Web Design Factors that affect your Chiropractic Website’s SEO:
1) Dead Ends or 400 Errors
No one likes to click into a page that doesn’t work. Dead pages also speaks to the maintenance of your website, making your practice look sloppy or lacking in credibility. When dead ends or 400 errors occur, visitors will not spend extra time to dig deeper to find information they need. They will simply leave, making you lose another prospective patient. Chiropractic website design will make sure to fix or get rid of any dead ends or 400 errors.
2) Content Organization
When your website’s content is structured and organized, it can lead to a more pleasant experience for the visitor, encouraging them to spend more time navigating and exploring your website. It also makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. Getting rid of irrelevant content on your website is also important, as it does not boost your SEO nor is it helpful in optimizing your website.
3) Meta Description, Meta Title & Alt Tags
Meta titles, tags, and descriptions are important elements of SEO. The title tag is what appears on the search engine as your title listing. Make sure the title is short and concise, but also compelling enough to make visitors want to click on your link.
A meta description is approximately 30 words and will appear as a short blurb on the search engine to accompany your website’s title. The meta description should include important keywords and similar to the title, further convince readers to click in. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your practice’s website meta description may not always show, search engines sometimes replacing it with a random blurb from your website.
Alt tags are often assigned to images and can reinforce the keywords present on your website to appeal even more to search engines. When using alt words, make sure these alt words aren’t spam or consist solely of keywords that you’re just trying to shove in for the sake of including more. These alt tags should make sense.
4) Headings
Use of headings is so important in increasing your website’s navigability and also in helping search engines identify your website’s content. Headings, such as H1, H2, H3, H4 and so on, are actually read by search engines.
5) Inbound Links
Inbound links are links from other websites that lead back to your website. When other websites link back to your website, it increases your website’s performance, visibility, as well as visitor traffic to your website. This further increases the possibility of converting visitors to your website to actual patients of your chiropractic practice.
6) Internal Links
Links from one section of your website to another is important in increasing your website’s navigability. Making it all interconnected will lead your visitors smoothly through your pages. This is also helpful for search engine spiders to do a complete crawl through your website.
7) External Links
External links are important in indicating that you’ve done your research, and that you are pointing to other sources of credibility to back up the information and content on your website. When several different websites provide the same information, it makes your content more reliable. Each search engine often prioritizes ranking quality content for their users, which means that if you have a lot of quality external links, it is more likely that your practice’s website will rank higher on the SERP.
8) Word Count & Keywords
Optimizing your website’s word count with important keywords will boost your website’s search engine ranking. Important keywords to include will be based on what people are searching on search engines and will also be based on what your competitors are using on their websites. Tools such as Google Analytics, Google Keyword Planner, or Keywords Everywhere can be helpful in identifying keywords.
Word count is also important in optimizing your SEO. For example, a website with 2,000 words in a section will often rank better than a website with only 500 words in those same sections.
9) On-Site Website Security
Website security helps protect your website against unwanted and malicious attacks. This can compromise your information and spread viruses to your visitors when they click into your website for information. This would be a sure-fire way of losing and repelling potential new patients. On-site website security is non-negotiable.
10) On-Site Page Speed
It is no surprise that people are impatient, and when people are looking for information, they want it as quickly and conveniently as possible. The longer the page speed, or the longer it takes for any page of your website to load, the more likely visitors will click out of or exit from your website, making you again, lose out on potential patients. Page speed is important but is often overlooked.
11) Calls to Action
Be transparent about next steps! Make sure potential patients know exactly what to do to inquire about services, as well as exactly what will happen if they choose to follow through. Make it as easy as possible for them to reach out and create a professional relationship with your chiropractic practice. For example, adding buttons on your website or tools that visitors can click on can be extremely helpful in motivating potential patients to take that next step.
