Chiro Connect
Open any chiropractic Facebook group right now and somebody’s posting about AEO. Forty comments deep, half of them selling something, and you still can’t get a straight answer on what it is.
So here it is. AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. It’s not a new game you’re losing. It’s the AI answering what your patients ask before they ever pick up the phone, then pointing them to whoever’s useful. Not whoever paid. Whoever’s useful.
Here’s the advice you’re getting instead. Stuff your website with the right words. Add some code you’ve never heard of. Buy the course before your competitor does. Not one of those people tells you what the AI is actually doing. You’re not behind. Nobody set you up to get this yet.
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
AEO is Answer Engine Optimization, which is just showing up when an AI tool like ChatGPT answers a patient’s question about chiropractic care.
When somebody used to want a chiropractor, they Googled one and scrolled. Now they ask the AI and read the answer it hands back. AEO is whether your name is in that answer. That’s the whole thing. The rest of what’s being sold to you is noise stacked on top of a simple idea.
The reason it feels confusing is that nobody’s explaining the machine. They’re selling you a fix for a problem they haven’t described. So let’s describe it.
Do patients still search Google for a chiropractor, or do they ask AI?
More and more, they ask the AI and trust the single answer it gives them.
A patient tweaks their back on a Saturday, opens their phone, and types “can a chiropractor help with this.” They read one answer. They don’t open ten tabs and compare. You’re in that answer or you’re not, and the AI picks who’s in it by who actually answered the question, not who paid to be there.
Try this: Open ChatGPT and type what a patient in your town would actually ask. Something like “best chiropractor for sciatica near [your city].” See who comes up. That’s the answer your future patients are reading.
Does buying an AEO package actually get you recommended by AI?
No. Most AEO packages are the same keyword trick docs ran on Google for years, and it doesn’t work on the AI.
Chiropractors spent a decade paying people to stuff their websites with the right words so Google would rank them higher. Most of that quit working a while ago. Now it’s the same people, the same trick, a new name on the invoice. But the AI isn’t counting keywords. It’s summarizing who actually answered the question and who real people actually talk about. You can’t fake useful.
Try this: Next time someone pitches you an “AEO package,” ask one question. “What is the AI reading to decide who it mentions?” If the answer is keywords and code, keep your money in your pocket.
How does the AI decide which chiropractor to recommend?
It recommends the same doc your patients already recommend, the one who stays useful and stays in front of people in town.
We’ve worked with more than 1,000 chiropractic practices, and the pattern doesn’t change. When somebody asks the AI about chiropractic, they also ask the friend who already sees you. The patient who still hears from you, the one who got the email last week, says “go see mine.” The AI and the friend point the exact same direction, and both of them run on one thing. You staying in the picture. The doc who goes quiet disappears from both at the same time.
Try this: Ask the AI to recommend a chiropractor in your town, then ask it why. If it can’t say anything specific about you, that’s the same blank a patient draws when a friend asks them who to see.
What This Means for You
- ✓AEO just means the AI is answering patient questions before they ever call you
- ✓The AI mentions whoever was useful, not whoever paid or said the right words
- ✓Keywords and code are the old Google trick wearing a new name
- ✓Stay in the picture and you win both the AI and the word of mouth at once
Pro Tip: Don’t chase the AI. Chase the patient. The chiropractor who stays in front of real people every week is the one the AI ends up naming, because the AI is mostly just repeating back what your town already knows about you.
See What’s in Your List → Book a quick call
Want to know if your practice shows up when a patient asks the AI, and what your patients actually hear from you between visits? Book a quick call and we’ll show you what’s in your list. If you want this kind of thinking every week, the Chiro Courier is where it lives.
Inside CC with Nerissa: I Didn’t Know Greg Was This Smart Until I Built a Second Me
Greg’s at his desk. I’m in my blue chair, laptop in my lap, a couple bourbons in. He looks up and says, “I’m almost ready. Get your shit together.”
The team’s about to deploy. Our humans are already running it 80% of the way. Time to start marketing. So that’s where I am, getting told to pull it together while I sit here staring at what we built.
We’ve been at this 7am to 10pm. Seven days a week. For months. It started as CA training and a trip and servicing every client all at once. Then it became “what can we take off our plate.” Then “what can we improve in operations.” Then it just turned into “WTF can we build.”
And now it’s built. We’re sitting on a gold mine and have no idea what to do with it but start talking about it. Same thing I say to all of you. Funny how that works.
Here’s the part I keep trying to say and fumbling. This isn’t about sending your weekly newsletter anymore. That’s the boring version nobody cares about. I can send a Slack message that says “build a reactivation campaign on spinal decompression for Dr. Nobody, start it next week,” and it goes and does it. But that’s not even the part that gets me.
Greg built a second me. A Nerissa brain. Every newsletter I’ve written since day one. A hundred-plus recordings of me talking. Ten thousand documents. All of it lives inside her, and she thinks she’s the one who wrote it. She remembers everything I’ve ever said. I can’t. She’s me, but smarter. I don’t know how else to describe her.
I keep waiting for the catch.
You have to understand something about me. I was a conscientious objector on this stuff. Hard no. I know a cylon when I see one. And I was wrong. It’s technology. The hillbilly in me just had to get over being scared of it.
Here’s the part I didn’t see coming. I had no idea Greg was this smart. I’m serious. I always knew he was the smartest person I knew back home. But that, sitting next to how much he loves chiropractic and its principles, made a genius. His comprehension is unnatural. A little alien. I live somewhere between jealousy and awe of it. Maybe he’s the cylon.
So here’s the thing for you. This isn’t going away. You can fight it like I did. Or you can stop.
Your patients don’t disappear because they stopped believing in you. They disappear because the practice goes quiet. You get buried, the weeks stack up, and they slip off without a word.
I’m living in 2029 right now. The water’s warm.
What does a Chiro Connect newsletter actually include?
Every newsletter ends with a Week of Wellness, a simple daily calendar that gives patients something to check and use all week, and a reason to open the next email. Here’s the one that went out with this issue.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does AEO stand for?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. It’s showing up when an AI tool like ChatGPT answers a patient’s question, instead of only ranking in a traditional Google search.
Is AEO different from SEO?
Yes. SEO is about ranking your website in a list of search results. AEO is about being the answer an AI gives when someone asks it a question directly. The old SEO habit of stuffing a page with keywords doesn’t carry over, because the AI is summarizing who’s actually useful, not who optimized their page.
Do chiropractors need to buy an AEO course or package?
No. Most of what’s sold as AEO is the same keyword approach that stopped working on Google. There’s no secret code or package that makes an AI recommend you. It recommends the chiropractor real patients already recommend.
How can a chiropractor show up in AI answers?
Be the chiropractor people in your town actually talk about, and stay in front of your patients consistently. The AI recommends the same doc your patients do, so staying useful and staying in front of people is what gets you named.
