Maybe.

It’s tempting for many chiropractors to build their own site. There are a lot of services out there that promise “overnight” websites and “EZ” sites for a tiny monthly fee. (And we usually hear from these doctors about a month later when they give up.) But here are some things to think about before you go this route:

1. Do you have design skills? It’s 2011. You can’t have an amateur design for your website, because your potential patients will NOT be impressed.
2. Do you have skills in HTML? If not, you’re going to run into some problems when you’re trying to get your site just the way you want it.
3. Do you have the time to finish it and for regular updates? This is the big problem. A doctor sets up a site, gets a few blank pages on it with, “Under Construction” notices, and then gets busy with…treating patients or running a practice — which is what you SHOULD be doing! What kind of impression does an incomplete site give your potential patients? Not a good one!

If your answer is, “Yes” to all three, then go ahead and get cracking on the code of your new site. But if you answered, “No,” then it’s time to hire a pro.

And think about it: with our $29 Chiropractic Website, you can have a very cool site for just a dollar a day! Or you can get a full-featured, unlimited site for just $50 a month with our Complete Chiropractic Website.

Unfortunately, YouTube embeds can be a little difficult to format so that the text wraps around the video clip.

Now there’s an easy way to this: How to wrap text around YouTube clips.

But best of all, you don’t even have to bother with this. If you want us to take care of that for you on your ChiroHosting site, just give us a call and we’ll take care of it for you!

Just think about how busy you are: family obligations, social activities, hobbies, work, and the millions of little things that you have to deal with at any given time.

Well, your patients are in exactly the same boat. They have all of those things going on, PLUS they’re in pain.

Maybe they’ve been in a car crash, or their back pain is acting up, or they’re dealing with chronic headache.

When they go looking for a chiropractor, they’re only interested in one thing: how YOU can help them. If they can’t get the answer to that within just a few seconds, they’re going to move on to find someone who can help them.

Think about this when you’re adding content to your chiropractic website. If you were a potential patient, would the website encourage you to call to make an appointment?

Here’s an example. Say you’ve just added a new service or piece of exciting equipment to your practice. YOU already know the benefit of the new service, but may be excited about it’s cool features.

Your patients, however, don’t care at all about the bells and whistles. They want to know just one thing: How will YOU help them solve their problem.

So, it’s great to write about new services and tools that you use, but ALWAYS talk about them from the patient’s point of view and how it will help them with their problem.

Mike Melton

P.S. Feel free to leave comments below, or write me at mike@chirohosting.com. I love to hear your marketing ideas and questions!

Anchor text is the text that the web user sees on the link. For instance, chiropractic website design is a link and “chiropractic website design” is the anchor text.

Anchor text is important, because it helps the search engines index your website properly. The search engine robots travel around the internet, scooping up information. When they see useful anchor text, it helps the search engine put your site in the correct category.

Let’s look at some examples of poor and great anchor text. First, some poor anchor text:

www.mesabackpain.com

This isn’t very helpful to the search engines, because the link and the anchor text are identical; it doesn’t help Google index your site.

Dr. Murphy

Too vague. What kind of doctor? Where does this doctor practice?

Action Chiropractic

OK, we know that it’s a chiropractic office, but which city?

To visit the website of Dr. Murphy, click here.

The anchor text is “click here.” Virtually useless for the search engine robots.

Now, here are some examples of great anchor text:

Chiropractor in Mesa, AZ – Dr. Mike Murphy – Action Chiropractic

St Paul, MN Chiropractor – Dr. William Skon – Skon Chiropractic

This gives the search engines everything they need: the fact that you’re a chiropractor, the city you practice in, and the clinic name.

So when you ask your colleagues or friends for a link, make sure you get a good link. In fact, it’s best of you actually send them the exact code that you would like placed on their site.

Please feel free to comment on this article below, or if you have questions you can call me at (800) 295-3346 or email me at mike@chirohosting.com.

Mike Melton

P.S. For more free tips on optimizing your chiropractic website for the search engines, download my free online chiropractic marketing ebook.