internet Reviews” section above.
In addition to online reviews, you’ll want to check online mentions of your business to see how it’s being portrayed in news articles, blog posts and on miscellaneous websites.
If you want to use a manual process, you can set up a Google Alert for your business name.
The Benefits Of Reputation Management Software
A better way for you to do your reputation management, that will save you a lot of time and do a more thorough job, is to use software created for this purpose.
Because good reputation management can be such a tedious proposition, many chiropractors turn to software that does all the grunt work for them.
Not only can you monitor your reputation, good software will also help you keep an eye on your competition. Something we’ll cover in the next section.
A Big Bonus Regarding Your Citations/Business Listings
What you may not be aware of is that there are some good reputation management software packages that also cover other important LOGIC factors like cleaning up and optimizing your citations/business listings.
Pro Tip Regarding Social media
Social media is another factor for local SEO, but the last on the list in the MOZ analysis. What I’ve found with clients is that if you stick to Facebook, you’ll get the biggest benefit for your time spent.
Most chiropractors I’ve talked to haven’t had much success with other social media, and even question if Facebook is worth the time they spend on it.
If you’re interested, you can check out this option for managing your online reputation, posting to your social media and more.
Click on one of the options that says “Local Online Marketing…”
Competitor research
If you talk with some big online marketing agencies, they often overcomplicate and overwhelm you with data to try and impress you with their capabilities.
However, getting a good feel for your competition on a local level, you can simply do the things listed below. If you’re still having trouble outranking a competitor, you can always dig deeper.
Where To Begin With Competitor Research
What you’re trying to do here is to see where your competition stands with their SEO and what they’re doing to get them in their positions.
I use the plural “positions” because we’re talking about how they rank for several of their keywords.
The first thing to do is a Google search for your most important keyword. For instance, “chiropractor Los Angeles.”
All the chiropractors above you in the rankings are your real competitors. It may not be the chiropractor around the corner that you know well and think of as your main competition. You’re only concerned with SEO competition right now.
Make a list of these chiropractic businesses and then start checking where they stand with their LOGIC factors. You can use the “Do A Local SEO Audit” section above as your guide.
What you’ll do at the end is to compare how well they’re doing to how you’re doing in the following areas for each keyword that is important for your chiropractic business.
This will tell you where you need to start improving to outrank them.
Links (backlinks)
Use a backlink checker to see how many links are coming into their website and the quality of those links. See the “Resource” section below for a free online backlink checker tool if you don’t already have access to one.
On-page SEO
Check for the keywords they’re targeting. You’ll find them by looking in the following areas.
- Their URL (after the “.com/” in their URL)
- Their title tag
- The first paragraph in their content
See if their using images (with alt tags) and videos, how long their pages are (word count) and if their pages give a good user experience (good, informative content, fast loading pages).
Google My Business
Search for their business name and look at the information in their Google My Business panel (Google Knowledge Panel) on the right side of a Google search engine results page.
How thorough is their information? Are they using images and Google posts. See how many Google reviews they have, their overall rating and if they have recent reviews.
Here’s what a Google Knowledge Panel looks like.
Internet Reviews
After evaluating how your competition is doing with their Google reviews, see if they have any reviews on Facebook and Yelp and compare them to how well you’re doing with reviews.
Citations/Business listings
This can be a difficult, tedious task to do manually. So if you don’t have access to the software to do this you can check to see if their information is accurate on a few of the major directories mentioned in the “How To Audit Your Citations” section above.
Check Out Their Website
If you haven’t already when you looked over their on-page SEO, click through their website to see if it provides a good user experience.
- Do the pages load fast?
- Is their website mobile friendly?
- Is their website secure?
- Look over their blog if they have one. Is it interesting and helpful? What keywords are they targeting for their posts?
- What is their domain authority (rated from 1 – 100, the higher the better) compared to your website?
Are They Running Any Google Ads?
When you search for your competition for various keywords, see if they are running any Google ads. If so, this is a great place to gather competitor information.
See what their marketing focus is in their headlines and the body copy of their ads. Also go to their landing page(s) to see what kind of offers they’re using including any discount or giveaways and their calls to action.
Pro Tip
Keep this web page handy because you need to understand what good SEO content looks like.
Even if you hire someone to write your content for you, you’ll need to know what to look for to evaluate if you’re getting the kind of SEO content that will bring you more new patients.
If an agency that built your website wrote your content (homepage and more) they typically do a poor job of it because they often just use a boilerplate template and “customize” your content with your business name, address, hours, etc.
They may offer to do a better job with your SEO if you “upgrade” and pay them another chunk of money. So, you need to understand what to look for to know if you’re getting your money’s worth.
How Much Does Local SEO For Chiropractors Cost?
If you’re looking for local SEO that really works, you won’t find any good options that are cheap. But you can find affordable, cost effective local SEO if you do your homework like you’re doing now.
Make Sure Building Backlinks Are Included
One thing to keep in mind is that the biggest overall impact for local SEO would be to build quality backlinks to your website.
However, this is also the most difficult and time-consuming SEO task if you try to do it on your own, and the most expensive to have someone do it for you. But it could also be your secret weapon, so don’t ignore it.
One reason why building links is so productive is because of the cost and/or effort involved. Most chiropractors don’t understand the value, so they neglect it. And because of that you have an opportunity to leap ahead of them in a relatively short period of time.
I’ve seen chiropractors spend a lot of time and effort searching for, and implementing, cheap ways to do their SEO, but they’ve been extremely disappointed in the results. Especially if they disregarded the backlinks element.
The LOGIC method was developed with affordability in mind. You build your SEO foundation on the most important factors that Google is looking for in order to give you the most bang for your buck.
Typical Costs For Local SEO For Chiropractors
According to a study of costs for local SEO by MOZ, the majority of marketing agencies charge a monthly retainer of between $1,500 and $5,000 per month. The price will vary according to the specific services that you choose.
Those numbers scare most chiropractors away.
The most cost effective local SEO method is the LOGIC method mentioned earlier. The basic package that covers all of your local SEO bases is less than $900 per month, which is a huge saving.
If you’re interested, you can learn more about it by clicking here and then clicking on the first option called “LOGIC Done For You.”
Keep This In Mind When Considering The Costs For SEO For Chiropractors
Trying to save money by not doing local SEO is a false economy because you get the best prospects who are actively searching for a chiropractor right when they need your help and ready to buy your services.
And they search for chiropractic services in your town every single month.
How Long Does It Take To See Results For Local Chiropractic SEO?
Unfortunately, there’s no definitive answer to the question of how long it will take for your local SEO efforts to pay off.
The best answer is a frustrating one: “It depends.”
From my experience, I find that the keywords you target with the weakest competition will start seeing results the fastest, and that makes sense.
I’ve seen some decent results for certain keywords within 30 – 60 days, but that’s not the norm.
Here are some guidelines that I suggest.
- Wait three months before even seriously evaluating if local SEO is working for your business.
- At six months you should be seeing some good results, maybe not yet for all keywords, but for some. Make any needed adjustments and continue.
- At 12 months you should be seeing some good results across the board. If not, look to beef up the LOGIC factors, especially your link building.
If you’re not willing to invest, and go full force, with your SEO efforts for at least 12 months, and then make your evaluation, I suggest that you don’t try it at all because you don’t have the right mindset to succeed.
You have to be very patient with your SEO and keep your long-term goals in mind as you make your monthly investments.
Why Do Local SEO For Chiropractor Results Come So Slowly?
There are several reasons why it takes so long for you to see results from your local SEO for chiropractors.
Google has more than 200 criteria they use for serving up their results. And their algorithms are changing continually, which makes local SEO a bit of a moving target.
Another reason is that SEO for chiropractors is very competitive, and your competition (if they are actively working on their local SEO) is constantly making changes and improvements. So, you have to do the same over time.
The better your competition is at their SEO, the longer it will take for you to overcome them.
There are other factors, but you just need to keep in mind that, as mentioned earlier, Google grades on a curve, and you need to be ahead of that curve if you want to win the local SEO game that will bring you the lion’s share of new patients.
Resources – SEO For Chiropractors
After reading this article, following are some resources to help you go through the process to get your SEO for chiropractors working for you.
If you don’t want to do the work yourself, and would like a virtual step-by-step blueprint for your SEO success, you can see if there is still a special discount being offered for Local Market Validation here.
For more information on the LOGIC method for local SEO click here.
To check for page speed (how fast your web pages download) you can click on one of the following tools.
For Google My Business go here.
To check your backlinks you can use one of the following.
- NeilPatel.com/backlinks
- Google Search Console (you’ll have to connect your website first)
- SEObility
Free LSI Keyword Research Tool
Domain Authority Checkers
- MOZ Domain Analysis
- Neil Patel Google Chrome App
On-page SEO checkers
- Site Checker (a Google Chrome app)
- Neil Patel SEO Analyzer
- SEO Web Page Analyser
Google Mobile Friendly website checker
For help with various tasks you can try Fiverr
WordPress plugins to help with SEO for chiropractors
- RankMath
- Yoast (the one I currently use)
- All In One SEO
Conclusion – SEO For Chiropractors
Doing SEO for chiropractors the right way leads to a steady stream of new patients every month, and now you know how to do it.
You’ve learned what local SEO for chiropractors is, how it works and the process you can use to get it working for your business.
You’ll start by doing an SEO audit that will begin with three things you need to check first: page speed, website security and making sure you have a mobile friendly website.
You’ve also discovered the insider secret that will bring you faster results and save you a lot of money each month: the LOGIC method for local SEO success.
That method includes a strong focus on building links to your website (backlinks), on-page SEO, Google My Business, internet reviews and citations (with accurate business listings).
If you want to win the local SEO game, you need to start by auditing where your website currently stands in your local market and then checking on what your competition is doing.
Once you know how to prioritize your efforts, you’ll have a road map for what to work on first and where to spend most of your time, effort and money in order to improve your rankings.
Using the right tactics for long-term SEO, reputation management and competitor research will bring the fastest results for your business.
The SEO tactics that will help you build your foundation include keyword research, content marketing and reputation management software that includes the bonus of building up and fixing any inaccurate citations/business listings.
Take what you’ve learned about local SEO, including how much it costs and how long it takes, while using the resources given so you can systematically improve your local rankings.
That will bring your chiropractic business a steady stream of new patients month after month.
Once again, if you want to learn more about the new LOGIC method for SEO for chiropractors you can click on the link directly below.
Also, if you want all of the analysis described in this article done for you, check out Local Market Validation, which will give you a step-by-step blueprint for success with SEO for chiropractors.
Feel free to leave comments, or contact me if you have any questions.
Now Bob helps small business owners get more customers with his proven online marketing system called LOGIC.
Learn more about how LOGIC can help your business attract more new customers every month for years to come by clicking here.
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