For years, Google has been the top way patients found local chiropractors. But today, AI-powered tools, such as ChatGPT, are rapidly changing how patients search. Google still dominates the space with 99.4 billion monthly users, as of September 2025, but AI platforms are catching up. For example, ChatGPT had 5.6 billion monthly users in that same month.

To survive in this ever-changing search landscape, you need to start optimizing your practice’s website for AI tools in addition to traditional search engines. We have prepared the following guide to help you with this task. Below, we explore popular AI platforms and explain how to rank in their search results.

Understanding AI Search

AI search differs from traditional search in terms of how it processes and presents information. With traditional search, a user types in a phrase and gets a list with links to websites. They then have to comb through these websites to find the answer to their question.

On the other hand, a user can type a complete sentence or question into an AI search platform. The platform considers any websites that relate to the user’s query, generating a summary to give the user in response. This cuts down on how much work the user has to do themself, which explains why more people are turning to these platforms.

Understanding this difference is important for you as a chiropractor because it affects how patients find chiropractic care. Fewer patients are using Google to find a chiropractor because they would have to look through the list of practices that Google gives them and visit each practice’s website to determine which one is best for their chiropractic needs. 

Instead, they are turning to an AI platform and asking it something like this: 

“Who is the best chiropractor for [Chiropractic Concern] in [City]?”

This type of question generates a response with just a few choices—as opposed to Google’s hundreds or thousands. While this helps the user cut down on their research time, it makes your job more difficult because you have to figure out how to be one of the limited number of chiropractic practices the AI platform chooses to recommend.

Popular AI Search Platforms

You’ve likely heard of ChatGPT because it was one of the first widely used AI search platforms. However, here is a quick summary of some of the other popular AI tools out there:

• ChatGPT: ChatGPT is best for basic brainstorming and writing tasks. For example, it can help you come up with a topic for a blog post on your website and create a rough draft for you to edit.
• Gemini: Gemini is Google’s AI tool. You can visit the subdomain on Google’s website to ask it a question directly. It’s also the tool behind AI Overviews, so you see its responses at the top of Google search results as well.
• Copilot: Copilot is the AI assistant that Microsoft developed to work within its ecosystem of applications. It makes suggestions as you’re working in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams.
• Claude: Claude is useful for summarizing long, complicated texts. It can also help you with coding if you’re looking to make changes to the backend of your website.
• Perplexity: We recommend Perplexity for deep research. Its real-time web search helps you get the latest developments on a given subject, with cited sources to back up its statements.

In summary, you should focus on ranking in results for ChatGPT and Gemini because that’s where most patients are going to go to ask for chiropractor recommendations. However, patients may also be able to find you on Claude or Perplexity, assuming you have a robust website with educational pages related to your area of practice. When patients turn to these platforms to learn about a specific condition or treatment that falls within your area of expertise, your website may be cited in the query responses.

Benefits of Ranking in AI Search Results

We’ve already touched on how AI platforms are becoming an increasingly popular way for patients to find care. Here are some other reasons why you should optimize your practice’s website to rank in AI search results:

• Increased online visibility: Optimizing your website for traditional and AI search engines helps you reach both audiences of potential patients regardless of how they choose to research chiropractic providers.
• Boosted credibility: When you’re one of the few websites an AI platform cites in its response, the searcher instantly trusts you.
• Improved user experience: We talk about how to optimize your website for AI in the next section, but the byproduct of making your website easier for AI tools to read is that you also make it easier for patients to read.
• Future-proofed SEO: Search is going to continue to evolve, so by adapting to AI search now, you’re ready for the future when AI platforms become even more common.

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How To Optimize Your Practice Website for AI Search: 7 Strategies

Now that you understand how AI search works, you can focus on optimizing your website for it. Below, we suggest seven strategies to maximize your AI visibility. Many of these recommendations also apply to traditional SEO, so it’s possible you’re already well on your way to appearing in AI search results.

Use Structured, Skimmable Formatting

AI platforms look for digestible chunks of text to answer their users’ queries. You can make your content easier for platforms to quickly skim and identify as useful with the following tips:

• Use headings to introduce each new idea or question.
• Make paragraphs a maximum of two to three sentences long.
• Use bullet points for lists with at least three items.
• Use numbered lists for step-by-step instructions.
• Bold, underline, or italicize key sentences or phrases.

Answer Patient Questions

When someone uses an AI tool, they’re usually asking it a complete question. If you want the tool to pull a snippet of your content to respond to their query, you need to make sure you answer the user’s question directly and concisely. 

Think about what question your web page or blog post is answering. In your first sentence, rephrase that question, and provide a quick answer. From there, you can expand on your answer with subsequent paragraphs that provide more details.

Refresh Your Content Regularly

AI models continuously crawl content on the internet. When they’re ranking this content, they tend to favor recent information, especially in the chiropractic field where medical advancements are always happening. 

Keep your website relevant by publishing new content on a regular basis. Also revise existing content once or twice per year. You can add a “last updated” date to pages, particularly blog posts or articles, to reassure AI crawlers that your content is fresh.

Verify Your Claims With Credible Sources

AI tools value factual statements backed by expert quotes and reputable sources. As a chiropractor, you’re an expert in your field, but you can further prove to AI that you’re trustworthy and credible by supporting your claims with additional evidence. For example, you can cite information from chiropractic associations and journals.

Build Topical Authority With Related Pages

Another way to demonstrate your expertise besides citing sources is to create several web pages on a single subject. This should be fairly easy for you to do because you already have a focus in the chiropractic field. 

Take your area of practice—or a certain condition or treatment within it—and address it from different angles to show the depth of your knowledge on the subject. To make it easier for AI models to connect these web pages to each other, make sure you include internal links. Internal linking is when each page links to the other pages you have on the same topic.

Write Like a Human

AI models are trained to recognize natural language patterns, which means they look for content that sounds similar to how humans talk in conversations. If you write in a robotic way, they’re less likely to pull your content to answer queries. 

Each page on your website should target a primary keyword or phrase that users are searching, but don’t include that keyword too many times. That’s called keyword stuffing, and it doesn’t sound natural. Instead, let the keyword and other related phrases come up organically as you write.

Focus on Technical SEO

Technical SEO looks at how your website is built because this affects how efficiently search engines like Google can crawl, understand, and rank your content. However, several aspects of technical SEO also apply to AI platforms because they crawl websites in a similar way. 

Here are some technical SEO characteristics for which to optimize your website:

• Mobile responsiveness: Many people use their mobile devices for searches, so make sure your website pages load properly on phones and tablets. This is called a responsive web design because the page automatically loads a version that makes sense for the website visitor’s screen size. For example, the font might get smaller for a smartphone.
• Page speed: Your pages should load in less than five seconds—less than three seconds is even better. Several factors can affect how long it takes for a page to load, such as the size and number of images and the cleanliness of the code.
• Page structure: The structure of your website should make sense so that AI crawlers know how to read it. For a chiropractic practice, you might have a homepage; a contact page to call your office or schedule an appointment; services/conditions pages to explain each chiropractic condition you treat; and resources pages with videos, articles, and other materials to educate patients on your area of practice.
• Website security: At the beginning of a website URL is either “http” or “https.” The “s” in “https” stands for “secure,” which means the website is encrypted. This is especially important for a website in the chiropractic field because you might be handling sensitive patient information. Having an encrypted website is also a signal to AI crawlers that you’re trustworthy.

Final Thoughts

AI platforms are the future of search. As more patients turn to these tools, you may be missing out on appointment bookings if your practice’s website is only optimized for traditional search engines like Google.

Contact us today if you need help understanding AI search and implementing our optimization strategies. Online Chiro is now offering AIO, which is an add-on product to our SEO service that’s designed to future-proof your website to rank for both traditional and AI search.