If you’re a chiropractor who’s been struggling to improve your SEO, don’t worry – you’re not alone! Most chiropractors have no idea how to optimize their websites for Google and other search engines. When it comes to SEO for chiropractors, there are a few things you can do to ensure you’re ranking as high as possible for relevant keywords.
Check out our guide below on helping you achieve the best chiropractic SEO strategy to implement into your digital marketing efforts.
What is SEO for Chiropractors?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which makes it more likely that people will find and click on your site.
In other words, SEO for chiropractors will help your website rank above others when potential chiropractic patients run a search on Google.
There are a number of factors that go into SEO, from the content on your website to the way other sites link to you. And while it may take some time and effort to improve your SEO, it’s worth it in the long run.
The Importance of SEO for Chiropractors
Increase Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is the lifeblood of any chiropractic business that wants to acquire new patients online. After all, if people can’t find your website, they can’t become patients! This is where chiropractor SEO comes in.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of making your website more visible to search engines like Google. By optimizing your site for relevant keywords, you can attract more visitors who are looking for exactly what you offer, thereby increasing your organic traffic and prospective patients.
Establish Credibility & Trust with Patients
One of the most important things for any business is to establish credibility and trust with its target audience. This is especially true for chiropractors, who need to build trust with potential patients in order to get them to come in for an appointment.
There are a number of ways that SEO can help chiropractors establish credibility and trust with their target audience. One of the most important is by helping them to rank highly in Google’s search results. When potential patients see that a chiropractor is ranking highly for relevant keywords, it helps to build trust and credibility.
Another way that SEO can help is by providing quality content that potential patients will find helpful and informative. By creating blog posts, articles, and other resources that answer common questions and provide valuable information, chiropractors can show their expertise and build trust with potential patients.
Outrank Competition
SEO for chiropractors can be extremely helpful in outranking the competition. By optimizing their website and online presence, they can make it easier for potential patients to find them online and ultimately choose their practice over others. There are a number of ways to optimize a website for SEO, including using relevant keywords, creating compelling content, and building backlinks.
When done correctly, SEO can help a chiropractic practice stand out from the rest and attract more patients.
Reputation Management
SEO for chiropractors can help to manage the reputation of the chiropractic practice in a number of ways. By improving the visibility of the practice in search engine results pages, SEO can help attract patients more easily and increase the likelihood of them making an appointment.
In addition, by creating high-quality content that is optimized for search engines, SEO can help to build trust and credibility with potential patients.
By providing potential patients with information that is relevant and useful, SEO can help to establish the reputation of the chiropractic practice as a trusted source of information.
Acquire New Patients
By increasing your organic traffic, establishing credibility and trust with potential clients, and outranking the competition, you will undoubtedly see an increase in new patients for your chiropractic practice.
How many new patients are variable, but by employing a solid SEO strategy for your chiropractic practice, you can be sure you’ll see some new faces coming through your office door!
Important Acronyms in SEO for Chiropractors
In case you are completely new to chiropractic SEO and are unfamiliar with some of the commonly used acronyms in the industry, we’ve broken down those of the highest importance below.
YMYL
YMYL is an acronym for “Your Money, Your Life.” It’s a term used by Google to describe websites that have the potential to impact someone’s livelihood – perhaps most importantly, that refers to finances or health.
This includes websites about topics like personal finance and healthcare. Basically, any website that deals with sensitive information or transactions fall under the YMYL umbrella.
If you have a website that fits into this category, it’s important to make sure that your content is high-quality and trustworthy. That way, you can ensure that your site visitors are getting accurate information that they can rely on.
Google and other search engines want to ensure that the content of YMYL websites is written by experts who know what they’re talking about! That’s why you’ll often see an article in the healthcare field that has an author, but also a section saying ‘medically reviewed by Dr….’. This is to ensure that the information in such an article is deemed medically accurate by a professional and expert in the field.
In order to ensure your chiropractic website is YMYL-friendly, you’ll want your articles to be written by a chiropractor, or, at the very least, medically reviewed by one.
In addition, when you’re writing content for your website, make sure to use trustworthy sources. That means using reputable journals, authoritative websites, and peer-reviewed studies as references, rather than unreliable sources like blog posts or forum comments.
When it comes to health information, it’s important to be honest. Don’t make claims about the efficacy of chiropractic care that you can’t back up with evidence. Not only is this misleading, but it could also get you in trouble with Google.
Finally, make sure your articles are using up-to-date data and research. This is especially important when it comes to medical information. Outdated information can be dangerous, so it’s vital that your website is always providing accurate, up-to-date information.
EAT
EAT stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness”. It’s a set of Google ranking factors that aim to surface high-quality content in search results.
Google has said that EAT is a very important part of their algorithm and that webmasters should focus on creating content that meets all three criteria.
Expertise refers to the author’s ability to write about a topic in a way that is both informative and accurate.
Authoritativeness refers to the author’s status or credentials on the topic. This can be measured by looking at things like whether the author has written other articles on the same topic, or if they are quoted as an expert in news articles.
Trustworthiness refers to how credible the author is perceived to be. This can be measured by looking at things like whether the author has any conflicts of interest, or if their content has been accurate in the past. Always have a contact page with up-to-date information.
Creating quality content that meets all three criteria of EAT is the best way to ensure that your chiropractic content will rank well in search results.
DA / DR
Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are both metrics used to measure the strength of a website’s backlink profile. DA is a metric created by Moz, while DR is a metric created by Ahrefs. Both metrics take into account the number and quality of a website’s backlinks, as well as other factors, in order to produce a score that can be used to compare the relative strength of different websites’ backlink profiles.
Domain Authority is a scale from 0-100 which predicts how well a website will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). A high DA score indicates that a website is likely to rank well on SERPs, while a low DA score indicates that a website is less likely to rank well on SERPs.
Domain Rating is a scale from 0-100 which measures the overall strength of a chiropractic website’s backlink profile. A high DR score indicates that a website has a strong backlink profile, while a low DR score indicates that a website has a weak backlink profile. This simply means that other chiropractors (or perhaps even patients) have linked to you somewhere on their own websites. Think of backlinks as votes of confidence.
Both DA and DR are useful metrics for measuring the strength of your medical website’s backlink profile. However, it is important to note that neither metric is perfect and that they should only be used as one part of your overall link-building strategy.
What Factors Affect Search Engine Results?
Technical SEO Factors
Site Speed
Google and other experts seem to differ in just how many sites’ speed affects search engine rankings. However, there’s no question that site speed has a huge effect on user experience. In fact, “a one-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.”
User experience is important for SEO – and Google cares about both.
Mobile Friendliness
Mobile-friendliness has become increasingly important for chiropractic SEO in recent years. This is because more and more people are using their mobile devices to access the internet. In fact, Google has said that they take mobile-friendliness into account when ranking websites in their search results.
So, if you want your chiropractic website to be successful, it’s important to make sure it’s optimized for mobile devices. There are a few things you can do to make sure your site is mobile-friendly:
- Use a responsive design. This means that your website will automatically adjust to fit any screen size.
- Use large font sizes. Mobile users often have difficulty reading small text. So, it’s important to use large font sizes to make your content easy to read.
- Use short paragraphs. Mobile users are often on the go and don’t have time to read long blocks of text. So, it’s important to keep your paragraphs short and to the point.
- Avoid flash and other types of technology that may not be supported across all mobile devices.
Crawlability
When it comes to chiropractic websites, optimizing for search engines is essential in order to ensure that potential patients can find your site. However, simply having great content isn’t enough – you also need to make sure that your site is crawlable by search engine bots.
Crawlability refers to how easy it is for search engine bots to access and index your website’s content. If your site is not crawlable, then it will be much harder for people to find it through search engines.
Use clear and consistent navigation, a logical website structure, proper headings, and internal links in order to improve your chiropractic website’s crawlability.
On-Site SEO Factors
Title Tags
When it comes to chiropractor SEO, title tags are one of the most important elements of your website. Title tags are used to tell search engines what your website is about, and they appear at the top of your browser window when someone visits your site.
Chiropractic websites need to have well-written and keyword-rich title tags in order to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Ensure your title tag is between 55 – 60 characters long, including spaces. Try to include your keywords at the beginning of the title.
Heading Tags
How do heading tags affect your SEO? Well, search engines use heading tags to help determine the structure of a web page and to understand the content within that page. Heading tags also help people scan a web page to quickly find the information they’re looking for.
There should only be one H1 on the page – this is often the same as your title. H2 should be your main headings, H3 your subheadings, and so on.
Using heading tags correctly can be a great way to improve your chiropractic SEO. But it’s important to use them sparingly and only when they’re actually needed. Overuse of heading tags can actually hurt your SEO because it makes your content look spammy and can confuse search engines.
Meta Description
Meta descriptions are one of the most important elements of on-page SEO. They provide a brief description of the page’s content and can be a deciding factor in whether or not someone clicks through to your site.
If you’re running a chiropractic website, it’s important to make sure that your meta descriptions are optimized for both searchers and search engines.
Your meta description should be brief and to the point. It should give searchers a good idea of what the page is about without going into too much detail. Aim for around 155 characters – anything longer may get cut off in the search results. Include relevant keywords where possible, as well as your practice name and a call-to-action (CTA).
Alt Text
If you’re running a chiropractic website, it’s important to make sure that your alt text is optimized for SEO. Alt text is the text that appears in place of an image if the image can’t be displayed. It’s also used by search engines to index images.
Your alt text should be brief but descriptive. This will help search engines understand what the image is and why it’s relevant to the page. It also helps visually impaired individuals have a better user experience.
Content Strategy
Content strategy is important for any website, but especially for chiropractic websites. Why? Because the content on these types of websites needs to be highly relevant to what people are searching for when they need a chiropractor. That means that the content must be well-written, keyword-rich, and informative.
Not to mention, accurate, up-to-date, cite reputable sources and written (or reviewed) by a chiropractor.
If you’re not sure where to start with your content strategy, consider hiring a professional content writer. They can help you create high-quality content that will help improve your website’s SEO and attract more visitors.
Keyword Research
Keyword research plays an important role in chiropractic SEO because it helps you understand what potential patients are actually searching for online. When you know what keywords to target, you can design your website and content around those terms to make your site more visible in search engine results pages (SERPs).
In addition, targeting specific keywords can also help you attract more qualified leads who are actually interested in your services.
While there is no guarantee that keyword research will always lead to success in SEO, it is still a valuable tool that should be used as part of an overall SEO strategy. If done correctly, keyword research can give you the insights you need to make your chiropractic website more visible and attractive to potential patients.
Off Page SEO Factors
Backlink Profile
Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for any website, and that includes chiropractic websites. Your backlink profile is basically a measure of the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website from other websites.
Having a strong backlink profile can help your chiropractic website rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), which can lead to more traffic and patients. It also improves your website’s DA / DR.
Competition
The first way that your competition can affect your SEO is through keyword research. When you’re trying to determine which keywords to target, it’s important to take a look at what your competitors are targeting. This will give you an idea of which keywords are most likely to be effective for your own site.
Another way that your competition can impact your SEO is by their link-building efforts. If they’re actively building links to their site, then they’re likely getting better rankings in the search engines.
Local SEO
Google’s Local Pack
As the name suggests, the Local Pack can have a significant impact on the local SEO of a chiropractic website. If your website is one of the three businesses displayed in the Local Pack, it is likely that you will see an increase in traffic and web queries. It’s hugely beneficial when individuals are searching for a local chiropractor.
There are a few things that you can do to improve your chances of being featured in the Local Pack. First, make sure that your website is optimized for local search. This means including your city and state in your title tags, meta descriptions, and content.
Second, add your business to Google My Business. This will help Google verify your business and display accurate information in the Local Pack.
Finally, encourage customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business page. Positive reviews can improve your chances of being featured in the Local Pack.
If your website is one of the three businesses displayed in the Local Pack, it is likely that you will see an increase in traffic and web queries.
Local Sites & Directories
As a chiropractor, it’s important to make sure your website is optimized for local searches. This means ensuring that your site appears in search results when people search for chiropractors in your area. One way to do this is to list your practice on local directories and review sites.
Including your practice on these types of sites can help improve your visibility in local search results. Additionally, it can also help build trust and credibility with potential patients.
When choosing which directories and review sites to list your practice on, be sure to select ones that are relevant to your location and niche.
How Much Does SEO for Chiropractors Cost?
The cost of chiropractic SEO can vary depending on the size of your practice and your budget. However, on average, most chiropractors spend between $500 and $5,000 per month on SEO services. The exact amount you’ll need to spend will depend on your goals and the competition in your area. If you’re just starting out, you may be able to get by with a smaller budget. However, if you’re looking to dominate the search results in your area, you’ll need to be willing to invest more.
While the cost of chiropractor SEO can seem high, it’s important to remember that it’s an investment. When done correctly, SEO can help you bring in new patients and grow your practice.
Summing Up
Now that you understand the basics of chiropractor SEO and how to optimize your website, it’s time to put what you learned into action. The best way to start is by auditing your current website and making changes based on what we’ve talked about in this blog post. Once you have a solid foundation, continue to monitor your site and make small tweaks as needed.
If you need help getting started or want someone else to take care of all of the SEO for you, reach out to us at Vine Digital and let us show you what we can do. Following these simple steps will help improve your chiropractic website’s ranking on search engines, bringing more patients through your door.
