The subject of choosing “SEO keywords” recently came up during a conversation with a spinal decompression clinic recently. The doctors and staff are very serious about achieving a strong online presence and they are making some great efforts to increase their online visibility through organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising with Google Adwords.

Today they sent a list of keywords that they would like to target for SEO, but the list didn’t match the types of “local SEO keywords” that a local business or medical practice should be interested in.

They wanted to target the same keywords that they are targeting for their Adwords PPC campaign – here is the short version of the list: neck pain treatments, sciatica pain, treatment for bulging disc, degenerative disc, herniated disk, back treatment for herniated disk, treatment for herniated disc, herniated disc treatment, herniated disk pain.

This was my reply (location has been changed):

These are great keywords for Google Adwords because you can geotarget your campaigns (make your ads available only to users within a defined geographic region, like within 20 miles of San Diego).

Keywords for SEO are another beast though, I’ll try to explain as briefly and easily as possible what the most valuable SEO keywords for a local San Diego business would look like:

Google has over 1 trillion web pages to try to rank every time someone does a search for ‘back pain’ and similar keywords, with a goal of giving users the most useful website possible. For example, a local chiropractic website wouldn’t be a good fit for a keyword like ‘back pain’ – users in foreign countries and other regions wouldn’t be interested in your website, so Google’s algorithm  makes sure that websites like Wikipedia, informational sites, and prominent online medical resources rank highest for broad keywords like that.

It’s also a waste of your money and time to try to rank organically for those keywords, because San Diego users make up only a tiny percentage of the global traffic that is searching for those keywords.

It is wiser for local businesses and locations to target SEO keywords that include a “local qualifier” (e.g. city or state), that targets your local target market exclusively, for example, “back pain San Diego” or “chiropractor in San Diego, CA.” San Diego users are more likely to search for local pain management and spine relief searches by including “San Diego” in the search term. Try searching for those terms and you will see your biggest online competition appearing high in search results – they are probably getting all kinds of business from those rankings.

I recommend using Google’s keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to research keywords like “chiropractor San Diego,” “spinal decompression San Diego,” and similar keyword phrases to find which key terms get the most searches per month, and those are the ‘bread and butter’ keywords that you’ll want to rank for because they can get you the highest, and best qualified traffic possible.

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To learn more about making your spinal decompression website or your chiropractic website rank well in search engines, call us today! (801) 947-5595.