Search Engine Optimization 101

When a prospective patient searches on the world wide web for “chiropractic”, “female chiropractor”, “sports chiropractor”, or “pediatric chiropractor” for your local area, will your business be one of the top results in that search? Read on to learn more about search engines and how to improve your clinic’s ranking.

1) What is a search engine? A search engine is designed to search for specific keywords on the internet based on the words you input as search terms. The results consist of websites, images, phone numbers, files, and/or other publicly available information where the keywords are found. Each search engine may provide separate results for the very same search.

2) What are some search engines available? The top search engines as of August 2010 from Hitwise (Top Search Engines by Volume) are as follows:
1. Google 71.59%
2. Yahoo! 14.28%
3. Bing 9.87%
4. Ask 2.28%
5. AOL Search 1.21%

A few others that aren’t high ranking, but still useful because you can make a “page” for your office, including logo, hours, pictures, videos, additional information, etc are listed below. These engines also display reviews that you can encourage your customers to post about their experience with your office.

1. City Search
2. Insider Pages
3. Kudzu

3) What is the difference between the results on Google that show up on the middle of the page and the smaller results on the right column of the page? The results on the right column are “adwords” also knows as paid for ads. Meaning, a business has paid Google to guarantee their business shows up when a search is done with those keywords. The results in the middle of the page are the “organic” results. You cannot buy yourself into this section. Organic results are the best!....the results are all based on popularity, which tells the person searching that it’s the top chiropractor! Organic search results are likely to get 42-56% clicks, whereas adwords are likely to get 1-3%, which shows how important it is to get your website ranking with the organic results!

4) How do I submit and/or update our business on these search engines? Visit the websites. Then search for your business. Most have something like “click here if you own this business” or “claim this listing.” You’ll want to do that so it becomes “owner verified” and not just anyone on the internet could apply changes to your website.

5) How can I help make my website rank higher with search engines? It is YOUR responsibility to make your site popular, giving it a high rank with search engines. Starting off, update and enhance your website home page title, description and body text! This is all things you should have access to with your website designer.

TITLE: Rewrite your Title to include “CITY NAME Chiropractic.”
DESCRIPTION: For the description, if there are search phrases you want people to search and find your website; use those phrases in your description! For example: “Urbandale Family Chiropractor: Dr. Heather Yost offers a whole range of chiropractic care including spinal adjustments, treatment for back pain, neck pain – all for the whole family. Located in Urbandale, IA.” That is just an example, but include things you your office specializes in, such as, pregnancy, family care, pediatrics, sports, etc. Adding the word “female” can be an added bonus too!

BODY TEXT: This is the main page of your website. This must have original content, NOT what your website by design puts there for you. Have at least 800 words. Use adjectives that you want people to find you when they are searching.
Next, claim & enhance (add pictures, videos, additional office information, etc) your page on the search engines. Also, get reviews from patients! Make it easy for your patients; send them the link of the search engine review section and ask them to please share a sentence or 2 about their experience with your office!

6) Can I see feedback to show this is really working? Contact your webmaster, they should provide you with statistics (also known as “traffic report”), where you can see daily, monthly, and yearly stats from non-paid search engines. After implementing these ideas, you can expect seeing increased website traffic from search engines within 2-4 weeks. You can then expect that to increase month to month for 3-12 months, which at that point you’ll eventually hit a local maximum, but keep working at it so you do not drop off the radar! Search engines are always looking for content that is maintained regularly. Also remember, there is no guarantees your site will rank in the top 1-5 but doing all of this will without doubt help!

7) GOAL: After reading and getting a better understanding about search engines, please walk away with 3 new ideas to implement this week to help your website ranking! This is not something you can do one time, make it a system. Try one time a week and create a process that will remind you to jump on the sites and update any necessary information. Continue to ask patients to write reviews about your office on the different sites by providing them with the direct link.