Welcome everyone to Episode #93 of the Chiropractic Marketing Podcast.
I’m your host, Dr. Patrick MacNamara, and today we’re digging into one field on your Google Business Profile that you probably filled out once, years ago, and haven’t looked at since. That field is your category selection, and it quietly decides which searches your practice is even allowed to compete for.
Here’s the tension. You can have a beautiful profile, hundreds of reviews, a fast website, and fresh posts every week, and still be invisible for searches you should be winning. Not because Google thinks you’re bad at what you do, but because Google never connected your practice to that search in the first place. Chiropractic GBP categories are where that connection starts.
Back in Episode 84 on local SEO signals, I mentioned categories in passing, as one line in a much bigger checklist. Today I want to slow all the way down on that one line, because it deserves its own conversation. This episode is adapted from an article I published on DCRank called How to Choose the Right GBP Categories for Chiropractors, and I’ll link to it in the show notes.
Let’s start with why categories matter so much. When a patient types “chiropractor near me” or “sports injury chiropractor” into Google, Google has to decide which businesses are even eligible to show up. It’s not just reading your business name or scanning your website. It’s matching that search against the categories each business has told Google it belongs to. If your categories don’t line up with the search, you’re not ranked low. You’re simply not in the running.
That’s the part most chiropractors miss. They think of rankings as a ladder, where better optimization moves you up a rung. But categories aren’t a rung on the ladder. They decide whether you’re standing on the ladder at all.
Now, every Google Business Profile gets exactly one primary category, and that primary category carries more weight than anything else in the profile. For the overwhelming majority of practices listening to this, the right answer is simple: your primary category should be “Chiropractor.” That’s the specific category Google built for this profession, and specificity is what Google’s matching system rewards.
Where practices get into trouble is when they try to get clever with the primary category. I’ve seen offices switch their primary category to something broader, like “Medical Clinic” or “Health Consultant,” on the theory that a wider net catches more fish. It doesn’t work that way. A broader category dilutes your relevance for the searches that actually matter to you. Google trusts a precise label more than a vague one, so a practice categorized exactly as “Chiropractor” will outperform a vaguely categorized practice for chiropractic searches every single time.
The other version of this mistake is chasing a niche keyword with the primary category. Let’s say you want to rank for sports injury searches, so you swap your primary category to “Sports Medicine Clinic.” That usually backfires. You weaken your relevance for your core service, and you get no guarantee of ranking for the niche term, because a category label can’t make up for a lack of real topical authority behind it. If you want to win sports injury searches, that’s a content and website job, not a category trick.
So if the primary category is where you stay disciplined, secondary categories are where you get to expand. Google allows up to nine secondary categories, and this is where a chiropractic practice can legitimately widen the range of searches it shows up for without watering down its core identity.
The categories that commonly make sense for chiropractic offices include things like Massage Therapist, Acupuncturist, Physical Therapist, and Wellness Center, along with others that fit the specific services a practice offers. But here’s the rule I want you to hold onto: every secondary category has to be backed by a real service you genuinely and consistently provide. Not something you did once last spring. Not something you’re thinking about adding next year. Something a patient can actually book with you today.
That rule matters for two reasons. The first is trust. If a patient finds you under “Massage Therapist” and then discovers you don’t offer massage, you’ve lost that patient and probably earned a frustrated review. The second is Google itself. Google has become more aggressive about removing categories that don’t match a business’s real offerings, and profiles that look like they’re gaming category selection put themselves at risk of suspension. That’s not a risk worth taking for a few extra impressions.
Which brings me to something most of you have never done, and that’s actually audit your categories. Google’s interface doesn’t put them front and center after initial setup, so a lot of practices genuinely don’t know what’s active on their profile right now. The process is quick. Log into your Google Business Profile, go into the edit profile section, and look at your business category field. While you’re there, look at your Services section too, because the two work together.
As you review it, ask yourself two questions. Is my primary category the most specific accurate option available, which for most of you means “Chiropractor”? And does every secondary category reflect something I actually offer and clearly show elsewhere on my profile and my website? If the answer to either question is no, that’s your fix.
And I’d encourage you not to treat this as a one-time task. Check it quarterly. Google updates its category list periodically, and sometimes it adds more precise options that didn’t exist when you first set up your profile. If you never come back to look, you never get the benefit of those more specific classifications.
Let me walk through the three mistakes I see most often, because chances are at least one of them applies to you. The first is the one we already covered, picking a primary category that’s too broad in an attempt to capture more volume, and ending up with less relevance instead of more. The second is leaving secondary categories completely empty. That’s a quieter mistake, but it’s costly. Imagine you’re a chiropractor in a mid-sized suburb with a licensed massage therapist and an acupuncturist on staff, both busy every week, and your profile lists nothing but “Chiropractor.” You’re invisible for every massage and acupuncture search in your area, even though you already offer exactly what those patients are looking for. The third mistake is the opposite, adding categories for services you don’t really provide. That creates a gap between what your profile promises and what your practice delivers, and it hurts you with patients and with Google.
Now here’s where this connects to something bigger. Categories don’t operate in isolation. Google cross-references them against the Services section of your profile, and against the content on your website. If you list “Massage Therapist” as a secondary category but there’s no massage listed in your services and no page about massage on your site, you’re sending Google a mixed signal, and mixed signals weaken relevance.
The strongest profiles I work with tell one consistent story in three places. The categories say what the practice is. The services list backs it up. And the website has real, dedicated content that proves it. When all three agree, Google has confidence. When they don’t, Google hedges, and hedging usually means someone else gets the spot.
That’s why I always say your Google Business Profile and your website are one system, not two separate projects. If your website doesn’t have dedicated pages for the services your categories claim, the category is doing half its job. That’s exactly how sites built on Chiropractic Marketing Websites are structured, with condition and service pages that line up with what the profile says from day one, so the category and the content reinforce each other instead of contradicting each other.
Let me also address a few questions that come up when I walk practices through this. Can changing your primary category hurt your rankings? Yes, it can, if you move from an accurate category to a less accurate one. Category changes should always move toward greater precision, never away from it. If “Chiropractor” is already set, that’s almost certainly where it should stay.
How many secondary categories should you use? There’s no magic number. The right number is however many genuinely reflect services you provide, up to Google’s limit of nine. Filling slots just to fill them does more harm than good.
Do categories really affect the Map Pack? Significantly. Category is one of the core signals Google’s local algorithm uses to decide Map Pack eligibility and placement, alongside proximity and the overall strength of your profile. If you caught Episode 87 on winning the Map Pack in a crowded market, you’ll remember relevance as one of the three ranking pillars. Categories are one of the most direct levers you have on relevance.
And what if the exact category you need doesn’t exist? Pick the closest accurate match, not an unrelated broader one, and keep checking back, because Google does expand its list over time.
Here’s how this fits into the bigger picture. At DCRank, category strategy is part of Phase 1 of Search Everywhere Optimization, which is Google Business Profile management for chiropractors. It’s one of the first things we look at, because it’s one of the fastest ways to find visibility a practice is leaving on the table. It isn’t glamorous work, but it’s foundational, and everything else you do on your profile performs better once it’s set correctly.
So here’s your homework from this episode. Log into your profile this week and look at your chiropractic GBP categories with fresh eyes. Confirm your primary category is “Chiropractor.” Make sure every service you genuinely provide is represented, and that nothing you don’t provide is. Then check that your services list and your website back up every category you’ve chosen. Fifteen minutes of attention to this one field can open up searches you’ve been locked out of for years.
If you’re ready to stop guessing and start ranking, head over to DCRank, that’s D-C-Rank dot com, and get started with a review of your Google Business Profile. The link is in the show notes.
Alright, that wraps things up for today’s episode…
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