If you’ve heard me speak, you may realize that I’m not a fan of just having a website and hoping for the best. You’ve got to do more. You need more content, more websites, and just… more! You need to occupy more spots in the search engines, period.

Why? Showing up in more places gives you several advantages;

• More places for people to find you
• More credibility when they keep “bumping into you” online
• More trust when they get to know you better
• More links to your site

Two of the ways to create more content are writing articles and writing blog posts. So what’s the difference? Should you do one or the other? Both? (Of course you have to understand by now that I think you need to do both.)

Well, all articles can be blog posts, but not all blog posts can be articles. Confused yet? Ok, then keep reading…

Generally speaking, blog posts are shorter than articles. Blog posts can be less formal (not that articles have to be written like they’re going into the scientific journals) and can be about anything you want. They don’t necessarily have to follow a theme, and they can be videos or just snippets as to what you’re doing in the office.

Blog posts invite interaction, while articles should finish with a call to action. Blog posts may just be about how you’re feeling that day, or something that’s happening your office, while articles should be informative and answer questions.

Blog posts should also be done on a regular basis. If you’re going to start blogging, the more often and more consistent you are the better. At a minimum, you should blog once a week. Of course, you can create all of your blog posts at one time and then schedule them to go out weekly — automatically!

Got questions? Wondering how to set up a blog or where you should submit your articles? That’s coming up in the next couple of blog posts!

One of the issues I see that chiropractors seem to be struggling with is sharing all of the information they know about chiropractic and overall health in a concise and convincing manner.

They know so much, they want to share, they want to help — and the message gets muddied and unclear. The message can become more about what the doctor wants to share instead of what the patient wants to know.

The other issue is that by sharing so much information, trying to capture every condition that could possibly come your way, you may lose more than you catch.

There’s an old saying, “When you market to everyone, you market to no one.”

The same can be applied here. When you teach to everyone, you’re teaching to no one. What type of patient do you really want in your office? Sports injuries? Auto accidents? Wellness?

Does the message you’re sending out indicate that? Will the perfect patient you want to attract feel like the message is speaking directly to them? If not, it may be time to reassess who you really want in your office and tailor your website and marketing efforts to them.

When I sat down to make my chiropractic website, I asked myself, “What would someone looking for a chiropractor really want to know? What would make them want to call my office?”

I decided that the most common questions had to be addressed. Since I visualized that someone was dialing the phone while laying flat on their back in pain, I tried to speak to them. I gave them the basics; what conditions do you treat, where are you, when are you open, and can I afford it (aka – will my insurance cover it)?

What else is there? What else would someone seeking out chiropractic care want to know before they came in?

I assumed that they would also like to see who they are visiting, and a little bit about them. What does the doctor look like? Is the office nice? What can I expect to happen on the first visit?

Some would want to know this, but probably less than the people that were just trying to find out when I’m open. So the secondary information is quickly available, but not on the first page.

Keep it clean. Keep the message clear, and direct it at the people you hope will find your office and seek out your care. They don’t need to know the history of chiropractic or find out that the “About The Doctor” page is still “under construction.”

I think we would all make better choices on our websites if we really tried to think about it that way. Most docs just don’t want to think about it at all and that will hurt your site in the long run. Give your site a once over and see if it’s the message you’re really going for.

If it’s not, make a change! That’s what’s so great about websites and internet marketing. Changes can really be made at any time. So there’s no reason to keep your old site or your old content unless it’s what you really want.

How does adding videos help you in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts? Is adding a video going to give you a backlink and help drive your site up the rankings? Are there other ways creating chiropractic videos can help your marketing efforts online?

SEO Benefits

Every video you create can help your SEO efforts if you set it up correctly. The first thing you’ll have to decide is what you’re trying to rank for in the first place. Since ranking for “chiropractor” isn’t as likely as ranking for “your town + chiropractor,” you should start there.

When you create an account with Youtube or any other video sharing site, you’ll want to use your main keywords as the name for your account. So your account name shouldn’t be “dc28inzzz.” (That’s just an example, I have no idea if that’s a real account.) Your account name should be “houstonchiropractor” or “louisvillechiropractor” or whatever your town name is + chiropractor.

Next, title your video with your main keywords in it. If your video is about the benefits of chiropractic for children, you should title it something like, “Boise Chiropractor Discusses Chiropractic For Children.”  With your keywords in your title, your username, and by including your keywords in the description part of the video (along with the url of your website), you stand at least a fighting chance of having your video show up for your keyword terms.

In order to have any video really rank long-term, however, you’ll still need to have other sites linking to your video. This can be done (if not by you, I can help here).

Marketing Benefits

I wish I could remember exactly where I read this, but a phrase that stood out to me was the advice to “own more of the internet.” By having your lone website available to rank for your primary keyword phrase you can likely only occupy one space on the first page of the search engines.

Have more stuff? More sites? Videos? Articles? They can each occupy a space on the first page of the rankings page. All the more reason to create more content and work on ranking it as well.

Plus, you give people something to research about you and you give them ways to find you without just your website. Someone types in “Can chiropractors treat jaw pain?” and your video pops up. Turns out they’re in your area. Who are they going to call?

The goal is to get as many qualified visitors looking for your services to your site or one of your pieces of content. More spaces you occupy, the more content you have, the more internet you “own.”

Create content and do it consistently. You may just see a trickle of viewers and readers at first, but that information is there to stay. Someone will find it when they need it most — and that’s good enough for me.

Share your comments!

The time to start creating videos has come. For some, this is a total nightmare. For others, it’s your chance to really shine and set yourself apart from the other chiropractors in your area.

How can videos help you promote your office? What should they be about? How long should they be?

Today we’ll tackle these very questions, show you an example that I’m doing and then help you figure out how to create videos for yourself.

If you don’t yet have a picture of yourself on your website because you “just haven’t found one your happy with.” Then you’re in trouble. Many chiropractors I talk with don’t want to write an article, do public speaking, or even hold a health care class in their own office. To them, knowing that a video of them talking will be available on the internet for the world to see is a scary proposition.

For you (I hope), you’ll realize that this is your chance to let the public know who you are and what you’re about. It’s a great chance to share the valuable information you have in your head with the world around you. Even better, you’ll help potential new patients learn about you and feel a connection with you before they even enter your office.

When a potential new patient looks for a chiropractor in your town and most all have the same website (using a template site), don’t have a picture of themselves, and have nothing online like articles or videos — you become the obvious choice to see. Just like it should be! You are a confident doctor ready to help. You’re not hiding in your office, you’re transparent and the internet searcher loves this.

So what should your videos be about?

There’s the obvious topical choices, like: low back pain, headaches, neck pain, chiropractic for kids, chiropractic after an auto accident… stuff like that. My favorite way is to shoot quick videos based on questions patients ask. When you use this as your format, every day you are filled with ideas for new videos!

Questions like “How long will it take?” “Why do I have to come in 3 times per week?” “Can you adjust pregnant women?” can all turn into quick videos. These are all questions you’ve already answered dozens of times. Now you can put it down on a video and help others.

How long should the videos be?

The magic number seems to be 2 minutes. If the video is much longer than that, it had better be on a complex subject. If not, keep the video under 2 minutes. People will be far more likely to watch a 30 second video about “How long until I feel better?” than a 10-minute video about the benefits of chiropractic care.

How should I get started?

Buy a Flip video camera, and start shooting videos! The software is built into the camera, works for a PC or Mac, and has a super-easy user interface to help you get started. The part I like best? You can upload straight to Youtube right from the software without having to convert the footage into another format. Easy!

You can check out my channel on Youtube for more ideas. http://www.youtube.com/houstonchiropractor

See how I use my main keywords in my Youtube username? Do that too! (It all helps.)

Let me know what you think! Ask questions and leave your comments below.

When potential new patients try to find a chiropractor in your area, there are three places that will pull up. The paid ads (usually on the top and right hand sides), the organic listings (the rest of the page), and the local search area (usually includes a map).

You can create a Pay-per-click (PPC) campaign if you wish, and that will mean that you pay for every person that clicks on your ad. (Prices vary by city, but typical prices seem to range from $.50 to $5.00 per click.) While these ads can show up quickly and give you an instant source of website traffic, it can get expensive fast while attracting the wrong type of patients.

Organic listings require work, but is usually well worth the time, effort, and investment. This is where I help my clients the most.

Local search is a whole ‘nother animal. Getting your business listed on the map has a few factors associated with it, and most offices do nothing to help themselves here.

While the default option on the map seems to be to show businesses that are closest to the city’s center, there is something you can do about it (other than relocated your office).

Below is a list of places you can either create a business listing or at least confirm that your information is accurate. I’ve worked with clients where at least one of these directories showed an old address or even that they had closed!

Take the time to make sure your business is listed correctly, but to take it up a notch, complete the business profile! Add your clinic hours, some photos, some videos… anything that will make your profile stand out. Since most offices don’t complete any of this information, you can stand out just by doing the minimum.

• Google Local Business
• Bing Local Business
• Yahoo Local
• Yelp
• AOL Local Search
• HotFrog
• Brownbook
• InfoUSA
• Openlist
• Citysearch
• Best Of The Web Local

If you want extra credit and want to find more help, just go to Google and type in your city name + “local directory” and see what pops up.

Some cities have a local trusted guide that you should make sure you’re on. Every one of these sites gets regular traffic and is just one more opportunity for people to find you, and to help your site become a more trusted site.

The main objective is to have you and your website show up as many places online as possible. All of it adds to your credibility and just helps to cement your listing on the front page of the search results.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but who are you going to be online? Very professional academic-type chiropractor? Zany, over-the-top-for-health chiropractor? Family “I just want to help my community” Chiropractor? Maybe “chiropractic rules and everything else is bad” chiropractor?

It’s not up to me. I’m not even saying that one is better than the other. The only thing that really matters? You just need to be yourself. However, we all have different sides to us.

There’s the side that’s at the office, and the side that’s just with friends. We have the side that gets all worked up at sporting events, and the side that shows up when someone’s having a bad day. Which “side” do you want to show online?

This is something to give some thought to. What image do you want to display and create for yourself? Who do you want to be known as? If you can figure out who you want to be, you’ll have a clearer picture what your message should be. Then you’ll start to attract the people that respond to that message.

Not everyone’s going to like your style and presentation, but hopefully enough will. It’s just easier to be yourself when blogging, writing articles, creating videos, and participating on Twitter. It’s exhausting to try and be someone else, and it’s boring when you don’t show any personality.

That being said, do you always promote yourself when you talk? “Hey, Bob, how are you doing today?” “If you have low back pain, visit our office today!” “Uh, I just asked how you were doing…” “New patient special at our office today!”

This isn’t engaging, and it’s certainly not a conversation. It doesn’t tell us who you are or why we should listen to you. It’s like watching 55 minutes of commercials to get to a 5 minute t.v. show. Who’s going to listen to that?

Still, that’s exactly what I see when chiropractors promote themselves online. Each “tweet” is nothing more than a 140-character ad. Each blog post is nothing more than “if you have a headache, come see us today.”

When you’re spending time earning people’s trust online, this isn’t going to work. Don’t expect each internet offering to get you a new patient. Just be yourself, have fun, and share helpful information. They’ll find you.

If you haven’t yet stepped up to the plate to get your online marketing in place, I have to ask; “Do you think it’s going to get easier?”

It’s really no big deal to get a website up that shares basic information your office. Many docs overthink this whole process, feeling like it doesn’t really matter if they have a website or not. Others aren’t sure what they should say on their website. However, having a website is not a difficult process.

Where it becomes more complicated is when you want people to actually find your site and choose you when they are looking for a chiropractor. Each day, more people get on the internet and will use that as their sole way of finding the services they need. Will they find you?

Each day, more chiropractors wake up to the fact that not only do they need to be online, they need to be on the first page of Google. More importantly, they figure out that being at the top is even better. From “do I really need a website” to “I better get a website” to “I need to be #1 in my city!”

Obviously, not everyone can hold the top spot. Only ten chiropractic offices can be on the first page of Google. What’s everyone else going to do? Some will do nothing, but some will start working on improving their search engine rankings. Some will really work hard and wedge their way onto that first page, knocking someone off.

Will that be you? Or will you be the doc that gets knocked off?

The longer you wait to get your site up, the harder it will be to get your site ranked. The longer you wait to get it ranked, the harder it will be to get it done. More doctors will have stepped up to the plate and will be doing everything in their power to hold higher positions and contribute to the internet in content and in authority.

The time to establish your position and begin the process of consistently adding to the authority of your website is now. Really it was a few years ago, but it’s not too late. You just can’t think you don’t need to be online anymore.

If you’re in a small town, you’re missing out on the tremendous opportunity to totally dominate your area and grow a legion of adoring fans through blogging and contributing helpful information.

If you’re in a big city, you’ve got to get after it and now. Chances are other docs started awhile ago and you need to get in there and start building.

Stuck? Not sure what your next step should be? Contact me and let me know your question. I offer an initial consultation to find out where you’re at in the process and what will work best to get you going. You may need to hire me, you may not. We can talk about.

“Someone told me I’m supposed to be blogging?”

There are many ways to market your practice online, and blogging is just one option. I suggest for anyone doing internet marketing, that they don’t jump into areas that they don’t want to do.

If you try to do aspects of marketing that you hate, it’s going to come across in your tone and the consistency in which you do it. Not to mention that whatever you do create is not going to be worth reading or very effective.

For chiropractors, I think we should just forget about blogging to earn income. Unless you’re willing to put in a lot of time and effort, your blog probably isn’t going to reach the audience level to really make it worth it to monetize your blog. (That being said, if you’re really passionate about blogging, there are plenty of people making their living by blogging.)

For our purposes, I’m going to assume that you only considered blogging because you thought it might help you generate more new patients for your office. Unfortunately, that mindset isn’t really going to work.

It’s not that you won’t get new patients from blogging, its just that you’re more likely to turn every blog post into “So see a chiropractor and that chiropractor should be me!” Blogging that way is just going to turn off and annoy the reader, which isn’t our goal.

So what is blogging and why might you do it?

Blogging is perfect for the chiropractor with a real passion for educating patients and the public. Even better for someone with some personality that isn’t afraid to show it.

A blog post is what you create each time you “blog.” Posts don’t have to be long. really just a minimum of 200 words. They can be be video posts as well. Just make a quick video of yourself, post it on Youtube and then embed the video into your blog.

They can be on any topic at all. Of course, the maximum benefit would be for you to use the blog posts to educate about all things chiropractic. Just start asking your patients what they would want to know. Or use every patient question as food for your blog. If one patient asks the question, chances are others want to know the answer too.

Here’s the most important step in making sure people actually read your blog; let them know about it! Collect patient e-mail addresses and notify them when you’ve put up a new post. In the e-mail, just give a blurb saying what the post is about and why they should read it. Encourage comments and interaction.

Keep it interesting and your patients will look forward to reading your posts — even forwarding them on to friends.

Blogging isn’t for everyone, but it may be right for you. Still have questions? Let me hear about it!

This week’s post covers another common question; “What’s the easiest way to build links?” The world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming when you’re first starting out. Are you doing the right stuff? The wrong stuff? What about all these e-mails you get promising you access to a “link network” for just $100. Should you do it?

I wouldn’t.

The best way to build links to your site is via article marketing. Writing articles can be boring and tedious when you first sit down to do it. What are you supposed to write about? How long should it be? Hopefully, knowing that it’s worth it will help you along. Writing articles helps out in a couple of ways:

• You build links to your site
• You give potential new patients something to “research” about you

Basically, you’re going to write an article about something chiropractic in nature. Something that suits you and your style of practice. Most importantly, something that is helpful to the reader.

You’re not submitting a research paper, so you’re going to be writing this like you’re having a conversation with your favorite patient, a friend, or a family member. You’re going to explain how chiropractic can help with (insert common condition here) in everyday language.

You’re not “selling.” You’re just educating. If you explain things in a helpful way, in a way that makes people feel like you know what you’re talking about, they understand they should come see you. The best part of writing articles is that you get to say who you are at the end of the article anyway!

Once you’ve written a 400 – 500 word article about something helpful, you’ll need a place to submit the article. There are a few strategies here, but your best bet is to go for quality over quantity. I recommend submitting the article to Ezinearticles.com. It’s the premier article directory on the internet.

Submitting your article here means that it has a chance of ranking for it’s best keywords all on its own. This is a quality website with high value in the eyes of the search engines. They also won’t just accept any ol’ article, meaning that they review every article before it’s approved. Placing your articles here shows good value and has a high level of credibility.

The last step is that Ezinearticles will ask for an author resource. You’ll see at the end of articles written that there’s a place that shows who the author is and just a blurb about how to contact them. This is a perfect place to create a backlink to your site You’ll want to create the link using anchor text – that means that you create a live link like “houston chiropractor” and not http://www.myhoustonchiropractor.com.

Just make your author resource sound natural and not “salesy.” And then you’re done!

There are plenty of ways to get links back to your site, but article marketing is one that can be implemented right away and will have a payoff for you and clinic in more ways than one. As with most things, consistency is key. That means you should consider writing an article on a regular basis. Once per week or once per month? I guess that depends on how many links you want or need to help you get the desired result.

Let me know what you think!

Recently, I asked the question; “What do you really want to know about marketing your practice online?” One of the questions was about turning site “lookers” into phone “callers.” Great question!

The question is, why does someone look for a chiropractor in your area, come to your website, and then leave the site without calling you? Why didn’t they choose your office?

The same can be said about any form of advertising. If you mail out 1,000 postcards and only got a 1% return, why didn’t everyone else call? Did they even see your postcard? What would have made the difference?

That’s what’s great about marketing online, you know that people are looking for someone right now and ready to call someone right away to get the help they need. They weren’t looking around online for something else and then stumbled across your site. They likely typed in “city name + chiropractor” and were ready to call the best office they could find.

They probably called someone, so why didn’t they call you?

Every person will have a different reason for looking for a chiropractor. Some are looking for someone to help a specific condition (”Will this chiropractor help me with my headaches?”), some are looking for someone open during the hours they want, maybe some are looking to make sure they find the “best” chiropractor in town.

If people are visiting your website and not calling, it’s time to take a hard look at your site and make sure people are getting the information they need. Are your office hours clearly identified? Or do they need to go several steps to find out when you’re open?

Do you list what insurance types you accept? Do you take auto accident cases? What conditions do you treat? This is all important stuff to some website visitors, but you still want to balance out not having so much information available on your site that people can’t find anything.

It’s a mistake to think that people will read every word on your site. They scan. The review, but they definitely don’t want to read every word. Can they find what they need quickly? If not, they may just move on instead of looking for it.

Once they found all the information they need, I think what happens next is they either need to feel like they “connect” to you, or that others have proven you to be the best. When someone Googles your name, what do they find? If nothing, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t help. Does your office have online reviews? Good? Bad?

Does your site have a video? This is a great chance to let them see you and hear you in action. A great opportunity for them to say, “They seem good.” Your site isn’t just a business card, it’s a chance to walk people through every reason why they should choose your office over everyone else.

If all else fails… test new stuff! I’ve changed so much stuff on my site over time until I got it to where it is now. You can even run a split test. That means each visitor sees a slightly different version of your site. In the internet marketing world, it’s all about testing until you get things just right.

Just don’t give up. All advertising is going to the internet. The time to establish yourself in your area is now.

Tell me your thoughts on this post! What else do you think would help someone call your office instead of moving on to someone else?