SEO for Chiropractors: A Complete Guide

An Example of How Chiropractic SEO Works

Take a moment to put yourself in your patient’s shoes so you can see why it’s so critical to use SEO for chiropractors. Suppose your patient has a back injury they sustained while working for an armory in a place like Oshkosh, WI, and they need to find someone who can help them with minimally invasive treatments.

Here are the results that appear when they search for the term “chiropractor near me” in that area:

These are the search results that appear after a map of various chiropractic offices Google pulled for this location. Up to 80% of people ignore sponsored or paid search results, so these will likely be the first results they look at.

Why SEO for Chiropractic Websites?

People rely on search engines to find solutions to their problems—including situations where they feel they need a chiropractor. However, as competitive as the market is with over 70,000 chiropractors in the U.S. alone, it’s essential to use tactics and strategies that will attract more patients to your website.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of using these strategies to make your website more visible to your potential patients when they’re looking for chiropractic services. If you aren’t investing in search engine optimization for your chiropractic practice, you may be missing out on attracting potential patients—because they’ll see your competitors first on the first search engine results page (SERP) on Google and be more likely to choose them instead.

How to Use Patient Empathy to Market Your Chiropractic Practice

Your goal with your website should be to tailor its contents to your patients’ wants and needs. That is a prime example of empathy-based marketing in action. Here are a few ways chiropractors can lead with patient empathy to improve SEO:

• Answering common questions: Using an FAQ or other basic diagnostic tools on your website can help your patients find what they need.

• Offering multiple types of media: Some people prefer to find solutions through videos, photos, or graphics, while others prefer written content, and even more might prefer learning through live chat over calling.

• Creating a content strategy around patient needs: This could involve surveying your patients to learn more about what brought them in and common questions they might have.

• Updating your website regularly with content: Adding new, relevant information for your patients allows them to learn more and shows them you care about fulfilling their needs before you think about getting them to schedule an appointment.

SEO Strategies and Tactics for Chiropractors

On-Page, Off-Page, & Technical SEO

On-page SEO mainly refers to the content on your page that visitors will interact with—including keywords, page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and other signals that tell Google what’s on your website. Search engines want to make sure the content is relevant to what the user is searching for, so relevancy is essential.

On the other hand, off-page SEO is more challenging because it typically doesn’t involve owned channels. However, it’s incredibly valuable because it helps build your brand’s credibility with Google. This includes promoting your content on third-party sites, asking customer for reviews, and using social media for your brand.

Technical SEO captures both on- and off-page techniques that are less likely to be visible to your website users. Common steps associated with technical SEO include submitting your sitemap to Google, creating an SEO-friendly site structure, and improving the user-friendliness of your website.

All three types of SEO are essential for creating a healthy baseline that will help your website be more competitive on search engines and make it easier for new patients to find you.

Meta Titles and Descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions are two types of signals that search engines use to understand what is on your website so they can bring searchers the most relevant information they’re looking for.

While Google uses these to help people find what they’re looking for, they aren’t the only things you should be using. Just like page content, you should develop your meta description and meta title with a people-first approach, with search engines being a lesser—but still important—priority.

Keyword Research

Keyword research tools such as SEMrush are essential for finding keywords that are relevant to your practice. This is because they can track which keywords people are using when they’re looking for searches like yours.

These tools also allow you to see how many people are searching for specific terms, like “Chiropractor in Grand Rapids,” each month, and how difficult it would be for your website to rank on the first page of Google for those specific keywords. This makes it easier to strategize and choose the keywords for your website that are most relevant to your business and the types of patients you want to attract.

Page Load and Mobile-Friendliness

Whether a person visits your website can depend on how quickly your page loads on their device. That’s why it’s essential to make sure your website can load quickly as part of the overall web design. If not, your potential patients could turn back before the page loads and go to your competitors, who can get them the answers they need faster.

Optimizing for mobile goes hand-in-hand with that. Chances are, your customer is using their phone or tablet to look up chiropractic services like yours when they need them the most. Google also uses mobile-first indexing, which makes it easier for them to find you if your site is mobile-friendly.

Link Building

Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to your website pages. When done correctly, this can improve Google’s view of your website as an authoritative page. In turn, you’ll be more likely to attract visitors from search.

The process is far easier said than done. Most websites are hesitant to use other websites’ links without a prior relationship. In fact, it’s challenging enough that some SEO companies have a dedicated person or team whose job it is to solely work on link building.

Social Media

This one might seem strange, but it goes hand-in-hand with link building. Social media allows you to engage with your target audience and promote new content on your website, of course. However, the real SEO value is in your social profiles.

Almost every social platform allows businesses to link back to their website. This is a legitimate form of link-building that can supplement your practice’s strategy with a reputable way to connect back to your website.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a set of strategies that make your practice’s website and branding more visible to people who are looking for chiropractic services in your area. For example, if you are currently accepting new patients and allow for walk-in care, using local SEO can make it easier for someone to find directions to the clinic and see if it’s right for them when they need adjustment the most.

Local SEO is becoming more important for chiropractors every day. Common tactics include:

• Creating a Google My Business account and updating it regularly
• Including the areas you serve on your website, especially if your practice has multiple locations
• Making sure your business is listed in local directories like your Chamber of Commerce and insurance directories.

Content Marketing for Chiropractors

Why would we bring up content marketing in a guide about chiropractor SEO marketing? Because, much like the mind-body connection, the two are so intrinsically linked that it’s impossible to include one without the other in your marketing strategy.

Your chiropractic practice’s content marketing strategy should begin with a foundation of keyword research and patient empathy, just like your SEO strategy. Let’s break down the process even further.

Connect with us to learn how we can take care of the legwork with content marketing.

How to Identify Content Marketing Ideas

Even though there may be topics you personally find interesting as a chiropractor, we recommend using data as your driving force when choosing content marketing strategies.  These are some common data sources that can be helpful for developing content marketing ideas for chiropractors.

Talk to Your Patients

You might know less about how your patients are looking for information on their chiropractic needs. Start by surveying them and listening to the reasons they came to you, how they found you, and what they wish they knew before working with you. In fact, you might find they aren’t using the terminology you’re used to using.

Do Keyword Research

Using keyword research tools can help you find more relevant keywords that your customers are using to search. This can also be a great source of ideas for different topics and subtopics relating to your chiropractic services, as most SEO tools will also show the questions people ask Google.

Create a Shortlist

Chances are, you’ll find thousands of potential keywords that people are using to search for chiropractic services in general. Even more, the competition to rank for them is intense. Since simply trying to rank highly for broad terms like “chiropractor” is nearly impossible for most chiropractic businesses, paring your keywords into a shortlist can be helpful.

For example, instead of going for the aforementioned “chiropractor,” you could potentially target the keyword phrase “Chiropractor in Grand Rapids,” or another city where you operate. Other options include focusing on keywords for specific conditions or types of patients you treat.

Look at Content Types in SERPs

As helpful as written website content can be for ranking on SERPs, your target audience might not be looking for written answers. Instead, they might be looking for videos, diagrams, or other tools that can show them how to look for specific problems relating to their conditions. This allows them to answer their own questions before they ever book an appointment with you.

Searching for the keywords you’re trying to rank for is a great way to see what types of content are appearing as the top results.

Our SEO Services: Chiropractor SEO Marketing to Increase Traffic & Conversions

Chances are, if your chiropractic clinic has a dedicated marketing team, they’re already overwhelmed with every other part of your marketing strategy. That’s why working with a dedicated chiropractor SEO agency can provide a better ROI than having your marketing department work on it whenever they have a few minutes to spare during the week.

Working with a chiropractor SEO company makes it easier for you to create content that undergoes rigorous quality control and attract potential new patients to your website.

Evidence-based Chiropractor Marketing

At Avalanche Creative, we specialize in evidence-based, highly executable search engine and content marketing plans for chiropractic clinics. Our process takes the mystery out of SEO and provides an executable SEO and content strategy that brings in more traffic and qualified leads.

Our SEO services mitigate the risk of a bad investment in search engine optimization. We help ensure this by researching and planning more thoroughly than anyone else. We never cut corners because we want to make sure your healthcare SEO strategy is possible for your business.

Ready to see how the Avalanche effect can help your practice grow? Chat with us today so we can get the process started.

Get the Keyword List

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