Managing a veterinary website can seem even more complicated than managing your vet clinic.
Many business owners shy away from building their online search performance because they don’t know where to start. They might barely know the difference between PPC and SEO, or have trouble figuring out what keywords to use.
It’s understandable for the world of digital marketing to be a little intimidating, but there are a few tricks almost anyone can do.
Here are ten tips to boost traffic to your veterinary website.
1. Get a Site Audit
A site audit explains the strength of your website as it currently is.
It walks you through your landing pages and online search performance. It tells you how well your keywords are performing, and if your call to action needs some work.
Audits tell you what you’re doing right and make you focus on what needs to improve. At times, it might show you’re better off than you thought you were at some search strategies.
This allows you to quickly identify and get to work on the opportunities you’ve been missing.
2. Visit Your Competitors
After getting your audit results, pay a little visit to your competitors’ websites.
Be critical about the ease in which you’re able to navigate their site. Look for phrases they use repeatedly, and how they flow with the rest of their content. Ask yourself what the call to action is on each page you visit.
Looking for these details helps you better understand what you need to do.
Sometimes, the best way of getting ahead of the competition is to recognize what is working for them, then do it better. Pay attention to nearby offices’ online performances.
Check the sites of nationally-recognized veterinary practices as well. Big businesses tend to be just as successful in their marketing strategies as they are in their industry niche.
3. Set Yourself Apart
Speaking of industry niches, you need to display what your specialty is on your veterinary website.
Your regular clients already know who you are and what you do, but someone on their tablet screen at home might not. Make it easier for potential new patients to find you by saying exactly who you are.
Use short and long-tail keywords to take advantage of all your traffic opportunities.
Short terms are more general. These reach users who may not know what kind of veterinary services they need, or just doing a quick search from their smartphone.
Long-tail keywords are where you can show off your specific skills. These are general terms with details added in, like “veterinarian for equine animals and swine” or “emergency small animal veterinarian.”
4. Look at Your Landing Pages
Once you start to get a feel of the best keywords to use, don’t stop at applying them to search ads. Boosting online traffic performance requires work on your home page and site navigation, too.
Give your landing pages a read and remember the tools provided from your site audit. Where can you use more keywords? How can you make your call to action stand out?
The more you make your online presence as consistent and clear as possible, the better your chances of boosting traffic.
Users searching for specific keywords will be expecting to find those terms in your website copy. Be careful of overdoing your usage, but do aim to increase your keyword frequency in a way that feels natural. This will reinforce who you are and help create a brand identity among users.
5. Focus on Local Opportunities
As you go through choosing your best keywords and adding these phrases to your website, don’t forget to include local terms.
Local SEO and PPC strategies not only boost traffic, but they do so in a way that is relevant to your most immediate market. The people in your community are more likely to become future patients than someone from a far away town also searching for veterinary services.
A local PPC strategy means leaving room in your budget to bid on terms relevant to your area, like city or county names.
It also means bidding on long-tail phrases with the words “near me” or “nearby.” Such wording has increased significantly among online users, which means online competitors need to pay attention and adjust.
Add location specifics to your landing pages to increase your SEO traffic performance as well.
6. Get Social
Another way to reach your local community is to engage with them on social media. Driving traffic to your veterinary website can sometimes be as simple as increasing your followers and likes.
Focus on creating a branded approach.
Use a unique, catchy hashtag on your Instagram. Feature cute four-legged friends on your Facebook page a few times a week. Maybe even do a contest for special orthopedic beds for dogs.
Whatever you do, be consistent and have fun. Social media is your place to show off what makes your veterinary practice great, which will make many followers curious enough to click on your veterinary website.
7. Use Your Reviews
Being social can be as simple as responding to reviews, too.
A testimonials page on your veterinary website is a powerful sign of good faith and a huge online traffic opportunity all in one.
It gives you a place to display your best work from the client perspective. It is also an extra chance to increase the use of certain keywords on your site.
As you respond to testimonials, keep in mind some will show up on Google extensions. This is your chance to show you truly care about your patient community, and hook potential new clients.
8. Write a Blog
Nothing keeps the conversation going like a well-written blog post!
Keeping a blog is a top-notch content idea for many reasons.
It is yet another chance to implement strategic writing for online traffic improvements. You can set yourself apart as a specialist in certain areas of veterinary care, or share common animal care tips and tricks with your patients.
Plus, you can use blog posts as content to share on social media.
9. Implement Link Building
Another way to get the most out of your blogs is to use link building.
Link building is the use of internal or external links to create more engagement with your traffic. It takes advantage of the people who have clicked on your site and keeps them interested in what you have to offer.
An internal link on a blog is a great way to take users from a casual post about their pet to the products you offer to serve them. An external link to a thought leader or recent study shows you make a point to stay up to date with innovative veterinary practices.
Link building is not limited to blogs, either.
You can use links on your landing pages to help users find deep-seeded things on your site, or make a call to action stand out.
10. Be Patient and Keep Trying
No matter what online search strategies you decide to use, remember the traffic won’t peak overnight.
Even with immediate changes like PPC, it takes time to build a significantly bigger online community. Make it a point to go over monthly data from search engines and your hosting provider.
Look at your cost per click, your bounce rates, and conversion rates. This will tell you how well your traffic is performing to create new clients, which is the ultimate goal.
Improve Your Veterinary Website Performance
Ready to take your online traffic to the next level?
Start playing with these search strategies and see what works for you. Focus on your brand image and your niche as you implement wording tactics and other online tools.
To get started on improving your veterinary website copy across search and social media, click here to access our keyword playground.