If you own or manage a chiropractic practice, you know just how indispensable your website is when it comes to attracting new patients and keeping the ones you already have. But it takes a digital marketing expert to get the very most out of chiropractic websites.

The truth is that not every chiropractic practice website has the same outreach potential on the internet. Through professional search engine optimization (SEO), you can drive more online traffic to your website and attract more patients to your office.

Read on for more information about how on-page SEO works and how a specialized SEO chiropractic marketing service agency like Marketing Done Right can help you improve your business.

Basic SEO Terms & Definitions

The overall goal of SEO is to ensure that your practice appears at or near the top of Google and other online searches for chiropractic care and services in your particular geographic region. To better understand SEO and what it can do for you, it is helpful to clearly define a few key terms. 

• On-Page and Off-Page SEO – Also generally known as “on-site” and “off-site,”  “on-page” and “off-page” are umbrella terms that define exactly where particular SEO operations are centered. In short, SEO is on-page when it occurs on your website itself. Off-page SEO, by contrast, involves other websites and general internet practices. Common on-page SEO practices include internal linking, blogging, metadata maintenance, and strategic website development. Common off-page SEO practices include backlinking, guest posting, article syndication, and search account management.
• SERPs – Short for “search engine result pages,” SERPs are the lists that search engines produce from the phrases or questions that people type into a query field. In general, all SEO activities aim to keep specified websites as close as possible to the top of all relevant SERPs.
• Keywords – An essential component of any SEO campaign, keywords will ideally represent the intentions of internet users who are trying to find specific websites, information, resources, goods, and/or services online. Search engines “look” for keywords to return only the most pertinent and helpful results. Popular keywords and keyword phrases in the world of chiropractic healthcare include “chiropractor” and “back pain.” Keywords can also help limit relevant searches in terms of geographic location (for example, “chiropractor in Los Angeles”) and specialization (for example, “prenatal chiropractic care”).  

Why Use On-Page SEO?

Without on-page SEO, you are unlikely to capture potential new customers, failing to connect with them just when their need for your particular services is at its highest. To help boost your online presence and drive traffic to your website, you will want to consider a number of SEO techniques including: 

• Title Tags and Meta Description – Title tags are the search engine result page headlines that internet users can click after making a search. Meta descriptions are the short snippets of text that appear underneath each title tag. Determined by the content of the websites that they represent, these are two of the most important elements of effective on-page SEO. Attributes of effective title tags and meta descriptions include brevity, uniqueness, relevance, and accuracy.  
• Image File Names – By optimizing the file names of the images that appear on your website, you can dramatically improve your on-page SEO. By incorporating keywords into each image file name, you can make your website significantly more search engine-friendly. Ideally, these file names should include five words or fewer.
• Engaging Content – Written content that pays too much attention to keywords and not enough attention to relevance, readably, voice, and flow is bound to fail when it comes to engaging readers. Furthermore, websites that contain too many keywords (a practice known as “keyword stuffing”) will come off as “bot-like” and “spammy.” This unrefined on-page SEO approach will not only turn off potential patients but serve as “red flags” to search engines, which lower rankings for websites that keyword stuff.

On-Page SEO: A Checklist for Your Website

Chiropractic practices and other businesses must be careful that any on-page SEO activities that they undertake will improve website user experience (UX) and online outreach capabilities in key ways. To get the very most out of your on-page chiropractic SEO, it may be helpful to refer to a checklist that should include considerations such as…

• Loading Speed Time – A website with slow page-loading times (generally, five seconds or longer) will not only frustrate visitors but negatively impact SEO practices and online traffic flow.
• Keywords – First, be sure to concentrate on keywords that have maximum relevance to your chiropractic practice, its location, and the specific services/benefits that it offers. Then, incorporate these keywords into your website content in the proper places and at the proper density.
• URLs – Like image file names, the URLs that identify each page on your website should contain relevant keywords and follow a strategic structure. Generally speaking, URLs should be brief, free of punctuation marks, and place keywords as early as possible.
• Image Alt-tags – You can include image alt-tags on any image that you place on your website. In addition to serving as a descriptive aid for people with visual impairments, these alt-tags can boost on-line SEO if they contain relevant keywords.
• Meta descriptions – Beyond the role that they play in technical SEO operations, optimized meta descriptions can drive more traffic to your website when they list the specific services and informative details that people want the most.
• Internal and Outbound Links – A key metric in on-site SEO is the number and quality of the links to outside websites that the optimized website contains. All of these links should provide extra value to your target audience.

Outsmart the Competition with On-Page SEO 

It’s tough to rise to the top of your local chiropractic market without effective search engine optimization, but the highly technical SEO process can be daunting to say the very least. A specialized on-page SEO marketing agency such as Marketing Done Right is essential for chiropractic websites that want to boost their relevant search engine search rankings and reach potential new patients online.