Chiropractic Marketing Research and Services» chiropractic website design

Colors for Chiropractic Websites

Mike Melton — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:03:07 +0000

When creating chiropractic websites, physicians ought to keep in mind what patients are looking for in a chiropractor. Patients are looking for someone professional, knowledgeable in the field, reliable, and friendly. The overall look of your chiropractic website should reflect these characteristics, especially because it will serve as the first impression of your practice to potential patients.

Perhaps one of the most noticeable parts of a website is the color scheme. The colors and layout will stay in the mental image of your site’s visitors long after they have left their computer. Consequently, the colors of the site need to reflect what physicians want their patients to remember about them. Use colors that suggest professionalism and make the site easy to read. It will not help if the text is in a bright color like yellow or red that makes it difficult to read. Keep bright colors muted and relaxed, just like how patients should feel in the physician’s able care. Neutral color schemes like blacks, whites, and grays can give a professional and educated look. Shades of blue and green have a calming effect and work well to give a splash of color to borders, headers or footers. Use similar dark winter shades, as brighter colors like yellows and oranges can create feelings of alarm and caution.

Patients should remember feeling like they are in good hands after viewing the chiropractic website and the color scheme is very important in creating that impression.

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Most Important Part of Chiropractic Websites

Mike Melton — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:47:48 +0000

When designing chiropractic websites, there so many things to think about that often you can get caught up in details and miss what is really important about the site. A website is will be patients’ first impression of your practice, as most patients now do their research online when trying to choose a physician. Thus it is important to make your website stand out from the rest, but also keep the essentials in mind.

The saying that “less is more” is true in this case: strive for simplicity rather than flashy, over-the-top effects. Patients are looking at chiropractic websites for information, not to be entertained. Make the content friendly and informative to let patients know the essentials of the practice like where the office is located, how many physicians practice there, and what kind of patients you normally see. Let patients get to know the physicians before they even step through the front door with helpful bios and pictures including information about their history, where they went to school, and how long they have been practicing. This way, when a patient meets the chiropractor face-to-face, he or she already has a sense of familiarity that will make him or her feel more relaxed.

A chiropractic website should also be easy to navigate and understand – informational content that is unlabeled or hidden behind moving links will not create a feeling of accessibility, only frustration. Lastly, be sure that the site compels potential patients to action before they leave the site. Chiropractic websites can increase their effectiveness by including a link where patients can schedule an appointment online. Otherwise, be sure there is a phone number or other contact information with a suggestion for patients to schedule right then and there. They will feel like they are welcome and in good hands when these important guidelines are followed.

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Welcome to our website. Now leave!

Mike Melton — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:17:20 +0000

It’s a lot of work getting a visitor to your chiropractic website. Each year, more and more websites go online in your community, and they’re all vying for the same patients. So it’s a little shocking to see what some chiropractors do with their sites. It seems like some of them are actually trying to tell patients to get lost.

Mistake #1: Directly sending patients away by linking them away from your site

We see this a lot. A doctor wants to provide some information to their client, so they link to content somewhere on the web. Here’s an example:

www.arlingtonspine.com

Right on the home page, this doctor has a bunch of links to articles on health conditions — that send patients to other sites. The problem is that once you send someone away to another website, it’s very unlikely they’re going to come back.

The solution: have content on your own website! Here’s an example:

St George UT Chiropractor

With ChiroHosting, we provide you with over 500 pages of content that you can share with your patients, so you don’t have to send them to Wikipedia!

Mistake #2: Scary design

Folks, it’s 2011 and your patients are very familiar with what a professional website looks like. You don’t want to send them to something like this:

Scary Chiropractic Website Design

You know the saying about first impressions. Think about what your patients will think when they visit your site.

Unless you have a degree in graphic design, leave the site design to the pros.

Mistake #3: Don’t tell your patients anything about you

If you can’t spend 10 minutes writing something about why you became a chiropractor, why should a patient feel like calling you for help?

This Doctor is Under Construction!

What kind of impression does that give a potential patient? You’ll find the same “Under Construction” message under Treatments Available, Specific Conditions Treated, and the FAQ. And it’s been under construction since March of 2010.

Again, another reason not to create your own website. You should be treating patients, not tinkering with HTML!

Those are the three big mistakes we see with many chiropractic websites.The good news is that your site doesn’t have to make them. If you have the right team working on your site, you can have a content-rich website that makes you look like the professional you are!

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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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Chiropractic Marketing Advice from Captain Future

Roderick Campbell — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:30:49 +0000

Remember those 1950′s and 60′s science fiction comics? The intrepid adventurer, the unlucky lady, and the robotic androids from planet 9? Back then, the ray guns and rocket ships were pretty hi-tech gadgetry. There were even computers capable of speaking 13,000 languages, communicating across the planet, and serving hot coffee. Here at Chirohosting, we do everything except the coffee – but we’re working on that.

Don’t get ripped off by gimmicky spinning graphics or flashy gizmos. Real-life technology should blend into a website seamlessly, in fact, it should feel simple, functional, and efficient. Here at our labs, we have an assortment of highly qualified chimps in lab-coats who work tirelessly to invent micro cold fusion processors. The technology is…in progress.

In the mean time- we focus on making dynamically customizable websites with loads of interactive features and eye-pleasing designs. We’ve also learned that it’s important to go above and beyond for our customers. In fact, we typically get to know each customer by name and even our owner takes customer service calls. We may not be Captain Future but we’re pretty darn cool.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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Converting website visitors into patients

Mike Melton — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:41:36 +0000

Having a great chiropractic website is the first step to your online marketing program. The second step is great search engine optimization so that your patients can find your website. But the next step can be the most challenging: Getting site visitors to give you a call to make an appointment.

Here are some things to consider when trying to improve your conversion rate:

First, make it easy for your patients to find the information they’re looking for. Very few people are visiting your site just to randomly look around. Most of your patients are looking for specific answers to questions, like “How can this chiropractor help me with my headache?” Make it easy for your visitors by keeping your site navigation clean and simple.

Second, show how you’re unique. If you have a particular approach or philosophy that makes your practice different, let your visitors know. Differentiating yourself from other clinics is a powerful way to stand apart.

Third, make sure to include a clear “call-to-action.” On all of your site pages, include some text that says, “If you suffer from sciatica pain, we might be able to help. Please call our office at (360) 555-1235 for more information.”

By combining a great site with great SEO and a clear call-to-action, you’re on the way to creating a powerful web presence for your practice.

If you have any questions about how to make this work for you, feel free to give me a call directly at (800) 295-3346 or email me at mike@chirohosting.com.

Mike Melton
Owner, ChiroHosting.com

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Affordable Chiropractic Website Design

Mike Melton — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:44:58 +0000

Here’s a recent article on building your web presence, affordably:

Chiropractic Website Design

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Chiropractic marketing with press releases

Mike Melton — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:25:03 +0000

Press releases can a great way to market your chiropractic practice.

Chiropractic Website Design

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Chiropractic Website Design Tips

Mike Melton — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 05:53:11 +0000

Here are some free tips to help you when designing your chiropractic website:

Chiropractic Website Design

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