Chiropractic digital marketing doesn’t just consist of building a website. It’s about designing a patient-friendly website that gains traffic and converts patients from a variety of digital channels.
With over a decade of experience managing the online presence of thousands of chiropractic practices, we’ve discovered five key digital marketing factors that boost new patient results:
- High-Converting Website
- Website Traffic
- Online Reviews
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
Once you have your website designed, the next logical step is attracting people to it. Simply having a website is not enough. There are approximately 1.8 billion websites. Standing out online isn’t getting any easier.
Neither is gaining traction in Google.
So let’s start with the two different types of website traffic:
- Organic traffic
- Paid traffic
Organic Traffic to Attract “Free” Traffic
Organic traffic is free visibility that displays below the paid results after someone performs a search. Where you rank depends on competition and how well your website is optimized for Google, Yahoo! and other popular search engines.
You can increase organic traffic by strategically targeting certain keywords in the text of your website. For starters, a keyword you would want to rank for is “chiropractor [your city]”.
There is a lot of information out there on how to rank well for these key terms. However, not all “SEO experts” are created equal. Search engines like Google are getting more intelligent and selective with their algorithms.
For example, it used to be enough just to have your URL be something like www.chicagochiropractor.com, stuff keywords like “Chicago” and “chiropractor” into your content, and you could be ranking at the top of Google within weeks.
However, Google’s algorithm now tracks how long visitors stay on your site, how many pages they visit, the relevancy of your website copy, and many other factors. SEO is an art form. It requires staying on top of the latest chiropractic SEO changes to make sure your website does not violate Google’s terms of service.
That being said, SEO isn’t necessarily a “dark art.” There are best practices to effectively optimize a website.
Google is the number-one source of new patients, making it an essential part of your online marketing strategy. Building a steady flow of organic traffic can take time, but once you have momentum, it can create a growing pipeline of new patients.
Paid Traffic to Get More Visitors – Instantly
Paid traffic is paid visibility that displays at the top of the search results. The concept is simple: you pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad. One of the key differences between organic and paid traffic is that paid traffic can start generating new patients the moment you activate a campaign.
If you’re a new practice, or if you’re starting a new website, then a paid traffic strategy is a great way to give you an instant traffic boost – while your organic traffic rankings grow over time.
There are a few different forms of paid traffic. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are the most popular.
There are three key benefits of Google Ads:
- Attract new patients from suburbs outside your practice location
- Target patients searching for specific services
- Adjust your new patient flow by changing your budget
About 80% of businesses using Google Ads report unsatisfactory ROI. This is especially true in the chiropractic marketing field. A PPC provider that serves anyone and everyone won’t deliver the results that a provider who specializes in chiropractic paid advertising will.
There’s no shortage of keywords and audience combinations you can target with Google Ads. Knowing where to begin is half the battle – the other half is knowing what to say and where to link to.
Facebook Ads is a great solution for attracting two different types of patients:
- Those who have never heard of you
- Those who have visited your website but have not booked an appointment
With Facebook, you have the unique ability to target specific user demographics and regions. It’s a cost-effective way to customize ads for a particular audience. For example, if you’re a pediatric chiropractor you might do something like this:
- Set your target audience to young mothers and fathers
- Customize the image and text that will stand out to them when scrolling through their Facebook feed.
- Point them to a custom landing page on your site with a clear call to action for booking an appointment.
- Bonus points for running a promotion with a Facebook-specific landing page so you can clearly track ROI.
The key to effective paid traffic campaigns is adding them to your overall marketing strategy. When your website traffic is working in conjunction with the other four factors of chiropractic marketing, then you’ll start to maximize your new patient results.