You have a reputation. Just about everyone does. In your case, it influences the referral process, patient retention and many other nuances of your professional practice. In fact, the reputation of some chiropractors caused them to have a national or even international reputation, such as Clarence Gonstead, James Parker and others.
While some chiropractors worry that a lack of patient follow through may taint his or her reputation, there’s actually a far greater threat to your reputation. Because you actually have two reputations!
When most chiropractors think of their reputation, they think of their “real world” reputation. As in, “You should see my chiropractor. She’s great!” If you’re raising people from the dead, restoring eyesight and producing other miracles in your adjusting room, there’s no question your real world reputation will be positive and likely to spread far and wide. That’s great marketing!
Just be careful that you don’t neglect your other reputation.
What is your other reputation? Your “online” reputation. These days that primarily means your reputation as a chiropractor in the eyes of Google’s algorithm.
Chiropractors who suffer most from ignoring their other reputation are those who are hoping to dodge the Internet and email bullet, running out the clock of their professional practice without having to learn new online skills. As they project their own Internet usage onto patients and prospective patients (“I wouldn’t use the Internet to find a doctor!”), they overlook a growing number of people who threw out their yellow page directory years ago and find everything, even a doctor, based on an online search. In fact, these days most patient referrals involve an online search to confirm their friend’s gushing testimonial about you!
The first step to claiming your online reputation is to have a website. Without one, you are practically persona non grata. In the eyes of Google, you don’t exist! It doesn’t matter what patients say, it doesn’t matter that you run a highly profitable cash practice or regularly produce miracles. For an ever growing number of prospective new patients, without a website you’re suspect. What are you hiding? Why aren’t you keeping up? Not that it’s any guarantee, but to reduce the risk of getting a “bad” chiropractor, without a website it’s just easier to call someone else. And they often do. In business language that’s called opportunity costs—you don’t get a bill in the mail, but it costs you none the less.
To compound matters further, these days, a website just isn’t enough. Even if you practice in a relatively small community, there are more and more chiropractors coming online. So, Google, with its own reputation to protect, has to decide how to rank area chiropractors and determine which ones will be in the most coveted top three positions on page one.
Your real world reputation is of little help here. Remember, Google has no way of knowing whether you have golden hands or lack the basic skills to adjust a toaster.
Put yourself in Google’s position. They have a reputation to protect as well. If you were Google, armed only with information available on the Internet, how would you determine who to put at the top of the list of chiropractors in your town?
It’s not the size or color of your website. It’s not how many pages or photos you’ve published to your site. And it certainly isn’t all the keywords stuffed into metatags or listed on your homepage! In fact, most experts in the field of online reputation pretty much agree that what you publish on your website only accounts for about 20% of your Google ranking. The other 80% is determined by the number and quality of other websites linking to your site. In other words, your online reputation is largely governed by how many other websites think your practice and your website is worthy of mention on their website. Google is more comfortable trusting the “wisdom of the crowd” than what some creative webmaster does to game the system by stuffing keywords into the code of a website.
If you appreciate the significance of your online reputation, I hope you’ll trust the reputation of our sister company, Perfect Patients with your chiropractic website.