If you've spent any time on social media as a chiropractor, you've probably been pitched a "hack" for ranking number one on Google Maps. Someone is always discovering a secret, and they're always willing to share it with you for a fee.

In this episode, Jerry breaks down a real example he came across recently: a guy claiming to rank well by paying people with burner phones to fake driving to his office, creating the illusion of traffic and interest. Jerry explains why this works in the short term, why Google's pattern detection catches it eventually, and what actually happens when it does, including the kind of shadow banning and blacklisting that is much harder to undo than it was to create.

He also walks through a second, more subtle example: incentivizing patients with raffles or contests to get them to post photos to your Google Business Profile. It sounds harmless on the surface, but Jerry explains why it crosses into the same bribery and incentivization territory that Google explicitly prohibits, even when the intent feels innocent.

Underneath both examples is the same core idea Jerry keeps coming back to on this podcast: relevance, proximity, and prominence are what actually build trust with Google and AI, and prominence in particular cannot be faked without consequences. He closes with a clear list of the basics that actually work, the unglamorous stuff that nobody wants to hear because it isn't a shortcut.

Topics Covered

• Why "secret hacks" being sold to chiropractors on social media should make you cautious
• The burner phone scheme: paying people to fake traveling to your office to manufacture fake interaction signals
• How Google detects abnormal patterns and what happens when you get caught
• Why Jerry would report a competitor gaming the system, and why that isn't "being a jerk"
• The trust analogy: why undermining trust with Google works the same way as undermining trust with a person
• The Google Business Profile photo raffle example and why incentivizing photo posts counts as bribery
• The difference between asking a patient to share a photo and incentivizing them to
• The real, unglamorous list of things that actually build prominence over time

Want to Get Help?

If you want a free look at your website and local search, request a review at RocketChiro.com. If you want more help with the business and marketing side of practice, check out the Next Step program at RocketChiro.com.

Years ago, I tried something in my own practice that seemed like an obvious win: a 24-hour call center to make sure every call got answered. It made sense on paper. It failed in practice, and not for the reasons you'd expect.

In this episode, I tell the full story of why the call center didn't work, what it taught me about the relational nature of chiropractic, and how that exact same lesson applies to the AI tools showing up in chiropractic offices today. I walk through a real conversation I had with a client who was being pitched a dynamic phone number system, essentially the modern, automated version of the same mistake I made years ago.

From there, I lay out a simple principle for evaluating any technology in your practice: if it's only benefiting you and not your patients, it's worth reconsidering. I break that principle into two practical questions, transparency and frequency, and use some uncomfortable personal examples, including my own dentist, to show what happens when a practice gets either one wrong.

This episode is not anti-technology. I use AI constantly in my own work. It's about making sure the tools you adopt strengthen the doctor-patient relationship instead of quietly eroding it.

Topics Covered

- The full call center story: why it seemed smart, why it failed, and what I'd do differently

- Why chiropractic's high-touch, relational nature makes it different from most other businesses adopting automation

- The dynamic phone number example and why "the technology exists" isn't the same as "you should use it"

- The core principle: if the technology only benefits you, reconsider it or change it

- Transparency: why patients should always know when they're interacting with technology, not a person

- Frequency: how to tell the difference between helpful outreach and harassment

- A real example of a raving fan turning into a lost patient because of over-automated follow-up

- Why marketing advice built for mass audiences (Gary Vee, Dan Kennedy style "mail until they buy or die") does not translate to a practice with a few hundred patients

- How to evaluate your own practice's current automation honestly

If you want a free look at your website and local search, request a review at RocketChiro.com. If you want more help with the business and marketing side of practice, check out my Next Step program at RocketChiro.com.

For years, local SEO was about keywords. You found the phrases people were searching for, loaded your pages with them, and hoped Google noticed. That approach is not just outdated now. It is actively working against you.

In this episode, Jerry Kennedy breaks down the shift that has happened over the last four to five years and why authority has replaced keywords as the thing that actually determines whether you show up in local and AI search. The distinction sounds subtle but the implications for how you build and manage your website are significant.

Jerry walks through the three pillars of local search: relevance, proximity, and prominence. Relevance and proximity are straightforward. Prominence is where most chiropractors are leaving results on the table, and it is also the piece that most low-budget website companies either do not understand or simply ignore. He uses the gas station chicken wings analogy to explain why mentioning a condition once on a services page puts you in the same category as a business nobody actually associates with that thing, and how building real content depth around two or three subjects is what starts to move the needle.

He also covers why reviews matter more than most chiropractors treat them, why the people who already have momentum in your market are going to keep pulling ahead if you are playing by old rules, and what the starting point actually looks like for building authority in your area.

Topics Covered

• The core shift from keyword-focused SEO to authority-focused SEO and what it means practically
• The three pillars of local search: relevance, proximity, and prominence explained
• Why keyword stuffing still shows up on chiropractic websites built by high-volume companies
• The gas station chicken wings analogy: why thin mentions do not build authority
• Why established chiropractors can get away with a simpler website and newer ones cannot
• How to build real topical authority through website content, blogs, reviews, and off-site signals
• Why reviews are Google and AI's closest approximation of community reputation
• The "rich get richer" dynamic in local search and what it means if you are just getting started
• How to pick the two or three authority areas worth focusing on in your practice

If you want a free look at your website and local search, request a review at RocketChiro.com. If you want to build the business and marketing foundation that chiropractic school skipped, check out the Next Step program at RocketChiro.com.