DC to DC: better chiropractic blogging for new and current patients — Part I

Chiropractic blogging performs a host of advantages for offices, from raising the profile to providing multi-channel marketing content to informing new and current patients

Regular blogging benefits lots of businesses for a myriad of reasons: it can increase your website traffic, enhance your social media presence, and bring new clients your way. The same applies to chiropractic blogging for your practice.

We spoke with Mary Klimek, DC, co-owner of Sonic Chiro and Lake Union Wellness; Allison Gregg, ACC, a freelance communications manager who supports Sonic Chiro and Lake Union Wellness’ communications; and Tyeson Anderson, Atlas Core Marketing, Website Development, SEO, and Digital Paid Ads Management regarding the crucial points that chiropractors need to know in order to blog and reap the rewards from it.

What follows is Part I of our interview, edited for length and clarity.

How did your chiropractic business move to the top on Google after you started chiropractic blogging?

Klimek: Up until earlier in the year, blogging was always on our to-do list, but it wasn’t a priority. We had other priorities — typical chiropractor office priorities, seeing patients, running the business. We blogged a few times a year. It didn’t do anything for us, so that made me want to put little effort into it. Even though we have several chiropractors on staff, we simply didn’t have the time for it because when we did did it, we didn’t see a return on investment.

Why did you decide to increase your blogging during COVID-19?

Klimek: Our offices are in downtown Seattle — we were treating a lot of people who work at the businesses surrounding us (thank Amazon). Once stay-at-home orders were put in place, we saw a 50% reduction in patient volume. This meant we had more time to work on items on the to-do list — such as blogging.

What did you do differently?

Klimek: At this time, we realized that no one [on staff] was really interested in blogging. To that end we brought in a freelance communications manager and with her support we got strategic with our approach to blogging, social media, communications, and outreach.

Gregg: My first assignment was to help the team increase their online profile through web content and social media. Tackling blogging was part of that. We collaborated and created a list of blog topics, a schedule, and made assignments to the chiropractors. Once the plan was in place, we held each other accountable for getting the blogs done.

Anderson: One step further is we invested into guest blogging on other chiropractor websites. We would include a backlink back to our website to raise our domain authority and that helped us move up on Google.

How often were you blogging?

Klimek: We post a new blog per clinic every other week. Since we have two clinics, we are doing a blog a week, but each site only gets a new blog every two weeks.

Anderson: With guest chiropractic blogging, we would publish two blogs a month on other chiropractor websites and two blogs on each of our websites. When writing guest blogs, we researched what search terms people were searching. Then we would write about those topics that we wanted to rank higher for in Google.

Did you publicize the blog?

Klimek: Yes, we promote the blog on our respective social media channels and a weekly e-newsletter. Our approach to the e-newsletter is to include a video by the blogger that introduces the blog and links to the website. We shoot the videos on our phones, and they’re no longer than 30 seconds. Our newsletter also includes two short stories that are easy to read and relevant to our patients.

Anderson: We also would share on GMB (Google My Business) as a post from the company profile that would generate more views on Google Maps.

How long did it take you to see results?

Gregg: I came on board in June and we started seeing results in October. It typically takes about six months of consistent blogging to see results.

Klimek: I had a new patient recently who did a Google Maps search and found us — even though we weren’t the closest to him. He was in search of a chiropractor after an ergonomic assessment through work. His employer told him he needed a chiropractor. At his appointment he referred to a blog about ergonomics we posted in November.

How did this change your standing on Google?

Anderson: Starting in 2019 we were on page 8 [when googling] “Seattle Chiropractor,” now we site in the top 3 on page 1.For more chiropractic blogging and marketing tips go to the Chiropractic Economics marketing resource center at chiroeco.com/chiropractic-marketing-guide.