In our previous article, we promised to start a series of helpful SEO articles for chiropractors. And today we start with the backbone of any SEO strategy: keyword research. What does this mean? Every website is crawled by Google bots and is indexed. The Google bots look for indicators telling them what the website is about. They will identify the most frequently used words. When an internet user searches for that word or phrase, Google will include the respective website among the result.
This is how keywords work in Google searches. The success of any SEO strategy starts with using the right keywords. These are terms that:
- Are relevant to your business and describe what you do
- Are used by a large number of people looking for your type of business.
How Does Keyword Research for Chiropractors Work?
You may wonder – “can’t I just use words like chiropractor and chiropractic as my keywords?” Yes, you could. But so does everyone else, including large clinics and other major healthcare providers.
This leads to a very high competition between many practices to rank for the same keyword. In this case, big players (clinics, hospitals) will go the easy way: they invest in paid ads and promoted search results. No matter what everyone else does in terms of SEO, paid results will always appear first on Google search result pages (SERP for short).
What you want is a list of keywords that have:
- A significant volume of searches by real life users
- Average to low competition from other businesses
- Relevance for your business.
So, how can you perform keyword research, if you are starting from scratch? Here are some simple and helpful ways of doing it:
1. Use the Google Keyword Planner Tool
Google Keyword Planner is one of the most helpful online tools for finding keywords for any industry, niche or business. You will need a Google account (which you get when you sign up for YouTube or Gmail).
Once you logged in to the tool, you click on the box reading “Discover new keywords”. Here you have two options:
Start with keywords: in the text box, type in your main keyword, such as “chiropractor” or “chiropractic” and you will get a comprehensive list of keywords.
Start with a website: you can use one of your competitor’s websites to find out what keywords they are using. Don’t worry - this is a perfectly legitimate way of doing keyword research. Almost everyone is doing it, even large marketing and advertising agencies.
2. Find Long Tail Keywords with Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a complex keyword research tool developed by one of the top SEO specialists in the world –Neil Patel. New York Times Bestselling author and included by Forbes in the top 10 list of marketers, Neil Patel offers business owners and junior marketers a lot of useful advice in his blog.
With Ubersuggest, he offers practical help to anyone looking for high ranking keywords. What makes this tool so valuable is the fact that you can find long tail keywords. These are longer phrases that help users find specific products and services. For instance “chiropractic practice” is a main keyword. “Medicare chiropractic practice in central Houston, TX” is a long tail keyword. It is more specific and helps you get found by patients who really need your professional services.
3. Find What People Look for with Answer the Public
Answer the Public is a very helpful tool if you want to find out exactly what users search for in a specific domain. Just type in your main keyword in the text box and you will get a very detailed list of terms and questions used in Google Search textbox by actual users.
These suggestions are very helpful for your initial keyword research efforts. You will identify a lot of long tail keywords as well as synonym keywords you had not considered using before.
4. Find Your Keywords with Wordstream Tool
Wordstream Free Keyword Tool is the perfect tool if you are not sure what kind of keywords you should use. It works like this: you type in a website URL, select an industry (optional) and a location (also optional).
The tool will extract all the relevant keywords in the respective website. You can use any of your competitors’ websites and collect a large list of keywords to get started.
As a final piece of advice, remember that users change their habits and the way they search for services online. Thus, you should always reevaluate your keywords and perform a new keyword research at least once per year.
