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Chiropractors like Pigs Being Led to Slaughter

By this point in time I think it would be safe to assume that every chiropractic office in America has been contacted at least once by a company or individual offering to list their business online in some sort of directory, for a small monthly or yearly fee. This isn't something unique to the chiropractic industry as dentists, plastic surgeons, orthopedic doctors, acupuncturists, and multiple other small-business industries, have likely been the target of those selling online directory listing services. I don't follow the online activities of those other industries so I can't offer comment, but I follow chiropractic related activity very closely.

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

By this point in time I think it would be safe to assume that every chiropractic office in America has been contacted at least once by a company or individual offering to list their business online in some sort of directory, for a small monthly or yearly fee. This isn’t something unique to the chiropractic industry as dentists, plastic surgeons, orthopedic doctors, acupuncturists, and multiple other small-business industries, have likely been the target of those selling online directory listing services. I don’t follow the online activities of those other industries so I can’t offer comment, but I follow chiropractic related activity very closely. I also practice in a metro area, in a chiropractic office that receives countless telemarketing calls, faxes, and e-mails, related to online marketing, directory listing services, chiropractic websites, and other web-based approaches to reaching out to clients.

I have to imagine that for the average chiropractor, who hasn’t been engaged in active online activity for the past 15 years, many of the services offered could appear too good to be true. And many are. If you’re a chiropractor that’s blindly turned over your credit card for services such as directory listings, profile pages, chiropractic websites, and search engine optimization (SEO), you may be bleeding your hard earned cash like a pig in the slaughterhouse.

caution walk this wayI’m not suggesting that one avoid any of these services, In fact I believe quite the opposite, I suggest that you get more knowledgeable as to what you’re getting involved in, and pay closer attention to what’s happening online in your chiropractic part of the world. How you go about doing that is up to you, but I’ve provided a number of articles related to online marketing for chiropractors, and there’s a ton of quality SEO resources available for those willing to put in the effort. Chiropractors are going to have to become more aware of potential scams and questionable services being offered, or they will continue to throw their money down and endless drain of wasted online efforts.

How much cash would you like to throw away today?
At some point I’m going to go back and collect all of the e-mails I have archived from companies promoting the latest and greatest online chiropractic directory. I received the latest one today from a company offering a single non-reciprocal link to your chiropractic website. The fee was $160 on your credit card, listing is for one year.

I’d be wary of calling this a scam but it’s a common theme I see in companies marketing to chiropractors. An individual or group first creates a website, often times using the term chiropractic or chiropractor or in the domain name. They then add a directory structure so that users can register and list office information such as phone number and address, and sometimes a link to one’s chiropractic site. There’s nothing wrong with this, and I applaud those for their entrepreneurial efforts. But I am watching out for chiropractors here, and I’d rather they be aware now, then be e-mailing me later after they’ve made a bad purchase decision.

So these companies will typically talk about things like guaranteed listings, being first to appear in your ZIP code, being the top listing for your city, and other such tactics. Again, nothing wrong, except they fail to mention the massive competition coming from dozens of other directories, major yellow page companies, and other online business services.

Be especially watchful for anything “new” as in a website that’s been created in the past few months, and contains minimal to no listings. I recommend performing a whois look up on any site you’re planning to invest money in and find out who owns it, how long it’s been in business, how long the domain has been registered, etc. If it’s been registered in the past year and has no evidence of good status in major search engines, chances are you’re making a pretty bad investment, even at 160 bucks.

Some companies will take a portion of the money collected from chiropractors and invest in online contextual ad campaigns, and others won’t do anything to promote their site, they’ll simply collect as much money as they can, until they either have to close down shop or abandon activity on the site.

There’s far too much information to get included into a single article, I will follow up with more details in an upcoming chiropractic blog post (which will replace this sentence). Some resources and archived articles you may want to check into in the meantime include recovery versus discovery searching, serving up localized advertising without wasting money, directory scams and Internet service scams. Those researching local related search topics may want to take a look at this West Valley post and this one related to Chicagoland.

And while you’re at it, talk to a search engine optimization expert, a real one that knows what they’re talking about in can back it up with previous examples. Ask them what a followed link to your chiropractic website from an aged and top traffic domain in your same industry is worth. After you get the answer, read this chiropractors post.

planetc1.com-news @ 2:10 pm | Article ID: 1210799424

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