Chiropractic Marketing Research and Services» chiropractic seo

Chiropractic website search optimization

Mike Melton — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:26:18 +0000

Many of our clients are interested in the secret to search engine optimization. You want to know the secret?

THERE IS NO SECRET!

In this video, our President, Mike Melton, describes the key to optimizing your chiropractic site.

Google’s New Algorithm: How It’ll Affect You!

Roderick Campbell — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:21 +0000

Every few months, Google makes changes to their algorithm that determines how websites rank online. These changes are usually imperceptible to the average internet user and typically consist of minor tweaks and experiments, often designed to alter only a tiny percentage of search results. But every now and then Google shakes things up by significantly altering their algorithm or values within their algorithm. One such change took place this month and we’re now calling it the “Google Panda Update”. Do a quick news search for “Google Panda” and you’ll find a whole range of articles and arguments debating the changes and what effects they’ll have on websites.

This change is designed to increase penalties for websites who attempt to gain higher rankings by gaming the system. Generally speaking, this update will positively effect chiropractic websites who produce high quality content and build organic, high-quality backlinks. The only websites that’ll suffer penalties are those who have duplicate or low quality content, are attempting to cheat the system, or are somehow linked to websites or SEO firms with bad reputations. This is a big step forward for those of us who want to contribute meaningfully to the internet by producing great content and honest websites!

The hardest hit websites are those who’ve gained high rankings (first page) by copying content from other websites. These sites are being identified by Google and being significantly penalized. An easy way to evaluate your website is to go through every page on your site and copy small chunks of text (2-3 sentences) and then pasting that text into Google. If other websites come up with the same content, you’re probably being penalized. We strongly recommend deleting that content and replacing it with original content. Additionally, make sure you’re not connected in any way to search engine optimization (SEO) firms with anything less than an angelic history.

Confused? Need more information? Give us a call at (800)295-3346 and we’ll be glad to help!

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Google SEO Starter Guide

Mike Melton — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:54:39 +0000

With our ChiroHosting sites, we take care of the basic search engine optimization for your website, but there are a lot of things that you can do to boost your search placement when you add your own content to your chiropractic website.

Google provides a fantastic, free guide to doing exactly that, and we recommend that you read this book. You can download it here.

Some of it might be more technical than most of our clients will need, but there are some great tips on adding content to your site.

Here is a quick summary of the key p0ints:

Think like a patient. What do you think your potential patients might be searching for? Create a page on your site about that exact topic.
Write easy to read text. Don’t fill the page with gigantic masses of text. Patients won’t read it, because people skim online text. Write a few short paragraphs about the topic.
Stay organized around the topic. Write about one topic so that it’s easier for the search engines to index.
Create fresh, unique content. Try to add a page or two of content to your site each week. Blogging is fantastic for this, and it takes just a few minutes. A great way to come up with topics is to look at Google News for health and you’ll find lots of news articles to write about.

Good search placement isn’t difficult, but it does take a bit of work.

We’re here to help you out with this. If you ever have any questions about how to boost your rankings, give us a call at (800) 295-3346.

Mike Melton

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Grabbing the long tail of search

Mike Melton — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:08:47 +0000

There are many misconceptions about search engine optimization among chiropractic website companies. For instance, one company advertises a “gold package” where you can have “10 Search Terms” on your site for an extra fee.

This is a scam, pure and simple.

Why? Because no website is limited to any number of search terms. The number of search terms you rank well for is dependent on the content on your site. Not a silly list of keywords you pay for.

A great article on WordTracker describes the idea of “long tail search optimization, but here’s the gist:

Most chiropractors are fixated on the idea of targeting the big key phrases: “Chiropractor in Arlington Texas” or “Schererville Indiana Chiropractic.”

And those are important search terms to target, because quite a few people search for those terms.

But did you know that a larger number of people are search for more specific things, such as:

Arlington TX headache treatment
Arlington TX sciatica treatment
Schererville IN back pain treatment

These non-primary key phrase searches are the long tail of search, and it’s very easy to optimize your website for these searches.

How? The thing to keep in mind about Google is this: Google wants to provide the best search result for the searcher. The better the search result, the more likely it will be for the person to keep using Google, and the more money that Google will make.

So, if you have a page on your site about “Schererville IN carpal tunnel,” guess what? You’re going to rank highly (probably #1) for that search term. (Test it out for yourself. Go to Google and search for “Schererville IN carpal tunnel” and you’ll see one of ChiroHosting client sites pop right to the top.)

This technique is very simple. All you have to do is come up with a list of conditions you work with, and then create a little mini-page on your website for each of those exact key phrases you wish to target. Make sure you use the proper title tags and description tags, too, which helps Google index your page.

“What if I don’t have the time to write a dozen articles?” Check out Craigslist or Elance.com and find a freelance writer. They can write up a dozen articles quickly for you for a reasonable fee. (Just make sure to get some examples of their work first.)

If you have any questions about chiropractic search optimization or how to exploit the long tail effect, give us a call at (800) 295-3346 and we’ll be happy to answer your questions.

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Shortcut Marketing: The Darkside of Chiropractic Marketing

Roderick Campbell — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:31:36 +0000

For some reason, chiropractors seem to be bombarded with snake oil selling “marketing experts” who claim to know a mysterious secret that will boost your website to the top of Google rankings. If you’re not running for the hills, you should be. These internet outlaws prey on folks who are relatively new to the web. They make promises of first page Google ranks, huge website traffic, hordes of new patients, and just about anything else you may want.

The truth is, there aren’t any marketing shortcuts or SEO secrets. The only way to make it to the top of Google (without eventually getting banned) is to create high quality material, optimize your keywords, and create inbound links- all of which you’re capable of doing on your own and for free!

These are some common scams to beware of:

“You can cheat Google by joining our website. We’ll create fake reviews for your practice and cheat on Google Maps. This will put you on the top of Google overnight!”

Frankly, this is terrible advice. Because 1- it doesn’t work and 2- when Google finds out you’re cheating, they will stick you on the bottom of results or ban you permanently.

“We’ll optimize your website keywords by inserting keyword rich content.”

This is usually a nice way of saying, we’ll cram your website with hidden keywords and temporarily boost your website’s search rankings- at least long enough to make off with your hard earned cash. Of course, they’re long gone by the time you start getting de-ranked or banned by Google.

“We’ll automate your patient newsletters and bring in new patients by targeting people in your community.”

Always be careful with newsletter services. You need to be 100% certain the newsletter service is legitimate, legal, and conforms to the CAN SPAM laws. If the newsletter service sends emails to people without their explicit permission, you can be held liable for violating the law. Additionally, I’ve spoken to several DC’s who have paid $75-$150 per month for automated newsletter services, only to discover that newsletters were never being sent. Take time to verify that newsletters are being sent and are high quality!

“We can set-up an optimized Facebook profile for you with 500 friends for only $250.”

First off, Facebook profiles are free and incredibly easy to set-up. Second, the 500 friends you receive will be largely fake accounts, which provide no real benefit. Third, these scam artists often charge a monthly fee to maintain the profile. Getting a professional to maintain and contribute to your profile isn’t a bad idea, but you can’t do it on the cheap without getting ripped-off. A qualified Facebook specialist will typically run $200-$300/month, this kind of person creates content specially for your Facebook profile and targets only potential patients- so don’t expect to see explosive results and overnight sales increases.

Here’s my advice: if you run across a service and aren’t 100% sure if they’re legitimate, give us a call or send us an email and we’ll try to help you out. We’re full of chiropractic marketing ideas and provide professionally written articles, search engine optimization advice, how-to videos, and social media tools for free. You might as well take advantage of them!

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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