Marketing 101 for Chiropractors

From SEO To AEO: Make Your Clinic Discoverable In An AI-First World

• Enrico Dolcecore • Season 3 • Episode 37

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What happens when patients stop scrolling and start asking AI for the “best chiropractor near me”? We unpack the shift from search engine optimization to AI engine optimization and lay out a practical, step-by-step plan to keep your clinic visible when assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity return one summarized answer instead of ten blue links.

We start with the new rules of visibility: become a trusted entity that AI can verify everywhere it looks. That means relentless NAP consistency across Google Business Profile, Yelp, Healthgrades, WebMD, Apple Maps, and smaller aggregators. We explain how to turn your About and Meet the Doctor pages into machine-readable proof of expertise, and why schema for Local Business, Physician, and FAQ ties your services, hours, reviews, and service radius directly to your practice in a way AI understands.

Then we reframe content strategy around real patient language. Instead of chasing keywords, write clear answers to questions people actually ask: Why does my back hurt when I wake up? Why is my big toe numb? Why do I feel an electric pain down one leg? We show how FAQs, short blogs, and YouTube videos with transcripts feed LLMs with conversational signals they can reuse when recommending providers. Reviews take center stage too—AI weighs sentiment and specifics. You’ll hear how to encourage authentic detail, reply HIPAA-safe to every review, and turn even a one-star comment into a trust signal that demonstrates access, affordability, and patient-first care.

Finally, we map a simple action plan you can execute this month: audit NAP with a listings tool, refresh FAQs, implement validated schema, post weekly on your Google profile, publish one Q&A video at a steady cadence, and expand your digital footprint through guest spots and local mentions. No hacks—just consistent, credible signals that make you the obvious choice when AI narrows the field to a few names.

If this helped, follow the show, share it with a colleague who needs an AEO wake-up call, and leave a review to tell us which step you’ll tackle first. Your future patients are asking AI for answers—let’s make sure it says your name.

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  1. Join Marketing 101 for Chiropractors Facebook Group here
  2. Learn more at EnricoD.com
  3. Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business
SPEAKER_00:

Google isn't the only search engine anymore. AI is changing how patients find chiropractors. And if you don't adapt your online presence for AEO, your clinic might disappear from the next generation of search results. Welcome to another podcast of Living or Marketing 101 for chiropractors. This week we are talking about AEO, the speed of how things are changing. I had a great podcast last week with Charles from Predictable Profits. And he brought up some stuff about AI. And I was like, man, we got to do an episode strictly on this to catch chiropractors up. If you've been listening to my podcast, I have been keeping you ahead of the curve, whether you agree with me or not. By listening to this, you've always had one piece of information that you're like, yeah, I should probably go check my Google uh profile, my my better business uh bureau listing, my my this, my digital footprint, create this video, fix your website, have the terms and conditions. I've always kept you ahead of the curve, and I'm going to keep you ahead of the curve. He brought up a great point about Google and websites back in the day in the 2000s when businesses uh didn't even have websites and the internet was starting to come around, people were using search, and people, businesses were able to survive without a website. Restaurants didn't have websites. Remember this? If you're old enough, you used to go around, they didn't even have a website because they were getting business, no one was going online. There was no smartphones at that time. So people didn't go search on their desktop to go find out where to go eat tonight. They just went out and went by referral. Then now, today, if you come along that, if you don't have a website, you're not relevant. Like you don't exist. Everyone's looking on digital to find research on everything from businesses where to go, nail salons, hair places, restaurants, everything. Chiropractors were all part of it. So that makes sense. Now, now it's AI is going to be driving search results. And unlike the the website revelation, which took 15 years to convert and finally be like, okay, I'll get a website for my restaurant in 2012. People finally got a got a website. Now you've got 12 months, maybe six months by the time that AI is going to be taking this completely over. Google knows this, everyone knows this. The the search engines online know this. They know AI is next. That's why Gemini is trying to keep up and Google's trying to keep up, and everyone's trying to play this battlefield game for AI. But for us, what does this mean? If we're not AEO optimized, if we're not AI engine optimized, we our businesses will become irrelevant. It's just like that analogy of not having a website in 2019. Imagine not having a website as a chiropractor in 2019 and trying to compete. It probably just wouldn't have wouldn't happen. That's what's going to happen here. So listen closely. These are the things we need to start doing because your business, no one cares about your business except you. So we got to talk about what AEO really means and how you can make sure your practice is visible in this new AI-driven world. So SEO versus AEO. SEO search engine optimization is optimizing for keywords in algorithms. Many of you are well versed in this. You know you want to rank in your Google searches, your Yelp searches, and this is going to be by putting in the keywords in there and having a list of keywords, chiropractor near me, chiropractor for sciatica, chiropractor for high migraines, chiropractor for headaches, headaches, migraines, back pain, low back pain, discrimination, pediatrics, colic. I mean, you're just going to rank for words. AEO optimizing for answers and entities. How AI understands people, places, and expertise. AI engines don't rank pages no longer. They summarize trusted entities. Your goal is to become a trusted entity in chiropractic care backed by strong signals across your website, Google profile, directories, and reviews. Reviews is where AI is putting its emphasis in reading because it's the human component on the digital frame. Everything else is website, it's choreographed, it's um tailored, it's SEO driven, it's repetitive. AI knows this, the algorithms know this that you've tailored and you've polished your responses. But the reviews are organic, most of them, and it knows this. So a few things we need to look into that. If someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude, whatever it is, who's the best chiropractor in Severville, Tennessee for posture and back pain? AI looks for consistent name, address, phone number, info, website content using natural conversational answers, Google reviews, authority signals from reviews, expertise pages, and mentions from backlinks and other sites, and schema markup and structured data. So our emphasis and our and our focus has to shift a little bit. Yes, we have to create content. Yes, we have to keep putting that stuff out there so that we're on the internet. But we can't risk of ignoring what AEO means because it's gonna move too fast. I predict in 2026, the tools in AI will start putting this in there, and then you're gonna have ads on ChatGPT, ads on Gemini where you can start advertising, and we'll be ahead of the curve for that too. But next is gonna be by summer next year, by the end of next year, if you're not ranking in this in 2027, you will get no phone calls and no leads off the internet. No one will be able to find you on the internet. Listen closely. Chiropractors who rely solely on traditional SEO will vanish from AI search results. AI is shifting from 10 blue links to one summarized answer. So when you search something on Google and you get those 10 links on the first page, that's going away. So if you were ranking number four, you are gonna disappear. You're not gonna be there. If your client, if your clinic isn't part of the AI trusted data set, you won't even show up in any results. Nothing's gonna show up. This is like the shift from print ads to websites. And the early adopters will dominate this market. It will be Christmas Day for you every single day in 2027 and 2028 and 2029, that you will never have to do anything aside from just some basic marketing, and you will have people calling your office as the only chiropractic office that's there. They won't be able to see anyone else. So just don't screw up your reputation by 2030, and you should be A-O-K. Okay? So imagine this. Imagine if ChatGPT or Perplexity or whatever recommends three chiropractors in your city, and you're not one of them because your data wasn't structured right. It's February 7th, 2027. The person down the street from you is like chiropractor near me. Can you please find me the best chiropractor near me for back pain, for headaches, whatever it is, but just chiropractor near me. Boom. Based on you, Jennifer, and what you've used on Chat GPT over the last six years, and we love you, and we know everything about you. We know your bra size, we know your heights, your favorite restaurants and foods. These are the three best uh chiropractors I recommend for you, Jennifer. That's what AI is doing, right? It's tailoring the internet for you. Okay. It's gonna be Dr. Mike Smith, Dr. Shelby Roast, and Dr. Jennifer Waldao. Where are you? That's it. She's gonna call one of the three, and you're not even part of the game. So we really need to focus on this and shift a couple things. Five pillars of AEO for chiropractors that you absolutely need to know. This is the only part of the podcast you need to listen to. So pull over or whatever, stop on the treadmill. Make sure Google and AI engines recognize you as a real authoritative entity. How do you do that? Consistent NAP everywhere. NAP name, address, phone number, everywhere. Get MozLocal.com, pay the$20 a month right now for a few months. Make sure you're across all the directories correctly: website, Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, Health Grades, Web WebMD, Rate My MD, what all those things are there. About and meet the doctor pages with structured data. Structured data. Link your name to the chiropractor in the area that you're at repeatedly in online mentions, just like you probably already have been for SEO. So here's a prompt to use in your favorite AI tool. Analyze my chiropractic website content and identify how I can strengthen my EEAT experience, expertise, authority, trust signals for AI search engines. I'm going to repeat. Analyze, this is the prompt. You put into Chat GPT or Perplexity or Claude. Analyze my chiropractic website content and identify how I can strengthen my EEAT signals for AI search engines. Two, AI pulls content that answers questions, not just matches keywords. People are going to be asking questions. They're not going to be putting in sciatica, right? They're not going to be doing the research component. AI is doing the research for you and giving you the top results. The better the question, the better answers you will get. So write FAQ sections using real language. Why does my back hurt when I wake up? Your blog section, your FAQ sections. Why does it hurt to tie my shoes? Why do I feel a pressure sensation when I bend down to pick up something off the floor in my head? Why do I get an electric feeling shooting across my back? Why do I get an electric feeling shooting down just one leg? Why does my big toe feel numb? Why does my index finger feel numb? Why is my arm numb when I wake up in the morning? This is the stuff that people are going to be asking AI. So this little shift of writing blogs and explaining conditions like sciatica. Sciatica is a condition that can be a double crust syndrome from piriformis issues or disc issues or inflammation around the sciatic nerve that can cause radiating. That is all gone. That is all gone. It is now going to summarize that information to your clients, to your prospects in this way. Structured data, number three, and Shima markup. This is how your website is. Add Shima and AI to understand who you are. Use local business, physician, and fact Shima on your website. Include reviews and service areas. You want to be saying we service not only the local community that you're at, but the radius people travel for you. If you live like somewhere dense like me, you have all these different little subhubs that you got to put in there as well. So a prompt you can use for AI is write Shima markup for chiropractic clinic in Tampa, Florida that includes business name, location reviews, services, and opening hours. Prompt that a few times, clean it up a few times, get the best answer, copy and paste right into your website so that AI is teaching AI what to look for. Reputation and review signals. AI ranks trust, and trust equals consistent positive online sentiment. Respond to reviews, both positive and negative. It creates that dialogue, creates that conversational review where AI is really focusing on to say, wow, this place gets a lot of good reviews, but it's not about the positivity. It's looking for people saying, wow, Dr. Enrico helped me with my sciatica that was causing electrical pain down my leg and making my big toe numb. That's you're gonna have to train a little bit of that. If the patient doesn't say that detailed in the review, your response in the review will be a little bit more detailed, but make sure it's HIPAA compliant. We still have to play by the rules of HIPAA. Don't give away too much personal information online. Encourage real patients to use keywords naturally, like Dr. Enrico, help my sciatica. And AI uses sentiment analysis, not just star rating. So don't worry about the four-star review, the five-star review, even the one-star review that says we're too expensive. That's a beautiful review or to go in and reply to and say, hey, I'm sorry you feel it's too bad that you feel like we're out of range. However, did you know we also take Medicare, we're in the VA system, and all major insurances do cover chiropractic in one way, shape, or form. Like many of the thousands of families that we've helped in the area, we can be affordable for you too. Give us another chance, call us back, and let's get through some more details that we may have missed on your first appointment. Like I'm just giving you an example. And we had that exact review just last week saying they're too expensive for me. And the one-star review. Okay, well, good for you, buddy. Uh, digital footprint expansion. Be everywhere. AI can verify your legitimacy. What does that mean? This and this is very, very important. So I'll slow down my talking. Google Business Profile updated weekly. YouTube videos answering common pain questions. AI reads transcripts of your YouTube videos, podcast episodes and blog posts, linked to your site. Enrico, why do you run two podcasts? Where do you have time for all these podcasts? How are you all doing this for three consecutive plus years? How do you have over 200 podcast episodes? Why are you doing this? Are you making money off your podcast? No. Why am I doing it? Because I'm ahead of the curve, folks. My voice is out there more than any other chiropractor that I know on the digital frame because I want to stay ahead of the curve. That was my tactic to stay ahead of the curve. There you go. That's why I'm doing it. And I do this for you guys so that you can stay ahead of the curve too. Guest appearances and collaborations online. You can use your podcasts, you can use YouTube, you can use channel, you can do all this stuff and just give yourself preeminence on the digital frame. So use Chat GPT and go and list 10 ways a chiropractor can expand their digital footprint to increase AI visibility and authority for local search. There you go. Use that prompt. It takes 10 seconds and it'll give you 10 ideas that you can apply. Five of those ideas that will spring shot you right into the front of this whole thing. Your website companies are not doing this, Chiromatrix is not doing this, your webmasters are not, no one's helping you with this. You just pay them the monthly fee. They forgot about you already. That's really it. Call them when there's a problem with your website. No one's helping you except you. Practical steps to get started on this whole thing. Audit your NAP consistency right now, today. Google your name and I'll make sure it's there. It's funny when you think it's there and you go back and check nine months later. You're like, why is our Yelp directory wrong? Why is our Apple Maps location wrong? I keep seeing it. It's keep whatever. It keeps happening. It's frustrating. Go in there and fix it. You got to continue to go back and fix it. Or you can use things like Moz Local or Easy Local and sign up for the subscription and give it a few, you know, it takes a few weeks for it to go over the internet and make sure everything's uh there. And then you go to the dashboard in there and it says, listen, out of 442 directories, there's 111 that we have discrepancies on because they can't access it. They can't make the change on there. And then you can click on this and it says Alibaba Alibaba.com. You're like, well, I don't know if I need to rank on Alibaba Alibaba.com. You can go check it and see what your rank your link says. You can then claim it manually, go in there, fix the address, fix the phone number, whatever you these little things make a difference. Refresh your website FAQ section with conversational QA content. Add Shema markup, ask your webmaster to help you with that. Update your Google business profile with keyword rich posts and create one YouTube video at least weekly or monthly answering real questions from your patients or maybe from a Google review or wherever you're getting collaboration back from your efforts. AI reads recency. So frequent updates show you're active and relevant. This isn't a one and done thing. This is the future. This is how it's going to move forward. This is where you're going to be spending your time. You're not going to be writing blogs as often. You're not going to be doing this other stuff. You're going to be working or delegating this stuff to your team. And that's how we're going to move forward into 2026. AEO is the future. Love it or not, you're here first. So AEO is going to become SEO. SEO is going to become obliterated. It doesn't even matter anymore because we're not search engine optimization anymore because the search engine is dying. It's almost gone. The Google search engine is gone. The Duck DuckGo search engine is gone. People are going to be using Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT, Deep. What's the other one? They're going to be using these tools and more will come out. And people will have these, will be the new Safari or web browsers because they're going to be more direct and more concise. The chiropractors who get ahead now will dominate the future of AI-driven searches. You don't need the game or the system. Just become more findable, consistent, and conversion online. If you want help in any of this, join the Marketing 101 for chiropractors group. I know many of you are already in there, or reach out to me for a digital audit. I will help you with this. We'll audit it together. Let's make sure AI finds you before it forgets you. This is really important stuff. Uh, stay on top of this. I know being on top of it from the get-go, and I'm always late to it. By the time I'm doing it, it's been out for a year or two. So I'm I feel like I'm always behind the curve. But being ahead of this and doing Facebook ads for eight years, I'm just going to use the Facebook ad analogy. I've been doing this for eight years for my practice. I set up chiropractors all the time from all over the country. Some of them are new to it, some of them are newer to it, some of them don't have pixel data, some of them, whatever it is. They're like, How do your ads run better? I'm like, Because it's got eight years of data. I've been using the same ad account. I've never been jailed, barred, blocked, or anything on Meta because I follow the rules. And I'm on there and it knows my ideal client. I still use Facebook forms. I don't even use landing pages. You're like, why? How do you get all those leads? Yes, we get 50, 60, 70 leads a month. Yes, we get 20, 30, 35 new patients a month from it. Those leads actually respond to texts. They actually respond to a phone call. And then when we get these new clinics that want help, like no one's responding to my calls because you have no data. We're building the data. And everything changed this year, too, with AI. So the point of the story is being ahead of the curve, me doing it eight years ago, not knowing what the heck I was doing for a year, thinking I was wasting time learning this stuff, Brunson, conferences, YouTube videos, learning for my practice for my family. Let's be honest here. It was not for the greater good of what it is now and helping you. It was for my kids. It was for me. Grew practice very fast, built an online reputation. I am the guy. Like people pull me aside, like you're the chiropractor. I'm like I'm the chiropractor. I'm like, are you a patient in my office? They're like, no, but I want to be. I see another chiropractor. I'm like, yeah, you should come to me. Like, what are you doing? Um, that's the whole point of this. This is the next thing. AEO. We're on it on our team. We're trying to do this for our team. You got to stay ahead of this. You got to rank for this because people will literally be like, find me the best chiropractor for headaches. And it no AI is going to know where you live because you've used it before. It knows what you like, what pastas is your favorite. All it knows everything. It will tell you the top two, maybe three, that it will recommend. It will say, go see Dr. Enrico Dolcori. Most migraines are typically from upper cervical conditions. He's the best in the area, has the most reviews, has the best results, and has from what I can find on online. And I'm going to be number one. And I know it. I know I'm going to be number one. So that's the whole point of that. And you can be too. Dominate your area, stay ahead of the curve, and keep doing what you're doing. I'm here. I got your back. If you need anything, reach out. Info at enrico d.com. I respond all the time. Some of you have my cell phone number. Text me. Do whatever it is. I will help you. If I know the answer, you'll get the best answer. If I don't know the answer, I will find it for you and work with you on it. Have a great week. Stay well. Keep doing what you're doing. Your community needs you.

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Enrico Dolcecore D.C.

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