7 Ways to Grow Your Patient Base Using SEO for Chiropractors

With approximately 40,000 chiropractor’s offices in the United States, the chiropractic industry is booming.  While increasing demand is good news for chiropractors, it also comes with a caveat: As others try to get in on the action, more competition will emerge.

Which begs the question: How can you stay ahead of the curve?

It all comes down to marketing. And while traditional marketing methods still have their place, success also hinges on embracing the next frontier of marketing — digital marketing.

While digital marketing comprises many categories including social media marketing, mobile marketing, email marketing, pay-per-click, and others, one approach has especially powerful potential when it comes to attracting new chiropractic patients: SEO.

Wondering what SEO is, why it’s important to your chiropractic clinic, and how you can make the most of it? Read on for a comprehensive guide to all things SEO for chiropractors.

What Is SEO for Chiropractors?

While you’ve probably heard the term “SEO” before, you may not know that it refers to “search engine optimization,” the process by which a website can be strategically enhanced to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERP).

Wondering how SEO works? Search engines use “bots” (AKA “crawlers” and “spiders”) to visit websites and accumulate data, which is then entered into a giant database. When internet users enter a query such as “best chiropractor near me” into Google, the search engine draws on this database to connect the user with the information they’re looking for. The overarching goal? Optimizing the user experience by delivering the most relevant results.

In order to assess relevance, Google uses a secret and ever-changing algorithm that evaluates a number of different factors. By implementing the right SEO practices and continuously publishing high-quality and useful content, you may appear on Google Maps or on the first page of search results for potential customers looking for chiropractors.

In today’s competitive chiropractic landscape, a high-ranking website is much more than a “nice-to-have.” Given that more than 25 percent of people click the top result,  the imperative to garner a high position could not be stronger.

SEO and the Marketing Sales Funnel

One of the most powerful things about SEO is that it allows you to meet your potential clients wherever they are on the buyer’s journey. But before we get to that, let’s back up a bit.

Clients don’t just show up at your chiropractic website and immediately book an appointment. Rather, there’s a three-stage process by which they find your business (“awareness”), decide that it’s right for them (“evaluation”), and take action “(conversion”). This is called “the buyer’s journey.” Understanding it — and creating your SEO strategy based on that understanding — can lead to major payoffs for your business.

Specifically, SEO lets you target potential clients at the exact place they are on their individual buyer’s journey by optimizing your content to fulfill their exact wants and needs at any given time. This not only makes it easier for them to find you, but also to choose your chiropractic clinic and become a client.

7 Ways to Use SEO to Attract Chiropractic Clients

1. Have a keyword strategy.

   Search engine algorithms rely heavily on keywords. It’s not as simple as choosing a few keywords you think will get results and running with them. Rather, you need to identify the keywords that will best help you target your specific audience. While a search for “chiropractor” will be too vague, a search for “chiropractor in Philadelphia,” will help you get in front of searchers who are specifically looking for chiropractic services in your area.

   On that note, your keywords strategy should include local SEO. As a chiropractor, your target audience is inherently local. The more comprehensively you use local keywords and landing pages, the better able you’ll be to attract new clients to your business.

2. Publish consistent and high-quality content.

   Bots use the SEO on your website to rank your pages. In creating a place where keywords live, content is an invaluable part of any SEO strategy.

   However, all content is not created equal. Remember: search engines prioritize the user experience above all else. Authoritative, authentic, relevant, and high-value content is essential to pleasing search engines — and the visitors they drive to your pages.

3. Make the most of on-page SEO.

   Your chiropractic business web pages are full of opportunities to help search engines discover your content and identify it as a match to relevant search queries. All of your web pages should be optimized to make it easy for search engines to appropriately categorize them — and to identify them as high-value sites worthy of a high SERP rank.

4. Keep the user experience at the forefront.

   It’s easy to get caught up in keywords and other technical logistics. While these things absolutely matter, it is because they relate to an underlying theme: the user experience.

   Today’s consumers have high expectations for the businesses they support. They expect mobile-friendly, user-friendly, and responsive websites. The easier your website is to navigate, the longer visitors will stay — another factor search engines consider.

5. Incorporate helpful product reviews.

   As we mentioned earlier, search engine algorithms are constantly changing and improving. While there is some mystery involved, there’s also a decent amount of clarity. Search Engine Land recently reported on a product reviews update to Google’s algorithm designed to reward reviews that “share in-depth research, rather than thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.”

   While third-party review sites like Yelp have value, first-party reviews, AKA those that occur directly on your website, are extremely important — especially when you factor in that consumers view reviews as an essential and trustworthy resource.

6. Add an FAQ page.

   As with all of the tactics on this list, an effective FAQ serves the dual purpose of incorporating keywords that lead to high performance with search engines AND giving visitors the information they need about your business. By answering your potential clients’ questions before they even ask them, you build trust, steward the buyer’s journey, and increase conversions.

7. Hire a digital marketing agency.

   As a chiropractor, your area of expertise is, well, chiropractic. As such, your time and effort is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality chiropractic care to your clients. Taking the time to learn SEO and to keep up with the latest trends, developments, and best practices is unlikely to be the best use of your resources. At the same time, hiring a dedicated staff member to specialize in digital marketing may be cost prohibitive.

Want a best-of-both-worlds option? Hire a chiropractor SEO expert. Not only do you gain access to a veritable brainpower of SEO knowledge, but you can do so at a fraction of the cost of adding a full-time employee (and salary) to your team.

Furthermore, a digital marketing agency can offer a host of other digital marketing services in addition to chiropractic SEO marketing. Whether you’re looking for affordable custom web design or another digital marketing strategy, an online marketing firm can help.

SEO for chiropractors has tremendous potential to drive traffic to your website, build consumer trust, promote positive user experiences, boost engagement and conversion rates, and increase lead generation. All this, and it’s cost-effective, too.

But harnessing the full power of SEO hinges not only on knowing best practices, but on relentlessly keeping up with the changing market. A digital marketing firm with a background in chiropractic marketing online can help you make the most of everything that SEO for chiropractors has to offer.