Understanding Search Engines - Veterinary Internet Marketing

When I talk to my veterinary clients about how to market their practice online, one of the first things we discuss are the different elements of a search result page. When pet owners search for an animal hospital online, they type in their "key words" and look for results that best match their criteria. That search result page can be broken up into three different elements:

Paid results (sponsored ads, "Pay Per Click" ads, Natural or Granular search results, and Local results. Understanding what the different sections of your search page mean will help you understand how to market your veterinary hospital's website more effectively.





Our goal at My Hometown Vet is for your website to appear in all three of those places on the first page. Why is that important? Here's a statistic that will make it very clear:


According to Google (where nearly 75% of all searches are performed), the average searcher makes a "click-through" decision in 2.5 to 5 seconds. That's not a lot of time to get a pet owner's attention! That means the vast majority of decisions are made on the first page to the search engine results. If you want your veterinary practice to be found by a potential client, your site needs to appear there. Most people do not look past the first few search results, let alone go to the next page!


Another important statistic from Yahoo suggests that websites that appear in both the sponsored ads and the natural ("free") results are 4X more likely to be clicked. It's important to have a comprehensive Internet marketing campaign that combines all of the different elements of a search result. And let me say it again - if you want potential new clients to find you online, you have to appear on the first page!


SEO Beginners Guide: Keyword Research

Keywords. This is a term that you hear all the time when it comes to SEO. In fact, it’s difficult to read something about SEO without keywords being mentioned. This blog post will help you understand why keywords & keyword research are so important to the popularity of your website.

Simply put, keywords are the words that the search engines use to catalog, index and find your website. The idea is to find the most relevant and popular search terms that apply to your business and then make sure the content of your website are optimized for them.

For example if a user searches for “walking maps in the Negev”, a web page with that exact text will rank better than a page that says “desert walking routes in Israel” In fact, keyword research is very much like traditional market research. You need to find out as much information as possible about your target market(s) to ensure your marketing messages are relevant and useful to the reader.

Why are keywords important? Well there are three main reasons:

1. It helps to bring lots of visitors to your website Finding and using the right keywords on your web site to improve your site’s ranking is really the cornerstone, if not the most important part, of any SEO strategy or project. The difference between two similar keywords or phrases can mean the difference between 2, 200 or 2000 visits a day.

2. Focusing on relevant keywords and useful content will improve the experience for the visitor People don’t have lots of time to waste and want to find relevant information, products or services as quickly as possible. Search engines want the same thing. In order to keep both of them happy you need to provide useful and relevant content that relates to the popular search terms. This way the search engines will rank you higher because they trust visitors will be happy with your content.

3. Keyword research can help identify new areas of opportunity you were unaware of Conducting keyword research really uncovers the needs & interests of your existing & potential customers. Looking at what they search for highlights problems or needs, interests or passions, and what’s valuable or relevant.

To your Internet Marketing success!

CJ Levendoski
Managing Partner

Myhometownvet.com allows veterinarians to market their veterinary practice on the internet; marketing your veterinary practice website; search engine optimization for the veterinary practice. Veterinary practice management. Veterinary marketing. Veterinary advertising, veterinary reminder cards.