Google has provided detailed webmaster guidelines and tools to help individuals and organizations develop their websites more efficiently. Using these tools and guidelines will support the search-engine optimization (SEO) goals for your chiropractic website. To begin with, you can add your website URL to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en on Google Search Console to use the Webmaster Tools for a Google-friendly website. Here are some of the practice benefits of using these tools.
Analyze Keyword Data
You need to monitor the keywords you have used for your website in order to assess which ones are working best for your site and what future course you should adopt regarding the targeted keywords you wish to rank on. Google Webmaster Tools will provide you with valuable data in this regard.
You will gain insights into clicks and impressions, and how the visitors are reaching your website. The click-through rate (CTR) data will let you know what percentage of visitors chose to click on your website link. You also will be able to determine the average position of your website in Google search results.
Action to Take: Visit https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6155685?hl=en on Google Support to generate and learn about the Search Analytics Report for your website.
Assess the Status of Inbound Links
Google Webmaster Tools allows you to assess your chiropractic website's link profile through its "Links to your Site" feature. It will provide you insights about what websites are linking to your site. This is critical information because Google uses the number and quality of inbound links to determine site page rankings.
The data provided via this tool can be extremely useful in fine-tuning your website for SEO purposes, and work in the direction of garnering high-quality backlinks. The tool also gives you the option to download the backlink URL list in Google Docs and use it for detailed analysis.
Action to take: Go to https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/55281?hl=en&ref_topic=4617161 on Google Support to generate and learn about the Inbound Links Report for your website.
Receive Notifications and Alerts
Google Webmaster Tools allow you to receive notifications and alerts via email regarding any technical issues with your website or any penalties your site may be attracting. If any misstep with regard to your site architecture, backlinks or other SEO activities has led to your site getting hurt in terms of search rankings by Google, you will instantly receive an alert from Google.
This is the only way to know in case there is manual action taken against your site. Furthermore, if your chiropractic website has been the target of a malicious hacker or if there are any problems with the search-engine spiders crawling through your site, you will receive relevant information from Google via email.
Action to take: Visit https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/140528?hl=en on Google Support to set up Google notifications and alerts to be received directly by email.
Disavow Bad or Redundant Links
To improve the quality of your site's link profile, Google Webmaster Tools provide you the option of a Link Disavow Tool. You can periodically monitor and go through the inbound links your site is attracting and identify if there are any links of dubious origins, as well as irrelevant or redundant links.
You can remove these unnatural or inorganic links from your website with the Disavow tool. This will raise the quality of your website and eventually impact your Google search rankings in a positive way.
Action to take: Go to https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487 on Google Support to learn about how to use the Link Disavow tool to clean up your website.
Google encourages website owners to improve and enhance the quality of their sites and achieve the highest search rankings. Google Webmaster Tools is the most authoritative support system available to develop and improve your chiropractic website and meet your online marketing goals.
Editor's Note: The author thanks Vikas Vij, who assisted in the writing of this article.
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
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