Standing out in Google for chiropractors is competitive. Most cities have numerous chiropractors and not ranking well in search engines means you may be missing out on a large amount of traffic and leads. We’ve provided some tips and resources for chiropractic businesses that can help improve their local search presence.
Take Ownership of Google My Business
Properly setting up Google My Business gives you a far better chance of getting listed in the top 3 for a local search query. Below paid search results, Google displays what’s known as a “3 pack” of local businesses for a local search query like “fresno california chiropractors”
A few rules when setting up your business through Google My Business
Use the correct business name – you should use the business name that is displayed on your website. If you go by “The Back-sperts” don’t try to include keywords into your brand name like “The Back-sperts Chiropractor Services”.
DO NOT use a 1-800 number. – Not that many chiropractors have 1-800 numbers to begin with, but a common mistake local businesses make is using a 1-800 as their primary and only phone number listed in Google My Business. This makes Google suspect that each location is not an actual location but serves as a call center for funneling leads to a business not actually located where it claims to be located. It does happen, but Google is also unlikely to display a business with a 1-800 number listed in the local 3 pack.
Select as many relevant categories as possible – Google has a number of pre-defined categories in Google My Business and allows you to select a primary category.
Establish a System for Reviews
Google is a fan of customer testimonials because it shows that a business is active and is liked. According to a survey conducted by Moz, SEO’s considered review signals as the 5th most important local search ranking factor.
Reviews also stand out in search results – looking at the SERP result from above the second listing has 63 reviews – that grabbed my attention.
Cultivating a large number of good reviews isn’t easy and doesn’t all happen at once. It’s important to establish some sort of system for encouraging your clients to review your chiropractic business. A few ideas:
Create a review us page on your website with links to your G+ profile and other review directory listings like Yelp and Yellow Pages.
Add links to mentioned review pages in your email signatures.
It doesn’t hurt to ask. In person, ask your clients to review your business.
I’m going to mention Whitespark a number of times in this blog post. They have a fantastic free review handout generator. Print and hand them out or send them in an email to every happy client and watch the reviews consistently trickle in.
Build up Profiles in Review Directories
From a SEO perspective, some of your biggest competitors are directories. You may have trouble getting listed well in organic search engine results simply because Yelp, Yellow Pages and other huge business directory websites naturally dominate SERPs for your target keywords.
These sites can be both your poison and your cure – it’s important to get listed in as many of these directories as possible. Although you may not get a ton of referral traffic from these sites, it’s an easy way to get your name and contact information in as many different locations that your target audience may be spending their time.
Doing a simple search for your target keywords can uncover these easy opportunities:
Getting listed in as many of these business websites as possible is also important for the next tip:
Get Your NAP Out There
Your chiropractic businesses’ Name Address Phone Number, AKA NAP, is used to identify to search engines that you have a physical location, and this is verified by other reputable sources. These sources could be any type of website, but they mostly consist of online business directories and resource directories.
There are a number of directories specifically suited for chiropractors and other professionals in the health industry. Here are a number that should be
WhiteSpark has many great tools for local businesses including a list of best citation sources organized by major cities.
In addition to directories organized by location, they list top citation sources organized by business categories. Lucky you, they have a section dedicated to Chiropractors:
Understand Your Audience
Sure a big part of your target audience will be directly looking for a chiropractor in your local area. However are “chiropractor in your city” and “your city chiropractors” the only keywords that matter?
It is important to bridge the gap between how you would describe your business and how your target audience describes it. From previous experience, businesses often provide information on their website about a solution but do not provide information about a cause or a
The Google Adwords Keyword Planner is a great tool to understand keywords relevant to your website and your competitors.
The point of the Keyword Planner is to generate new keyword ideas that you can use for paid search purposes. It can be used for ulterior purposes to generate keyword ideas based on a base keyword, your own website or a competitor’s website.
Google will spit out results based on either a list of your target keywords or a website, in which you may be able to ID some target keywords that your website is not currently optimized for.
If you’re a chiropractor located in Seattle it may be worthwhile to create new pages on your website dedicated to Sciatica and Back pain if you have not already done so.
Google Webmaster Tools
If there was only one tool that I could use for SEO, it would be Google Webmaster Tools. GWT lets you about important stuff, like when Googlebots can’t crawl your website or when your website isn’t mobile friendly. GWT also provides a lot of valuable information about how your current organic search engine visitors are finding and accessing your website.
You can view the search queries users are using to get to your website and your page’s average position. If there are keywords that you almost rank well for you may want to incorporate them into your pages a bit more.
Competitor Backlinks
Links have been and will continue to be a huge ranking factor. They help Google understand that your business is endorsed by other organizations. The more endorsements you have, the more likely you’ll be able to outrank your competitors.
Because chiropractors are local businesses serving local audiences there are number of local link building opportunities you can take advantage of.
Figuring out where your competitors are getting their backlinks from is easy if you have access to a backlink analyzer like Majestic, Ahrefs or Open Site Explorer, but it doesn’t make sense for most chiropractic businesses to use one. Small SEO Tools has a free backlink checker, although the results are limited. Still it’s something anyone can use to get a sense of where their competitors are getting their top backlinks.
If you’re in need of any other Chiropractor SEO help for your chiropractic business feel free to give us a call at 877-204-0234.
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