Without getting too geeky, here’s a brief explanation of the keywords we’re tracking for your Perfect Patients website.
We divide the search terms that visitors use to find your site into two basic categories: “friendly” and “stranger.”
Friendly keywords usually involve the doctor’s name or the practice name. These are people who are either already patients (to find your hours or telephone number) or referrals from current patients who already know they want you. (“Does she have a website?”) Most sites perform pretty well for these types of search terms without a lot of effort.
However, it’s the performance of stranger keywords that are our primary focus on your behalf. Those who are using stranger keywords are potential new patients who don’t have a specific chiropractor in mind. Because of this lack of preference, they use more general search terms like “chiropractors in Denver” or “Denver chiropractors.” (There are about a dozen or more derivations we track.)
While being at the top of the heap for as many stranger keywords as possible is helpful, it’s not the whole story. Your Google ranking is unlikely to prompt someone to drive clear across town, past a dozen other chiropractors, simply because you were number one for the search term Denver chiropractors!
In this way, your practice website is like the yellow page directory. Proximity matters.