The Ultimate Local SEO Toolkit for Veterinary Practices

With all of the buzz about search engine rankings and algorithm updates in the marketing world, you’re bound to have heard about SEO. But what about Local SEO?

Local SEO is something that businesses that serve a specific geographic location – like yours – should really be aware of and incorporate into their marketing strategies. Regardless of whether you’re hearing about Local SEO for the first time or are a seasoned optimization veteran, our Local SEO guide will give you the latest and greatest information on what Local SEO is, how it works, and how your practice can get started.

What Is Local SEO and How Does It Work?

Local SEO is essentially the process of optimizing your veterinary practice's online presence to enhance visibility, boost traffic from local web browsers, and improve overall brand awareness in your local community. In short, Local SEO will help you get traffic not only to your site but also through your practice doors.

There are a few prominent factors that contribute to Local SEO, including:

• Your Google Business Profile
• The presence of location-based keywords on your website
• The presence of content relevant to pet owners in your area

While organic search results are determined by Google’s usual ranking factors, the algorithm that assesses local search results is a bit different. The local search algorithm relies heavily on the following factors:

• How far the user is from your business (Distance)
• The relevance of your Business Profile to a user’s search query (Relevance)
• How important Google thinks your business is to your prospects (Prominence)

Local SEO is the driving force behind Google's Local Pack, also known as Map Pack or the Google 3-Pack. Being included in this group of businesses that shows up at the very top of search results for a local search is a very healthy position to be in, considering the fact that 44% of all clicks search results can be attributed to the Map Pack.

Google doesn’t solely display Map Pack results for search queries that include the name of a city or town. In fact, if Google gets the slightest hint that your search might be local and with the intent of finding a local business, you’ll see local search results.

A Veterinary Practice’s Guide to Local SEO

1. Local Competition Analysis

Local SEO is highly competitive, making it essential to understand and outperform nearby competitors. For instance, if a competing veterinary clinic is close by, superior Local SEO can give you an edge in search results. Analyzing competitors' content, links, and on-page SEO helps create strategies to outshine them. At GeniusVets, we focus on optimizing page speed, meta information, schema coding, and other backend elements.

2. Google Business Profile

There’s a good reason we constantly harp on the accuracy of the information on your Google Business Profile (GBP); it’s a cornerstone of any successful Local SEO strategy. Maintaining accurate and updated information on your Google Business Profile is vital for effective Local SEO. This ensures Google and users can trust your business details. Fully completing all GBP fields with comprehensive information helps Google better understand when and where to display your business in search results.

3. Online Reputation

Maintaining a positive and accurately represented online reputation is pivotal for the efficiency of Local SEO. Google values businesses with consistent information across various online platforms, as it boosts their credibility. Your business details should match across platforms like FourSquare, Bing, Google, and Facebook.

Keeping listings accurate can be challenging, but GeniusVets offers a Directories Optimization service to ensure your information is current on numerous platforms. This enhances your trustworthiness and Google ranking in organic and local search results. Contact us to learn about your business listings' status and how we can help improve your online reputation.

4. Online Reviews

Reviews and testimonials from your clients are imperative to build customer trust, prove your expertise, and assure your prospects’ and Google's confidence in your business. Responding to reviews is as important as receiving them.Reviews significatly influence customer decisions, making it vital to encourage satisfied customers to leave feedback. Implementing strategies like training staff to request reviews and including review links in emails can boost feedback.

Responding to each and every review can be a challenging task. That’s why we created a review management service aimed to make it easy for you to access, read, and respond to all client reviews in one centralized dashboard.

5. Content, Content, Content!

If you want your website to move up on the search results ladder, having location-based content on your website is non-negotiable. For better search result rankings, your website must feature location-based content with community-related keywords. This approach targets less competitive, locally searched phrases. While there's no universal solution for local content creation, certain guidelines are helpful.

1. Veterinary Services Pages: It is absolutely critical that you have an in-depth, informative page dedicated to every single service that your veterinary practice provides. Also these pages should be species-specific, meaning you have a "dog dental care" page, and a separate "cat dental care" page, and this goes for every service that you provide. The reason for this is that as the veterinarian, you should be the go-to pet care information resource for pet owners in your local area. When a dog or cat owner has a question about their pet, they first go to Google looking for answers. They search for "dog dental care" or "cat dental care" and when they get to your page, they want to see that it is offering the species-specific information they are looking for. They also want to see that your page provides a great high level overview of the topic and answers all the most frequently asked questions. When you do this, you will be rewarded by showing up at the top of Google search results when anyone in your local area goes to Google looking for information on that topic.
2. City Pages: Create pages with information about pet-friendly activities, dining, accommodations, shops, organizations, and events in your area. This positions your site as a resource for pet owners seeking local, pet-centric information.
3. Community Involvement: Highlight your practice's engagment with the community, including participation in local organizations and events, which enhances local search rankings.
4. FAQs: Address commonly asked pet health questions in an FAQ section. This not only helps your clients but also attracts others in the community seeking similar information.
5. Location: Specific Blog Content: Publish blog posts on topics relevant to your community, like pet care during local weather conditions, mentioning your city or town to enhance relevance in local searches.
6. Local News Updates: Keep your website updated with local pet-related news, such as changes in pet regulations. This provides valuable information to local pet owners while incorporating location-based keywords.

GeniusVets: The Perfect Partner for Practices Looking to Up Their Local SEO

There are a lot of avenues to explore when it comes to optimizing for Local Search results, and every one of them is worth the time and effort, considering how important it is for Google to reach prospective clients in your area.

At GeniusVets, we always strive to uphold the fantastic reputation your team works too hard to achieve. We do this by offering various solutions to the SEO challenges of the day. Let us lead the way to superior Local SEO and let our team of geniuses handle everything needed to guide your practice to the top of Google search results.