Chiropractors: Stop Making These Local SEO Mistakes

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Local SEO is an integral part of any chiropractor's marketing strategy. 

A huge portion of the traffic comes to websites from searches on things like "Chiropractor near me" or "Chiropractor nearby." Search engines try to show the nearest results to the audience through local 3-pack or business listings.

But as anyone who has tried to do local SEO knows, it can be tricky if you don't know what you're doing. 

Doing it wrong can destroy your chances of getting local patients consistently. 

To help out my fellow chiropractors and other local businesses who want to take their local presence to the next level, we will share ten common Local SEO mistakes that many chiropractors make and show you how to avoid them.

Read: Tips to Do Local Search Engine Optimization for Chiropractors

10 Local SEO Mistakes That Chiropractors Are Doing

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1. Disregarding The GMB Account Optimization

For chiropractors seeking to rank highly in local SEO, setting up a GMB page for your chiropractic clinic is the most prominent task. GMB comes in as a crucial factor for organic search results.

Most businesses verify their GMB account but do not regularly optimize or audit it. 

See the screenshot below showing the difference between optimized and unoptimized GMB profiles. 

You can avoid this scenario by managing your account properly. So once you verify your GMB account, post about your services and offers routinely. 

Tips And Tools For The GMB Account Optimization

• Make sure to complete all sections with useful information.
• Keep posting valuable content regularly on your GMB account.
• Make sure you respond to the feedback given by the customers.

Read: Step-by-step Setup Guide for Google My Business Set up

2. Ignoring The Page Speed

Page speed measures how fast a website displays its content. Google does not give priority to slow-loading websites. 

Look at the screenshot below showing the loading speed of a chiropractor site. 

Websites that require more than 2 seconds face a 4.42% drop in conversion. 

If your website is slow-loading, you will miss out on providing a smooth experience to your visitors. And most probably, the majority of writers will hesitate to revisit your website.

Tips And Tools To Improve Page Speed

• Never use heavy images or videos on your website.
• Use tools like Google Page Speed Insights, Gift of Speed, and Pingdom to check page loading speed.
• Use plugins such as NitroPack, WP Rocket, and WP Super Cache for WordPress websites to improve the site speed.

3. Neglecting The Mobile User-Experience

In today's world, most people use mobile for online searching. So, if your site isn't mobile-friendly, you're losing most of the traffic. 

To make your chiropractic clinic a brand among your local users, you first need to attract mobile users' attention. And you can do this with a well-responding website for mobile users. 

Take a look at the screenshot below showing how misaligned the text of a chiropractor’s site is on mobile devices. It ruins the user experience resulting reduce dwell time. 

Tips And Tools To Design A Mobile-Friendly Website

• Try to Present website content understandably without requiring users to touch and zoom.
• Use compressed images and videos.
• Use Small SEO Tools, Rank Watch, or Technical SEO to check the website's mobile-friendliness.

 Read: How to Improve Your Mobile UX - 9 Top Tips

4. Lacking Powerful Metadata 

The metadata on your website helps Google determine if your site is worthy of being ranked for organic searches. 

Look at the screenshot below to see how it helps appear in SERPs.

And if your website is missing robust metadata, you may be left behind by your competitors in local SEO. 

The metadata includes keywords, titles, and descriptions. If you are operating a chiropractic practice that provides telehealth, ensure that these key phrases are prominent in your meta description.

Tips And Tools For Updating Meta Descriptions

• Use Yoast SEO, Rankmath, or AIO SEO to generate meta descriptions, title tags, and other SEO guidelines.
• Make sure to keep your title tags per the Google guidelines so that Google can easily detect them.
• Use the main keyword in the meta descriptions to appear quickly in search engine results.

5. Having Inconsistent NAP

NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) plays a significant role in local SEO. Having inconsistent NAPs can be an obstacle to business growth. You should ensure that your website and online directories have the same contact information.

Consequently, your contact information must be consistent across all web pages that list business contact information. You can use tools like Mozlocal to find incorrect NAP details to fix and maintain high accuracy.

Tips And Tools For Consistent NAP Information

• Keep your business listings and directories up-to-date.
• Maintain a NAP for a multi-location business.
• Use Moz, CallRail, or GMB Crush for checking inconsistent NAPs.

6. Ignoring E-A-T & Branded SEO

SEO is not simply getting higher rankings on Google. But also about developing a reliable brand. 

Google now prefers sites that are legitimate, trustworthy, and well-known. This is Google's E-A-T concept (expertise, authority, and trust). Google calculates an area's EAT by combining multiple data sources and algorithms. 

Tips For E-A-T

• Mention clear credits and sources of the content you post on the site.
• Provide in-depth details about your firm, including location (address), authors' bios, acknowledgments, and awards. 

Take a look at the screenshot below showing the byline of an article that indicates the information provided is by experts only.

• Try to get local citations from other local or national E-A-T sites.

7. Lacking Of Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most crucial ranking metrics. However, you may face a Google penalty if you purchase links to enhance your website's ranks. It can potentially compromise your website's ability to appear in search results.

According to Google, most sites offering links do not genuinely improve your results. That's why Google gives the utmost priority to those backlinks generated from any renowned websites.

Tips And Tools For Getting Quality Backlinks

• Ahrefs, Semrush, or UberSuggest monitor the website's backlinks that show the links' quality and authorityinks as shown below. 

• Discover broken links from the top-ranked sites to help you create backlinks.
• Create link-worthy high-quality content to get do-follow quality backlinks.

8. Neglecting Location-Based Keywords

SEOs must focus on location-based keywords to get higher rankings in Google SERP for chiropractor businesses to thrive. 

To rank in local search results using keywords such as "Nearby" or "near me" on every article you post. 

The below screenshot shows some of the location-based keywords that Google suggests in the “related searches” section. 

Suppose you are focusing more on broader keywords rather than local ones. You might not reach the desired audiences, and your SEO efforts will fail.

Tips And Tools For Getting Location-Based Keywords

• Research local keywords using Ahrefs, Keywordtool.io, or Google Keyword Planner.
• Use Google Search Results to discover the needs of local customers.
• Use seed and long-tail keywords based on local searches to expand your reach.

9. Disregarding Voice Search Optimization

According to Google Statistics, 27% of the internet population use voice search via mobile. 

With the dramatic rise of voice search, you must optimize the content for voice search. Otherwise, businesses will struggle to gain organic traction.

If voice recognition optimization isn't already a component of your SEO plan, it's time to prioritize it. 

Tips And Tools For Optimizing Content For Voice Search

• Focus on conversational long-tail keywords to attract more local audiences.
• Create pages that answer all the general FAQs regarding the chiropractic service.
• Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or UberSuggest to find relevant keywords for voice optimization.

10. Having Broken Links On The Site

When visitors arrive at your site via any search query and see an error page (404 error), it negatively impacts you. 

When Google search bots find broken links, they will immediately move on to other sites by leaving some of your critical pages unindexed or not crawled. It significantly impacts your page's DA (Domain Authority).

Tips And Tools To Fix Broken Links

• Detects 404 error pages using the crawl stats function in Google Search Console, as shown in the below screenshot.

• Use Sitechecker, Semrush, or Screaming Frog to find-out broken links.
• Use 301 redirects for redirecting your visitors to a related piece of content on your website.

Key Takeaways

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• Create a Google My Business profile and fill up all the necessary information about your chiropractic clinic. 
• Design your website friendly for mobile users to gain the majority of audience attraction.
• Focus more on location-centric keywords to enhance your reach in the locality.
• Improve your site speed by removing uncompressed images or videos.
• Update your NAP information regularly on local directories.