By Michael Dorausch, DC
Chances are you have a web site, but do you take the time to regularly check log files and statistics to see what kinds of terms are being searched that bring people to your website? For a site about chiropractic you may expect searches like back pain, headaches, scoliosis, and even spinal decompression to be popular. Over the years I found that's not always the case, and sometimes the most popular searches are for terms that may appear to have nothing to do with your primary topic. If you're not checking your log files, you may never know if that's the case for your site or blog.
Yesterday I was checking our 2008 chiropractic log files to see what the most popular terms were throughout the year. Since the year's not over yet I took a peek at top 10 search key phrases for the last quarter of 2007, and I am planning to see how those terms matchup with the 10 top chiropractic keywords for 2008. At a glance, three of the top 10 search keyphrases appear to have nothing to do with the topic of chiropractic, and seemingly don't offer much value. Part of my job is to see that planetchiropractic.com provides value to its visitors, and that our on-topic site traffic continues to grow. As we discuss the 10 keywords appearing in the screenshot below, maybe you'll get some ideas that are of value for your site or blog.
Taking a look at the screenshot above, we can see that out of 142,683 different keyphrases, the ones shown were the 10 most popular. At a glance, 3 of the 10 don't appear to hold any significant value (the terms themselves individually), but the other seven are rocksolid for information delivered on Planet Chiropractic.
Candice Michelle - The number one page people entered on the site when searching this term was a 2006 article about Candace Michelle and her chiropractic husband. That particular article is nearly 2 years old now and it continues to draw traffic. Those searching for Candice Michelle photos would likely be unhappy, which would increase our sites bounce rate (not a good thing). However, web statistics show that a large enough number of people viewing that article, continued on to view information about Cleveland Chiropractic College in Los Angeles. Guess what's the number one e-mail request we get from non-chiropractic visitors to the site... do you have more information about attending chiropractic school? Yes we do!
Chiropractic - It was the number two overall search term bringing people to the site, most of them landing on the homepage. Had it not been for the interest in the chiropractor's wife appearing on the cover of Playboy, this would've been our number one term, I can live with that.
Planet Chiropractic - Now this gets interesting because people are online searching for our brand. I'm happy to see the search term in the top 10 and I expect it to be near the same position for 2008. If you have a chiropractic website (or any small business web site) check your log files to see if the name of your site is coming up high as a source of referral traffic. If not, you may want to consider some better branding (or altering your domain name) for 2009.
Chiropractic Salary - Wow, did I ever stumble across this one. Besides questions about attending chiropractic schools, e-mails about chiropractor salaries are the most common inquiries I receive. Doesn't matter if you're someone thinking about becoming a chiropractor, a current chiropractic student, or a chiropractor in practice for 10 years, turns out that everybody wants to know how much money other chiropractors make.
Chiropractic Jobs - When we started hosting classifieds about 10 years ago I never really considered how many people would be seeking chiropractic job related information. Today, there are more than 700 active listings for chiropractic jobs in places like Fort Lauderdale, Illinois, La Habra California, Hollywood Florida, Boiling Springs South Carolina, Orlando, Maryland, Scottsdale, Louisville, Calgary, Alberta, Ontario, Ireland, Australia, and hundreds of other locations potentially near you.
Job-related categories people are showing interest in relate to employment as a chiropractor, an associate chiropractor, chiropractic assistants, in office massage therapists, medical doctors for hire, in office acupuncturists, billing specialists, front office receptionists, and other types of work related to the field of chiropractic. I think at one time during the past decade there was even a listing for a chiropractic college president wanted. Here's hoping that everybody finds fulfilling employment in 2009 and all those active classifieds get deleted as a result.
I'm skipping the search phrase Chiropractor Salary and Candace Michelle playboy since they are both variations of terms I've already addressed.
Chiropractic Seminars - The search most frequently landed people on the chiropractic seminars and events pages, which has featured listings for chiropractic continuing education, seminars and events (mostly in the United States but throughout the world as well), and local chiropractic meet ups. Searchers will find technique seminars, practice management seminars, continuing education seminars, radiology and imaging relicensing events, marketing specific chiropractic programs, and even some listings for webinars (although almost everything listed is for local events).
Chiropractic Classifieds - The chiropractic job category is one of the most popular, but it pales in comparison to the activity seen as people search chiropractic practices for sale. In 2008 there were 14 main categories for chiropractic classifieds and the practices for sale, Associates wanted, and private party equipment for sale categories led the way in popularity.
We faced some significant challenges in 2008 with an increase in scammers targeting those selling equipment but the community stepped up and kicked butt on identifying the perpetrators. It was discovered later in the year that the same individuals were targeting people all over the U. S. on different classified ad web sites, and as a result of group action, their activities have been decreased significantly. Kudos to everyone that participated in making change happen.
Ron Paul - He was never on the cover of Playboy and he doesn't have anything to do with the topic of chiropractic, but nonetheless Ron Paul promised to be a popular search term. In late 2007, the Ron Paul Revolution was in high gear, enough so that it earned him a position in our top 10 keyword search report for the final quarter of 2007. I suspect Obama is going to have at least one search related term in our top 10 for 2008.
So what do we learn from this? For one, searches for women taking off their clothes far outnumbers searches for anything related to chiropractic. Aside from that, subjects related to politics were popular in 2007, and volcanic in 2008. We can also see that the generic term for our industry brings us more traffic than searches for our brand. The goal looking forward would be to continue to do well for generic industry search traffic, searches related to our brand, a peppering of topics laterally related to our brand and/or industry, and above all... an ever improving visitor experience.
We have plenty of work to do in 2009. I'm going to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve and then we will start working on year eleven @ planetchiropractic.com.
(photo: Times Square lights and mounted police in New York City - credit: Stewart)