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Call Me: (612) 605-5618 Email Me: travis@tvsinternetmarketing.com

TVS Internet Marketing, LLC.

TVS Internet Marketing, LLC.

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Travis Van Slooten

How a Simple Email Can Get You More Customer Reviews Online

March 26, 2013 by Travis Van Slooten

email-for-customer-reviews-onlineCustomer reviews are extremely important. Not only can they help increase your Google+ Local rankings, but they also provide social proof for your business that helps you make more sales.

But getting reviews isn’t always easy. You can’t get too aggressive in getting them so offering incentives isn’t going to work – not if you want to stay within Google’s guidelines. You can’t pay for reviews either, and you can’t ambush your customers with a computer or an iPad on their way out your door.

This email from Luther Brookdale Honda in Brooklyn Center, MN, however, provides an excellent example of how to go about getting customer reviews online the right way.

Hi Travis,

It was my pleasure to work with you at your last service visit. My goal was to make you extremely satisfied with the service that I provided you. Please contact me if you feel that I did not meet this goal or if there is a way that I can improve your next service visit.

I am eager to hear your feedback on your recent visit. Therefore, I would like to ask you to take a moment to post a review. Please choose one of the links below and it will take you directly to the page which takes approximately 5 minutes to complete the review.

Cars.com
DealerRater

I understand that your time is very valuable; however, it is important to me and Luther Brookdale Honda that you provide feedback that others can see. Our commitment to customer satisfaction is higher than ever. That’s why we are dedicated to making your service experience as satisfying as possible.
Thank you for your business and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Regards,

Luther Brookdale Honda

Now, let’s talk about exactly why this email works so well so you can adopt this simple strategy for your own business.

First, there’s the part you can’t see on this email. It was sent to me the day after I had my service completed. This means the visit was still fresh in my mind the day I got the email.

Second, the first paragraph of the email helps prevent customers from leaving bad reviews online by inviting the customer to call the dealership directly if their needs were not met. This is a subtle but very important paragraph in the email. Without it, the dealership would be inviting its customers to leave feedback on review sites whether they were happy or not. You don’t want unhappy customers leaving negative reviews online!

Luther Brookdale Honda also offers a reason for the customer to leave a review that actually matters to the customer. The dealership claims they will use the feedback to improve their service, which in theory will directly impact me as a customer the next time I go in for service. The dealership appeals directly to the customer’s sense of “what’s in it for me.”

Third, the email doesn’t make customers guess how or where to send the review. Luther Brookdale Honda makes it easy by providing hyperlinks directly to their preferred review sites.

Fourth, the email stresses respect for the customer’s time. It not only says, “I know your time is valuable” but also points out that it takes less than 5 minutes for the customer to leave the feedback.

The beauty of this email is that it will take you less than five minutes to create this kind of a follow-up program for your own business. It’s ethical, it’s easy, and it gets results, too.

Filed Under: Small Business SEO

2 Super Simple Ways To Generate Awesome Content With Your Smartphone

March 23, 2013 by Travis Van Slooten

Holding Tablet PCHere are a couple of simple things that you can do to market your business online using just your smartphone. You can do these for your website or Facebook page. Are you ready for the “big reveal?”…

1. Pictures
2. Videos

People are, in general, visually oriented. Take a look this electrician’s Facebook page.

The House Doctor’s Electrical Division page is relatively new but it already has over 70 likes at the time of this post.

What’s interesting about their page is that the House Doctor’s Electrical Division is not posting walls of “useful and informative” text. Instead, they’re basically just posting up a ton of pictures – a strategy that isn’t costing them much in terms of either time or money.

If you’re a contractor this means you don’t have to rack your brains coming up with tips, tricks, and new articles to post on your website or Facebook page. You could, instead, just take some great pictures of your projects.

Try taking “before” pictures, “after pictures,” and “work in progress” pictures. A picture of the happy homeowner doesn’t hurt either!

These photos aren’t just great for Facebook. They’re fantastic for your blog, too. You can spend a bit more time on your blog actually explaining your project.

The video could work exactly the same way. Shoot a video of the homeowner’s house. Then explain what you’re going to be doing. Periodically take video of the work in progress, of your team creating the new improvement to the home. Then shoot some video of the finished product.

If you did 2 videos like this every month you’d have 24 powerful salesmen working on your behalf. These videos won’t just be great for your blog and your Facebook. They’ll let you start your own YouTube channel too, giving you a new way to build web presence.

Videos and pictures allow you to reach out to people who do not like to read mountains of text. In fact, some people don’t really like to read anything at all. They want to see it.

If you’re struggling to come up with content – don’t! Just get that smartphone out and start taking pictures and videos and you’ll have a never-ending supply of high quality content for your website and Facebook page.

Filed Under: Small Business Websites & Blogs

How To Get Backlinks for More Traffic & More Customers!

January 30, 2013 by Travis Van Slooten

Before we even address how to get backlinks, we first need to define what backlinks are and why they are so important for your website’s rankings.

Backlinks are the number one most important factor when you want your website to get to the top of Google searches. In the simplest terms, backlinks are links on the Internet that point back to your site. The most effective backlinks come from high authority sites and have your chosen keyword(s) as the anchor text.

As you recall in an earlier post I wrote about website search engine optimization, anchor text is the actual text that people click to visit your site. When Google finds a link to your site that includes the keyword you want to rank for then it will boost that sites relevancy. Just to recap what anchor text is, see these two examples:

Using the keyword, “Local SEO services,” as the anchor text the link would look like this:
My local SEO services help businesses get found online.

This is the same sentence where we don’t use a keyword as the anchor text. Instead we use the term, “click here” as the anchor text:
My local SEO services help businesses get found online. Click here to learn more.

Prior to Google’s Penguin update in 2012, keyword-rich anchor text was a SEO “best practice.” After the update, you don’t want every backlink to be keyword-rich. You want a wide variety of anchor text. In my example above, you might use all of these as anchor text as you get backlinks:

local SEO services, local SEO, SEO services, click here, here, www.tvsinternetmarketing.com

They key now is variety! You want things to look natural. It wouldn’t be natural for every backlink to have the same keyword as the anchor text because that’s not how people normally link to websites. Some will use “click here,” others will hyperlink your website name, and others will hyperlink an entire sentence.

Do-follow vs No-follow Backlinks

A while back Google rolled out the support of a new HTML markup called, “nofollow.” What this basically means is, website owners can mark their links to other sites (via HTML) as “nofollow.” This markup tells Google that it shouldn’t give the site being linked to any “credit” for backlinking purposes to get ranked.

Now you’re probably wondering why this would be necessary. Before this markup came along, many website owners would spam sites – particularly blogs – with backlinks. So on a popular blog about chiropractor services, for example, a website owner that is selling computers might leave a meaningless, totally irrelevant comment just to get a backlink to his site. This is referred to as comment spam, by the way. You don’t want to do this!

Until the nofollow markup came along, that computer website owner would have gotten a backlink. Now with the support of nofollow, a blog owner can mark all outgoing links as “nofollow” so they don’t get credit for the backlink. It effectively shuts down spam (in theory).

Why is all of this important to know? Well when you learn how to get backlinks, you’ll read about nofollow vs dofollow backlinks – particularly if you are planning on getting backlinks from blog comments. You may conclude that the best strategy is to only target sites and blogs that don’t use the nofollow markup. After all, you only want to get backlinks from sites where you’re actually going to get credit, right?

Well you’d be wrong. The key to effective link building is to have a diverse link profile. What that means is, you want backlinks from a variety of different sources, AND you want to have backlinks that are both dofollow and nofollow. You don’t want all your backlinks coming from the same sources – and all being only dofollow. This doesn’t look natural to the search engines.

When building our links, you want it to look as natural as possible. To that end, strive to get backlinks from any legitimate website that you can, and don’t worry about dofollow vs nofollow.

Avoiding Bad Backlinks

You’ll notice in the previous paragraph I said you should strive to get backlinks from any legitimate website. The key word is “legitimate.” The last thing you want is to get backlinks from “bad neighborhoods.” Examples of these would be porn sites and and link farms. Link farms are websites, or pages, that are created with the sole intent of just having hundreds of backlinks. They don’t have any content at all other than a list of backlinks.

If the bulk of your backlinks come from sources like this, it will be the kiss of death for your website. These types of links can not only hurt your ranking, but can get your site deindexed from the search engines all together!

How To Get Backlinks

1. Your Own Sites
This is an easy first step. Let’s say in addition to your primary business website you also have a personal blog. You should provide a link to your business website from your personal blog.

You don’t have any “other” sites? Create a blog (for FREE) at blog sites like WordPress.com or Blogger.com. Publish articles on those blogs that relate to your business and include an anchor text rich link to your website.

2. Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking is when you “trade” backlinks with another website owner. He gives you a backlink to your site and you give him a backlink to his site. In the early days of SEO this was one of the most popular ways to get backlinks. The practice was abused by website owners and so the search engines started putting less value on these types of backlinks. Today, these types of links carry very little weight.

Having said that, don’t ignore this strategy as it will help diversify your link profile and can provide additional traffic to your site. The way to get the most bang for these types of backlinks is to trade links with sites that are very similar or relevant to your business’ niche. If you are a chiropractor, then you want to trade links with other chiropractor-related sites and blogs. At the very least, you want to trade links with websites in the health, or wellness, niche.

Even if you don’t get a lot of “backlink love” from the search engines for these types of links, you may still get significant traffic to your site if you are trading with someone that owns a popular site. Imagine the additional traffic you might get if you swapped links with a popular blogger who has thousands of visitors every month.

An Important Note on One-Way Links
Reciprocal links are referred to as “two-way links.” As I already mentioned, these types of links don’t carry a lot of weight anymore. The types of backlinks that carry the most weight are one-way links – where you get a website owner to link to you without you having to link back. And the best one-way links are those from high authority, relative websites. These types of links carry a significant amount of weight and can send your website to the top of the rankings!Always try to get one-way links from other website owners first. If you can’t, then try to get a reciprocal link.

3. Web Directories
The Internet is full of hundreds (probably thousands) of online web directories where you can post your link for free or for a fee. DMOZ.org is by far the most powerful of the free web directories. The first step to any backlinking campaign should include a submission to DMOZ. Just follow their posted instructions (to the letter, they are picky). DMOZ is moderated by volunteers so it may take a long time for your link to get approved, and don’t be surprised if it never gets approved. If you do get your link accepted, the link can carry a lot of weight. Simply submit your site and then check back in 3-4 months and if your link isn’t there you can resubmit.

Aside from DMOZ.org, there are hundreds of other free web directories that you can submit your website to. Just make sure they are “SEO-friendly” and that they don’t require a reciprocal link. SEO-friendly means they don’t use the nofollow markup mentioned earlier in this guide so you get credit for the backlink. These types of backlinks carry so little weight so you want to make sure that the ones you do get are dofollow.

Many of these free directories will require a reciprocal link before they will accept your website in their directory. Don’t waste your time with these directories. You don’t want to be linking to web directories. These web directories are a dime a dozen so skipping these types of directories will still leave you with thousands of directories to submit to!

One of the most popular paid directories is the Yahoo! directory and it isn’t cheap. At the time of this writing, it costs $299 to be included in the directory and that fee is reoccurring every year. The Yahoo! directory is separate from the Yahoo! search results. While a backlink from this directory does carry more weight than any backlink from a free directory (except maybe DMOZ), only consider this option if your budget allows. For $299, there are so many other ways you can get backlinks that carry more weight than a Yahoo! directory backlink so only consider it if you have a large backlinking budget.

4. Local Business Directories (i.e. citations)
The difference between general web directories mentioned above and local business directories is that local business directories are geared specifically for “local businesses.” You won’t find listings for websites providing information on how to cure acne in these directories. These are strictly for businesses to list their business information. When you get a listing on these directories, they are referred to as “citations.”

Like general web directories, the links to your sites from these directories may or may not be dofollow. Don’t worry about that. The important thing is to make your footprint as big as possible online so get your business listed in as many business directories as you can find but definitely start with the big ones. Those directories include Google Places, Bing Local, Yahoo! Local, and Yelp. There are literally hundreds of these directories so don’t limit yourself to just those four!

5. Blog Commenting
There are a plethora of blogs today and most of them offer you the chance to post comments. You can gain backlinks by leaving relevant comments that actually mean something and add to the conversation. This isn’t something to do recklessly. You need to actually read the blog posts you are commenting on and then leave a thoughtful response.

Creating the links on these blogs is pretty simple, when you are filling out the comment field for “Your Name,” it will end up being the backlink to your site. Ideally, you want to use your anchor text (i.e. your keyword) as your name, but most blogs won’t allow that and will simply delete your comment. Before you use a keyword as your name, look at the other comments that have been left on the blog. Do you see other people using keywords? If so, then go for it. If not, then use your real name so your comment doesn’t get deleted.

Some blogs will also let you put an HTML link in the body of your comment, but usually only if that site is relevant to the discussion at hand.

6. Forum Posting
Forum posting is when you participate in forums relevant to your niche. Much like blog commenting, you don’t want to spam forums. If you’re going to pursue links from forums, you need to be actively engaged in the forum community. You should participate regularly and add something to the forum.

The way you get backlinks in a forum is through your forum signature. Note, however, that these backlinks will only count if you are participating in a public forum – one where Google and other search engines can crawl the forum posts. If you have to log into a forum to see the posts (i.e. a private forum), then your backlinks won’t be seen and counted so be aware of that.

If it is a private forum, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t participate – quite the contrary. You can get a lot of direct traffic from forums if they are active forums and you yourself are an active participate. If the forum members see you as an authority on your topic, they will click through to your site!

7. Social Media
Social Media is a broad term but it is a good all inclusive term for the purposes of this guide. Basically there is a whole world out there based on social interaction over the web that is primed for backlinks. It has probably become the most popular backlinking method today.

First there are hundreds of social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumble Upon that allow you to “bookmark” web pages. Just like bookmarking your favorite pages on your own computer, bookmarking pages with these sites allow you to make these bookmarks online. The idea of social bookmarking is that you bookmark your own pages and encourage others to bookmark your pages. Every time someone bookmarks your pages, that’s more backlinks. Now some bookmarking sites are “nofollow” but that’s o.k. Remember, you want a diverse link profile and some of these nofollow bookmarking sites have a large enough following that you can get a lot of direct traffic from them.

The Grandaddies of social media today, however, are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Google+. It’s imperative that you get involved in at least one of these social sites sooner than later. These sites are not used so much for backlinking purposes as they are to get people to your site by being involved in the social community. The more active you are the more direct traffic you will drive to your site from these social sites.

8. Article Syndication
Article syndication is also referred to as article marketing. You write an informative article related to your niche and then you submit it to the major article directories. There are hundreds of article directories so you can submit your articles to more than just the major article directories. One of the most popular article directories is EzineArticles so if you only submit your article to one directory, make sure it’s this one. Other large directories include GoArticles and ArticleBase.

Most sites allow a link (or two) in the body of the article, but even if they don’t, they ALL offer a profile that you can get a link on AND an author resource box that will be posted along with your article. This resource box can be a perfect opportunity to sell yourself and your business – plus of course get the ever valuable backlink!

You can also save all of your articles as PDFs (with anchor text rich backlinks in it) and upload to document sharing sites like Scribd and Docstoc.

9. Guest Blog Posting
This method can be one of the most effective ways to get powerful backlinks that carry a lot of weight with the search engines. With this method you approach a blog owner and ask if you can write a post for their blog. Like article syndication, when your post gets published, there is typically an author’s bio at the beginning or end of it where there is a backlink to your site.

What makes these backlinks so powerful is that they are one-way backlinks and if you are writing posts for high authority popular blogs, you’ll get a lot of “backlink love” from the search engines and a lot of direct traffic to your site from the blogs. The added bonus of this method is that you can quickly establish yourself as an authority in your niche by getting your writing in front of a variety of different audiences.

The key to making this work is to make sure you write high quality posts that are relevant to the blog’s niche and to make your content unique. Don’t regurgitate stuff the blog audience already knows about. In short, don’t be boring. Write engaging content that is useful to the audience and you’ll find it easy to get these blog owners to accept your posts. You’ll also build your own following of fans in the process.

10. Press Releases
As a business owner, you are probably familiar with press releases and what they can do in terms of exposure to the media, but do you know these can be great for getting backlinks as well? Most press release services will allow you at least one backlink to your website and some will allow as many as three or more!

Writing and submitting press releases on a regular basis will not only give your business additional exposure, but will help boost your rankings in the search engines as well. You may be wondering what you could possibly write about aside from major happenings with your business but you need to think outside of the box. Did you upgrade your equipment that will drastically improve your business’ efficiency? Or maybe you expanded your office space. These are all worthy of a press release. These types of “mundane” press releases probably won’t grab the attention of the media, but you’ll get backlinks from them so write and get them submitted.

This article outlines ten ways on how to get backlinks to get your website ranked high in the search engines for more traffic and more customers! There are other ways but these are the most common and the ones you should start with first. If you mastered even half of these you would be on your way to dominating your market online!

Filed Under: Small Business SEO

Will Google Places (the Brand) Ever Die?

October 23, 2012 by Travis Van Slooten

google places brandWhen Google decided to bring Google Places into the Google+ fold and effectively do away with Google Places, my first reaction was, “here we go again…yet another branding change with Google.”

It seems Google is never happy with their branding decisions and as a result is always changing things around. First it was the Local Business Center then Google Places and now Google+ Local. But let’s not forget, there are also Google+ Business pages and of course the social network itself that these pages are a part of – Google+. Confused yet?

Then we had Google Boost which is now AdWords Express. Looking at their other products we had Google Docs which is now Google Drive…or does Google Docs still exist it’s just part of Google Drive? And on the Android we had the “Google App Store” which is now Google Play (which I think is the dumbest name for an app store by the way).

The point is, Google has a serious identity crisis when it comes to their products and services. For a company with so much money, you would think they would be able to find the brightest marketing and branding minds money could buy. Why then does Google struggle so much with branding and marketing their products and services? It seems just as a name starts to stick with consumers (i.e. Google Places), they change it.

I talk to several small business owners every day and I have yet to talk to one that refers to Google Places as Google+ Local. Every business owner I talk to still refers to it as Google Places.

Even after I explain to them that Google Places is now Google+ Local they still call it Google Places. Even clients that I’ve been working with for the past several weeks now ask me about their Google Places – despite the fact that I’ve NEVER referred to it as Google Places.

I could talk about Google+ Local until I was blue in the face (and I do), and it goes right over their heads. It’s Google Places! I’ve finally gotten to the point now where I just refer to it as Google Places. As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat em, join em:)

I just wonder how long it will take before most small business owners talk about Google+ Local and not Google Places. My guess is it will take at least a year or more and then at that point when everyone knows the Google+ Local name, Google will change it again. Of course by then Google+ will be called Google Social or something else.

Please Google, if you’re reading this, take a page from Microsoft and Apple. Pick a name and stick with it!

Filed Under: Small Business SEO

Does It Matter What Domain To Use For My Small Business Website?

October 11, 2012 by Travis Van Slooten

domains for small businessesConventional wisdom is that no matter what domain you register, it should be a .com. And while I agree with that advice, it’s not always necessary. A few years back, many Internet Marketers were warning that .infos, .nets and just about any top level domain other than .com’s were domains to shy away from because Google didn’t like them.

It’s true .info’s were greatly abused and as a result many of them were penalized by Google. However, the penalty wasn’t so much the domain itself but rather the spammy content and spammy practices the website owners of these domains were involved with. Because the .infos were spammed to death, a lot of them got nailed by Google so many believed that .infos were worthless.

I personally don’t like registering any domains other than .com and I always advise my clients to stick with .com but that doesn’t mean you absolutely have to. If you find a domain that is available that you absolutely love and want to build your online presence around, go for it. Just remember, you’re going to have this domain for the life of your business so make sure you really like it.

What About Exact Match Domains (EMDs) – Are Those O.K.?

An exact match domain is a domain that contains a specific keyword phrase. If you’re a plumber in Minneapolis an exact match domain would be something like MinneapolisPlumbers.com or PlumbersMinneapolis.com.

Up until recently, Google generally gave ranking preference to EMDs for the keyword phrase in the EMD. In my domain examples above, they would generally rank better for the keyword, “minneapolis plumbers” than another domain that didn’t have that keyword in it (i.e. BobsPlumbing.com). For this reason, SEO professionals, myself included, recommended EMDs whenever possible as our clients would have a huge advantage right out of the gate. This was great advice until Google rolled out their EMD algo update.

I won’t go into all the nuances of the update as the guys over at SEOmoz have already blogged about their initial analysis of the update. The bottom line of the update is that it appears EMDs will no longer have an inherit advantage over non EMDs for the keyword phrase. This is a good thing because it never made sense that a domain with a keyword phrase would have an advantage.

Because of the EMD algo update, some Internet Marketers are wondering if EMDs should be avoided now. The topic came up in Linda Buquet’s forum. In my opinion, the EMD algo update was specifically meant to weed out thin and crappy sites on EMDs. It had nothing to do with Google penalizing EMDs themselves.

I highly doubt Google cares what your domain is. All Google cares about is quality content and a quality user experience. If you’re producing high quality content and you’re marketing your website in an honest and ethical manner, it doesn’t matter what domain you have! You can have a .info, a .net or an EMD on an .info…oh shutter the thought. Your domain isn’t going to hurt you as far as ranking in Google goes.

So What Domain Should I Use For My Small Business?

Because .com was the first top level domain (TLD) and is the most widely known, I only register .com’s myself and I advise my clients to do the same. But if you find a domain on another TLD that you really like, go for it.

As for EMD vs. non-EMD, that is your call. Do you want people to know your business online as “MinneapolisPlumber.com” or “BobsPlumbingCompany.com”? In many cases, an EMD makes total sense. In some cases, however, it might not make sense or you may think it sounds goofy. You might also want to build a brand online in which case a EMD wouldn’t make sense.

Regardless of what domain you decide on, treat it like naming your child. It’s pretty much forever – at least for the life of your business. Make sure you like the domain first and foremost.

Here are the general guidelines I follow when registering domains. You won’t always be able to follow every one of these so just try to follow as many as you can.

  1. Choose .com first
  2. Avoid hyphens in the name (i.e. bobs-plumbing-company.com)
  3. AvoidReallyLongDomainsLikeThis.com
  4. Avoid numbers (A1Company.com…or is it Aonecompany.com)
  5. Avoid letters that can be hard to understand on their own (my own domain is tvsinternetmarketing.com – when I tell people my web address they always ask if that’s tBs or tVs. It drives me crazy)
  6. Does it pass the radio test? Pretend you are one of those cool radio voice over guys and you say, “To learn more about my business visit www.this domain.com.” Does the domain roll off the tongue with ease? Will listeners be able to clearly understand what the domain is? Will they be able to remember it easily?

For me personally, #1 and #6 are the most important to me. And if you think about it, #6 will take care of #2, #3, #4, and #5.

Filed Under: Small Business Websites & Blogs

Bierbrauer Chiropractic Review: The Best Chiropractor in Minneapolis (IMHO)

October 5, 2012 by Travis Van Slooten

I spend close to 12 hours on my computer almost every day during the week. My family manages to pry me away from my computer on the weekends, but even on Saturdays and Sundays I spend probably 8-10 hours on the computer. What can I say, I LOVE what I do!

The problem with spending so much time on your computer is you can get some serious back and neck issues – even if you have an ergonomically correct chair and desk like I have. Several weeks ago I developed a nagging pain in my upper back which became more and more intense over time. Then my arms started going numb in my sleep so I would wake up in the middle of the night to shake them back to life.

It was getting to the point where I couldn’t be on my computer for more than 20 minutes without having to get up and walk around for a while. And I wasn’t sleeping very well either as I was constantly waking up with numb arms and hands. These issues were starting to have a serious impact on my productivity and quality of life. I was in constant pain and I was tired from lack of sleep.

I was going to see a doctor but I knew what that was going to entail. He was going to ask me some questions, do a preliminary look at things and then refer me to a physical therapist. I’ve been through this drill before. No thank you. And no offense to physical therapists, but I’ve never had good luck with them.

I decided to skip all that and go straight to a chiropractor. Since the numbness in my arms and hands was a big issue, I started looking for chiropractors that specialized in not only back pain, but nerve issues as well.

Through my research I discovered a group of chiropractors specializing in what’s called A.R.T., an acronym for Active Release Techniques. Through the use of these techniques, chiropractors can treat problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and nerves (BINGO – nerves – that’s the kind of chiropractor I needed to see)!

After looking through the A.R.T. website for chiropractors near me, I decided to give Dr. Chris Bierbrauer a shot. His practice is Bierbrauer Chiropractic and is located in downtown Minneapolis, MN. Here was my excellent experience with him…

My Experience with Dr. Chris Bierbrauer and Why I Recommend Bierbrauer Chiropractic

Dr. Chris BierbrauerThe first thing I needed to know is if he accepted my insurance. When I called I got a receptionist who said they would get back to me with an answer. I thought that was odd that she didn’t know. I later found out that I was dealing with an answering service.

Within 30 minutes or so I got a personal call from the chiropractor himself. I don’t know if this is standard procedure in the chiropractic world but I was impressed that the doctor himself called to answer my question. That was a pleasant surprise and gave me confidence I made the right decision to see him. I liked the personal touch. He did accept my insurance so I made an appointment.

On my way downtown Minneapolis for my first appointment I was hoping his office was going to be easy to find and that parking wasn’t going to be a pain in the neck (no pun intended). His office was very easy to find as it was just one block South of Washington Avenue off of 10th Avenue in the Mill City District. I didn’t have to drive into the heart of the city and deal with all the traffic and pedestrian activity. Parking was awesome too as there was free indoor parking or metered parking right outside his office door. I choose the metered parking (it was only a buck for one hour).


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bierbrauer chiropractic officeWhen I walked into his office I was surprised once again. I was expecting the typical “sterile” clinic environment with a receptionist, a big waiting area filled with patients, etc. Instead what I was greeted with was a small office with a cool “downtown vibe” and soothing music playing in the background and Lucy the dog slowly milling around the office. It felt more like an office you’d expect to see when you go to a downtown spa. It was very welcoming and relaxing.

I was greeted by Dr. Chris Bierbrauer (another nice personal touch). He had me fill out all the usual paperwork that is required for a first time patient visit. Once completed, Chris had me follow him to the room he was apparently going to work his magic. Before we even got started, he asked me a ton of questions and took a bunch of notes. I’ve never seen a doctor take so many notes before. This guy was writing everything down. After about 10 minutes of me talking and him taking careful notes, he asked me if there was anything else. I laughed and said, “No, that’s about all.” To say he was thorough is an understatement.

After all that it was time to get to work. He spent probably 20 minutes massaging and adjusting various parts of my arms, neck, and back. When I came to Bierbrauer Chiropractic, my pain and numbness were about a 10 on a scale from 1-10. The next day, my pain and numbness dropped to about a 6! I was amazed. I couldn’t believe the dramatic difference with just one session.

I then went back for another visit the following week. My appointment this time was much shorter as he was able to dive right into the massages and adjustments. The next day my pain and numbness dropped to a 4. More improvement!

I then went for a third visit a week after that. My pain and numbness was almost gone. I was at about a 2 on the “pain and numbness scale.” I saw dramatic improvements after just 3 short sessions. I’m not 100% back to normal and still have the occasional “bad day,” but I feel so much better than I did just a month ago. I can’t believe how effective A.R.T. is. It’s pretty remarkable.

Since I work so intensively behind a computer, Dr. Bierbrauer suggested I continue to do the stretches he gave me (which I admit I haven’t been doing), avoid marathon sessions behind the computer, and come in about once a month for a simple adjustment. If I do these things, I can prevent flare ups like I experienced.

I am just so impressed with the treatment I got and the fact that I went from being in total pain and discomfort to being able to work (and sleep) again that I felt compelled to write a review. Chris isn’t paying me for this review and I’m not getting any kind of compensation for it either. I just wanted to express my gratitude to him by writing a public review of his business so that others looking for back pain relief might give him a shot as well. You won’t regret it!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

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