Veterinary search engine optimization is your business’s highway to getting more clients in the time of COVID-19. Things are very different now – waiting room hours are virtually gone, and pet owners are now looking for veterinary clinics with pet drop-offs or curbside services.
SEO for veterinarians requires many steps, including optimization to get your business on the Google Maps 3 pack.
I can help your business gain the visibility it requires to stay active and profitable despite the pandemic. Marketing animal health need not be complicated – I’ll show you how it can be done effectively for your business’s long-term benefit.
What is Google Maps 3 pack for pet clinics?
Whenever a user performs a local search for a business (e.g., pet clinics near me), Google pulls up several things on page one – paid listings, the Google Maps 3 pack, and organic results. The three-pack used to be a seven-pack, but Google trimmed it, making this search real estate even more competitive and precious for organic traffic.
Effective SEO for veterinarians should eventually get your business to the Google Maps 3 pack. Right now, Google makes use of information from your Google My Business listing, the information available on your website and from different online sources like social media and online directories. So you can’t neglect any of those. It would be ideal if your pet clinic had an optimized and complete Google My Business profile and the proper site structure so Google can obtain the information it needs to list your business on page one.
Local business results on Google are amazing because they list down business information and “popular times.” When people see that your business is busy on certain days, they plan to visit on less busy days. Either way, your pet clinic still gets clients.
Essentials of Veterinary Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, including veterinary SEO, can be overwhelming. That’s because there is so much competition, and search engines update their algorithms so quickly that what you read a month ago may not be all that there is right now for that aspect of SEO.
That’s why effective marketing of animal health requires the guided eye and precision of an established SEO professional.
What is veterinary search engine optimization?
Veterinary search optimization is a broad, digital marketing strategy that improves veterinary clinics/veterinarians’ visibility on major search engines, including the biggest of them all – Google. In October 2020, Google processed 12.38 billion queries from the US alone. T
The lockdown has increased the already ballooning dependence of people on searching for a local business online.
It is also estimated that 1/3 of Americans look for at least one local business online every day. If you aren’t generating business online with this tremendous local business search volume, your site sorely needs SEO for veterinarians.
There is a dizzying amount of steps involved in SEO for veterinarians, but we can discuss the most important ones:
– Keyword research is the backbone of your site’s content. Keywords run deeper than you think – long-tail keywords refer to specific kinds of searches. By analyzing the right keywords, you can plan content based on users’ perceived intention when they type these keywords into search engines.
– On-page optimization revolves around fixing your site’s navigation, improving your site map, auditing your landing pages, and more.
A page on a site is never ‘just’ a page but a hierarchy of information that Google’s robots must understand to index your site properly. Site indexing is not just mechanically listing the information contained within a page.
With the BERT algorithm’s release, Google is now moving toward a more conversational method of fielding queries and matching them to proper search results. In short, the days of bad information on the web are coming close to ending.
Google will surface high-quality content more, and only if the content directly matches the intention and context of searches. Aligned with this big change is also the shift in how people conduct searches.
More and more people are using voice-assisted technology to search the internet. Search engines have to adapt to people’s changing needs using mobile devices, and so should websites.
What are the benefits of SEO for veterinarians?
While many businesses still rely on referrals and yellows pages, this shouldn’t be the case for your pet clinic or veterinary services.
Instead of relying on private business directories or paid listing, your pet clinic can now maximize its profitability by appearing in organic search results. You can say that yellow pages have been rendered obsolete by search engines.
Google is now the yellow pages, and all kinds of businesses are indexed and displayed daily. 97% of people now seek local business information through search engines, and zero-click searches are commonplace.
That means people are writing down telephone numbers and addresses directly from Google search results, the same way they did when yellow pages were still a big necessity.
Veterinary search engine optimization also generates free, organic traffic for your business.
Organic traffic results from people finding your business through an online search, using a variety of search methods. Some people might be looking for a veterinary clinic address, while others might be looking for information about a pet’s condition.
Either way, your site should be equipped with the proper internal structure, pages, and content to attract these organic visitors. Having more traffic means a higher chance of getting clients – it’s that simple.
Another great advantage of proper veterinary search engine optimization is you won’t have to wait for months or years to see results. Compared to traditional marketing, where the ROI takes a while, digital marketing is all about getting fast results through the proper strategies. Mind you; there are a lot of ‘cheap fixes’ out there pretending to be genuine SEO.
Be very careful about ‘cheap SEO’ as prohibited SEO methods can get your site penalized. Google penalizes sites by removing them from search results. It takes months before your site will surface again, and only after the prohibited elements are removed – such as backlinks from PBNs or private blog networks.
