EPISODE 426: AI and It's Role in Search with Darcy Sullivan

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to this interview with Darcy Sullivan. We try to have her on every so often to discuss, search, Google, all the SEO type of stuff. And you know, today, today's day and age is fascinating with ai and so we're gonna dive into the topic of how AI is impacting, uh, Google search. And we will probably have a handful of these conversations over the next six to 12 months as things do change.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, I do think a lot of it. Will benefit us as chiropractors. I think you just need to understand what you need to do to compete in a world where people are using ai, uh, like a chat, CPT, AROC, a Claude, any of those, um, to search for their answers or their solutions to their problems. And you need to be able to be the answer to that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I've shared on previous podcasts how patients are now finding chiropractors using the AI versus going into Google and typing in. A chiropractor or whatever. They are still doing that. Uh, but it's starting to change a [00:01:00] little bit. I do think being a physical location will benefit us, but in this, uh, conversation that Darcy and I have today, we really dive into some of the things you need to be considering to do, get ahead of it and plan for the future.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It is here and it's coming fast, and it's okay. You're gonna be all right. You just gotta make sure you keep up with it, just like. You know, if you've been in practice for 5, 10, 20, 25 years, I'm in my 20th year of practice now. It looks a whole lot different now than it did in uh, 20, let's see, 2005 when I graduated.

Dr. Kevin Christie: So 20 years. Uh, but, you know, 2010 looked different than 2005 and so on and so forth. So you just gotta keep up with it, and we are here to help you out as much as you need. So, without further ado, here is my conversation with Darcy Sullivan.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Okay. As I do once, twice, or three times a year, have Darcy Sullivan on our podcast to give us updates on, uh, all things SEO, uh, search Google. [00:02:00] And, and then now we're gonna tie in a little bit of, uh, ai. So, uh, what's new in your world, Darcy?

Darcy Sullivan: Well, hi, and thanks for having me back. Um, we were chatting a couple minutes before you hit record and I was talking to you about how.

Darcy Sullivan: Google just had an event, Google io. Um, it was mid-May, end of May, and they were talking about what's new and where they're headed, what's going on with ai, which led to the conversation of AI mode, which is a new feature on Google that I, I don't think many people are talking about, or a lot of people have really.

Darcy Sullivan: Dived into and tried, which now, right? With Google, we've got general Google, we've got Google business profile listings, we've got Google AI mode, we've got Google AI overviews. We have all of these things on top of all the other ways people [00:03:00] are searching these days.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, there's a lot going on and I listen to a lot of podcasts on it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: We're trying to, here at MCM, uh, you know, I'm, I wouldn't consider myself an AI expert, but I'm definitely plugged into a lot of different resources and, uh, learnings to keep our company up to speed with that, and then ultimately help chiropractors navigate this and implement certain things like we are with our, our clients.

Dr. Kevin Christie: But one of the things I keep on hearing, I actually listened to an interview of the CEO of Google. And, and funny enough, I know that the, the, at least one, but maybe both founders are back at it big time helping out because it's such a big thing. But they were talking about the idea of the innovator's dilemma, uh, which is when you sometimes have to, uh, burn your money, cash cow producing things to uh, keep up with the.

Dr. Kevin Christie: The trend. And that's a hard thing right now. 'cause Google has obviously done made so much money [00:04:00] off search and, and ads. Uh, but things are changing and they're trying to figure that out. So it's interesting.

Darcy Sullivan: Yes, yes. It's definitely evolving. We'll put it that way. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: What's the, just give us a kind of overview of what the AI mode is.

Darcy Sullivan: Okay, so AI mode, which. I would suggest to everybody listening is that, you know, after sometime this week, just take five minutes. Mm-hmm. Play with it. Play with regular Google. Play with chat, GPT to ask it. Chiropractors in your area and specific questions. AI mode is more of that conversational search and.

Darcy Sullivan: The way it's delivering information looks different. So for example, before our call, I went to Google and I just typed in Booker Con sports chiropractor. Mm-hmm. And I typed in the same [00:05:00] thing in AI mode just to see how it displays information mm-hmm. And what information it displays. And obviously your, your business is.

Darcy Sullivan: One of the top ones that that's showcased, but yeah. Always nice, right? But it, it, it pulls information differently and it leaves you ready to ask questions. So it could be about approaches. It could be more for that educated user or searcher. So we have to realize everybody's searching differently. Mm-hmm.

Darcy Sullivan: You had the episode on recently about how somebody found you because they were searching for. A doctor who was similar to another doctor.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Darcy Sullivan: And that's a very different mindset and of somebody searching versus somebody that's just clicking, clicking on every ad they see for a chiropractor near me. So one thing that we really wanna do [00:06:00] is get into the the mindset and understand.

Darcy Sullivan: The process that people go through when they're looking for your services. And it's really great when you do have that dialect with them. 'cause you do have the data points from Google Analytics and other, other options. But having that conversation with 'em with, how did you find out about us? How you get into their mindset of what keywords are they using, what terminology were they using?

Darcy Sullivan: What sources did they use to, to look up the information? Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It's, it's fascinating to see the psychology changing and you know, we've seen this in the past where, uh, you know, Facebook dominated, uh, and then Instagram popped up and you saw a difference in the psychology around that, or even who is using it, uh, age groups and stuff like that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And so you saw a big swing to, to Instagram content. And so now, um, you know, we're in a situation where. AI is changing search. It's higher intent search. [00:07:00] Um, and I think, um, we just have to be pre prepared for that. Right. Um, and I think. One of the things that I had talked about also in that podcast, which kind of just give everybody a little bit of context, was that, um, you know, content is still gonna matter a lot and it probably e even more than than before.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And I want to go, I want to go down that route a little bit and then we'll circle back. I. To some more of the details of AI in search, but, uh, again, not everybody listens to every episode, but Gary V was at, uh, Parker Vegas, uh, the big chiropractic conference and he was one of the keynote speakers and he was talking about AI in search and he talked about just creating a lot of content.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Um, and then I think ultimately why I'm doing pretty well on the AI search is because we've consistently created a, a ton of content over time. And, and that's where the AI is. Is piecing it together as far as what type of chiropractor we are, the types of, um, audience persona that we target and, and things like [00:08:00] that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, what are some of your thoughts on the content side of things as it relates to where the AI search is going?

Darcy Sullivan: So. When you're describing that you're pushing out a lot of content, it's not that you're pushing out a lot of content, you're pushing out valuable content. There's a huge difference between just pushing out general basic content versus content that relates.

Darcy Sullivan: To your target audience that relates to search terms, that relates to your brand identity. So, you know, sometimes people are like, Ooh, let's go try AI and I'll just have it write all this content for me and I'll have it do all this and I'll have it do all that. And it does, but it also does that for every single other person that asks it the same basic questions.

Darcy Sullivan: Mm-hmm. So content is absolutely. Important. More important now probably than, than before, but it's when it's done the right [00:09:00] way, which you guys are absolutely doing. And I know that's one of the things that you really push through here, but there really is a difference between doing content versus valuable content.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And that's why, you know, as you obviously help out with our, uh, media side of our offering with chiropractors is that we, um, you know, it's not canned. Uh, content on video and things like that. We're, we're coaching our clients to shoot for videos and, you know, the idea of turning them into influencers isn't our goal.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, we're not trying to turn them into, uh, you know, YouTube paid a, or getting like a million dollars a year on YouTube ads. Uh, but. With our chiropractors that are consistently creating content, which we're getting them to shoot for videos, and we do all the production, production and editing and, and producing, and then we do all the distribution for them.

Dr. Kevin Christie: So it's going on YouTube, it's, it's going on Google Business profile. It's, we're posting on their Instagram and Facebook, uh, email going out once a week. You're, you're doing a robust blog for our, our members every other month [00:10:00] that goes on their website. We're, we're doing a lot of that so that they. Are creating consistent content that's educational based, like to your point, and it's their information.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It's not just canned, uh, content. It's, it's their info, their expertise. And so when that consistently happens, I think chiropractors need to rewire their brain a little bit on, say, creating content. It's not, I'm gonna shoot this video. I'm gonna get a million views and I'm gonna get 10 new patients from that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Maybe. Maybe that happens, that's great. But if it doesn't, which is not gonna happen for everybody, uh, you still doing that every month is going to be beneficial. And, and I think high buyers need to start understanding that they're gonna really gain from that, especially against their competitors locally.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Did I, did I, uh, was I accurate in that? Did I miss anything?

Darcy Sullivan: No, you, you did. And when we do talk about content, you know, not just. Video content, blog content, content for the website. We also wanna [00:11:00] make sure that we're you, you're creating content that either fits people specifically at certain stages of them deciding whether or not they're gonna do business with you.

Darcy Sullivan: Or that, and that you also include content that hits everybody at every stage. Mm-hmm. Um, and that you're, you're tying it together because the web is just that. It's a web. And so on your website, when you've got this great content, like it's, it's great to have videos, but if you're gonna put a video on your website.

Darcy Sullivan: You know, you're not just gonna put a blog and drop a video in and be like, we dropped a blog. Um, you need that text for people to gather and read and for Google to grab onto and understand then how does it relate to other pieces of content on your website? Because as we look at these. AI solutions, you know, they're going through and they're crawling all these data points and all this information on your website to provide the best result.

Darcy Sullivan: And the way [00:12:00] that they're able to do that is to crawl and to understand the way that your website works and what your clear offering is. So that's when we do see issues, which we have been for years, of people who had like generic content on their website. Or website that doesn't match what they're offering or they have a chiropractic care page, but it has all of a paragraph on it where it's not giving that robust information that helps AI sort through the information on your website to deliver you as the solution, and not only ai, but also Google and other search results.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And that's why it's gonna be so important. And obviously a big part of what we've done over the years, um, with you and on our end is we, we have robust services pages, uh, written content on there, video on there, uh, conditioned pages, uh, of all those built out. That was a project. Uh, and then also the blogs we do consistently.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And, uh, one of the things that we have talked to our clients about on the condition page side of things is like, [00:13:00] look, shoot videos. On a particular, like, make this a project. 'cause sometimes they get overwhelmed. They might have 30 conditions they treat and they want to have 30 condition pages. And I was like, make it a project.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Maybe it takes a year. I think it took us over a year to do, but this was five or six years ago and it's been, and it's been worthwhile. And when we created, you know, we did like three or four per month, and then we would distribute those out as our content through other platforms. So it was killing two birds of one stone.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And so that's something that we, um, we, we talk a lot with our, um. With our members. And I think the other thing that I keep on learning, uh, as I, as I attend some of these virtual summits and certain things like that around ai. Is that it's really gonna be human plus AI is where the magic's gonna be. Not just ai, like to your point, you wouldn't want to go into chat GPT and say, write me a headache blog.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, and then you just do that, and then you take it, and then you put that on your website. Uh, that's just gonna be not, not great. Uh, but [00:14:00] if you had, let's just say you shot a great video, a four minute video on headaches and it's your information, um, you could take that video and up. You know, upload it to something like the script and get a transcript from it and upload it and say, write me a, uh, you know, a page, like an email or something, something written or a social media post or something to help you out to get that video.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Like maybe you're gonna post that video on Facebook and now you have a catchy title and something like that. That's your information and it's you plus the AI helping you out a bit. Um, so I think that's something that people need to understand.

Darcy Sullivan: Yeah, absolutely. And if you are using these AI tools to help you, you know, you shouldn't rely solely on them, but giving them directive about your writing style, showing them examples of things you've written before, um, you know, like you said, with headaches, having them.

Darcy Sullivan: Create a blog, you know, leverage content that you've put together to create [00:15:00] something. Mm-hmm. And then you go back and forth with it. Like, I never, never take it for what it spits out as the first result. And same goes for like, if you're coming up with like a catchy title for your email blasts or your blogs, I always tell it like.

Darcy Sullivan: You know or suggest to people if you're gonna take a blog post and tell it to write an email for you, give it the blog post, but then tell it to give you four variations of what the email should be and why, why it selected them, which one's the best. And then it gives you room to take elements from those.

Darcy Sullivan: And then maybe you like a paragraph from one and a paragraph from other, merge it together, and then you go back to it and say. This is what I have. How do we get this to the next level? That's, that's a very different way than going to chat GPT and just saying, write me an email about, yeah, fill in the blank.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No. Exactly. And that's why I wanna make sure people know, because I do have a feeling many, uh, I'll just talk [00:16:00] about chiropractors, but people in, uh, businesses in general and markers in general are gonna take the easy route and just have AI try to create all its content. And I don't think it's gonna have the same traction, uh, because, you know, AI is gonna know and, and the go, Google's gonna know.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, but let's, let's switch gears a a little bit, um, on the. Physical location. Like if, you know, obviously our audience has physical chiropractic locations for the most part, uh, I psychologically people are probably going to still use Google maybe for that. Like, uh, fi you know, Bo find me a chiropractor near me, or chiropractor Boca Ratone.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, do you think people will do that and have less of a problem than say if you were a, um. You know, maybe you are a news site and you're trying to get people to your, uh, news site to get ads and all that, whereas people might not be looking at that. They might just search, uh, AI for that. Is there any difference there?

Darcy Sullivan: So I would say a couple things. One, I. As a physical [00:17:00] location, you know, you are gonna have people that are searching from their phone. They could be using Apple Maps, um, to find your location. They could be searching online, so you do wanna make sure. That all of your listings online are congruent, that they have the correct name, address, phone number, that, that helps in general because when that information matches, first of all, you want people to show up to the right location.

Darcy Sullivan: Mm-hmm. Um, but that's gonna help you no matter where somebody is searching, the fact that you've got these con, this congruent information that showcases your business.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. So that could help out a little bit. Um, now on the psych psychology of things are, do you think you're starting to see a lot more people going directly to, uh, ai?

Dr. Kevin Christie: I mean, I know for myself, I've actually, I. Put on my homepage, you can, you know how like on your, on your iPhone at least you can [00:18:00] put a, the app as like a big app on there? Yeah. And you can, what's that called? I forget that. Uh,

Darcy Sullivan: I, I can't remember what.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Yeah. But I finally did, did, I finally did that and I've almost like, retrained myself to just ask the AI stuff versus logging on, like going on my Google app that I used to do.

Darcy Sullivan: I, I mean, I, I, I think it's gonna come up to. The way people search and the mentality. Mm-hmm. And the fact that younger people. Are gonna be more adaptive to this. I, I absolutely think that, so one, it, it directly depends on your audience, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, if you are in down, you know, New York City, your audience is gonna be different then if you're in the middle of nowhere and there's one stop sign.

Darcy Sullivan: Um, but I, I think that when you go about SEO from a place. Where you're focusing on amazing content on your [00:19:00] website that truly highlights. Your offerings when you have it properly optimized, when you have your Google Business profile listing properly optimized, when you've given a little love to Yelp, even though I know some people don't love Yelp.

Darcy Sullivan: Mm-hmm. But that you've got quality reviews there, and a couple reviews on Facebook and a couple other reviews sprinkled throughout that showcase that you are a legitimate business no matter the way people search. No matter how people search, where they search is using some form of aggregated data that it's collecting from all these various locations.

Darcy Sullivan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So even though search is changing, and we saw this before, like it re I back in the day when you, before voice search, you would type in Facebook, CEO. Now you would type in who is the Facebook, the CEO of Facebook, or you would ask it [00:20:00] so. When you get back to basics, when it comes to SEO, everything that we've been saying for a long time is still relevant, if not, mm-hmm.

Darcy Sullivan: More relevant now, it's just that you're casting a wider net, and sometimes when you cast this wider net. Of those data points might not show up on Google Analytics. So you've got to be sure that you're, you're tracking your conversions, how people are actually coming to find you and noticing that there's probably more than one touch point before they make the decision.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, people are, are doing their, their due diligence now, which is, which is good. Um. That's why I think, you know, that that total web presence that I've referenced before is continuing to do that and trusting that process. Um, you're gonna gain a lot more new patients per year and whatever the effort you put into it and, and return, you're gonna get as long as you do it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And again, you don't have to be a, [00:21:00] um. You know, a world class content creator on video or an A-list celebrity or, you know, um, Hemingway when you're writing, but it's gotta be authentic. It's gotta be you, it's gotta be educational. I think we have a leg up on that with other businesses that we have a lot of great education, uh, and great information to give out to our community, um, that will be useful.

Dr. Kevin Christie: So that'll be good. But what would be a handful of your recommendations for chiropractors? Uh, just kind of in a little bit of a, a summary of things that. They should be doing, they should be considering doing. I'm not, we're not gonna touch base. One of the things that I kind of thought about touching base on would be AI's impact on Google ads.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I'm gonna do a little more due diligence on that before I, I navigate the, that topic. Uh, but what would be some of your things you would recommend, uh, chiropractors do to try to stay ahead of the curve as it relates to AI and search?

Darcy Sullivan: Yeah, so I would say a couple things. If you're, if you're just getting started.

Darcy Sullivan: Focus on the foundation of [00:22:00] making sure that you have a website, and even though it might take you a year or so, to build out a full robust mm-hmm. Website and be ready to really dive into content that your listings online are congruent, that you've optimized your Google business profile listing that you name, address, and phone number are listed correctly throughout all online listings that you're collecting, those reviews that you're, you're.

Darcy Sullivan: Starting to dip your toes into the world of content. Mm-hmm. And that your website is mobile friendly, that it's SEO optimized, which we don't have time today to go into all of those details of what's required with that. But then once you do have that, then go on that content journey to making sure that your content is in alignment with what people are searching for and that.

Darcy Sullivan: Usually surrounds the services that you offer and the conditions that you treat, which really, like if you're, if you're just getting started, start with the basics, which are, what are [00:23:00] most of the problems and what are most of the solutions.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, you mentioned like a year to, to do some things and I, I always find it funny because, uh, sometimes people don't get into really making their website, uh, a content rich platform or shooting content consistently because they know it's a, a long game and they feel a little overwhelmed with that project.

Dr. Kevin Christie: But, you know, it's just like, but then, you know, they'll, they'll buy a house and remodel it for a year and it, it, it take that time. But it's like sometimes when you own a business, you. Uh, every business, like if, you know, some of the successful ones, they're, they're making decisions and doing things that they know may not bear fruit in five to 10 years.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Right? Amazon was like famous for that. And as a, as a business owner, you have to start doing things and, and working on, you know, step-by-step and getting going and know that it might not bear fruit for, uh, 6, 12, 18 months, but it will, and you gotta just trust that process. So if you need to completely revamp a website, you gotta start working on it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: If you, if you know, uh, having. 30 condition pages on your website would be amazing, [00:24:00] but it sounds daunting. Start by having two to four of 'em done a month or whatever, and just keep on plugging away. And as you're creating that content, get it distributed out to your audience. So just, uh, take it step by step.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Know that it's gonna be important, especially as we continue to progress through this ai.

Darcy Sullivan: Yeah. And I think that you pointed out a good point there. It's, it's a layered approach. Mm-hmm. And so in your, when you're doing SEO and when you're doing content, right, you're, you're using it also on social media, on your email list and you know.

Darcy Sullivan: I don't wanna jump ahead too far, but I could see in two years, depending on how, how Google sorts things out with how they wanna go with ai. Mm-hmm. You know, are they gonna be looking at the fact that somebody was on your email list? Mm-hmm. Because they're using Gmail and they take that information to also put into the, the factor when they're delivering results in search.

Darcy Sullivan: Mm-hmm. Again, I don't wanna get ahead of ourselves, but you do have this, [00:25:00] again, all online presence that you do wanna make sure that you're providing value, but you're doing it in a way that that's gonna help you now and in the future. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I envision, uh, my practice in five years will have a ton of new patients just because AI is sending people to our practice.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, AI is doing my notes and I've got humanoid robots doing things in the practice except for the adjustment. It's gonna be a wild ride the next five to 10 years, and I'm, I'm, I'm here for it. So, uh, Darcy, thanks again for, for bringing your expertise. How can our, uh, audience reach out to you if they need, uh, all things, uh, SEO website and, and everything you offer for chiropractors?

Darcy Sullivan: Sure. They can always visit the website, propel your company.com or they can book a call, um, or find additional resources. And I'll give you an AI guide that we have that you can drop in the show notes. Along with some other stuff if you want it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. Thank you so [00:26:00] much. I appreciate it.

Darcy Sullivan: You're welcome.