Veterinary SEO: Onsite Search Engine Optimization

Now that we’ve talked about keywords, the next part of SEO is the implementation of these keywords on the website.

On-Site Content

At its core, the most important aspect of a website is the content on the site. To the human eye, what makes or breaks a website are the images and the graphics. To a search engine eye, it’s the content/text.

Now that you have a list of keywords that you know to be important for the clinic, what you want to do is apply those keywords to the content of your site. This means, make sure you use those exact words.

It’s important to note though that you cannot just be using these all over the page, or what people call, spamming the page. When SEO was first rising, people tried to game the system by littering the page with those keywords.

Nowadays that does not work. The crawlers and bots used by Google and Bing can spot these attempts. If they flag your site as trying to cheat the system, you are subject to a penalty. Penalty means lower rankings or even being removed from the search engines.

The key here is to ensure that the keywords are in your content, however, write it for human beings. Try to have the page flow smoothly. It shouldn’t read like you are focused on Veterinary SEO. It should read like a normal piece explaining a website.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are a fundamental SEO practice. These are characterized by Title Tags and Meta Descriptions.

Title Tags

To reuse a metaphor we used prior, think of the Title Tag as the spine of the book. When you are at the library or bookstore, you look at the books mostly at the spine. You’ll read the title and most likely get an understanding of what the book is about.

In the same way, Search Engines use the Title Tag of a page to determine what the page is about.

Here is an example of a Title Tag:

The blue font is the Title Tag

Writing a Good SEO Title Tag

In 2017, Google updated its title tag length a little longer. Now Title Tags can be 70 characters in length. If the title tags go over in length it will be truncated with an ellipse.

Just like content, it is important to have the keywords you are focusing on in the title tag. The key is to have the keyword as close to the front of the title tag as possible.

Again, remember to not keyword stuff your title tag. It’s better to have title tags focus on 1 or 2 keywords at most. Write the title as if a person wrote it.

Search engines understand synonyms so don’t feel compelled to stuff synonyms of keywords, just focus on putting the most important into your title tag.

And finally, every page of your website should have a unique title tag, one that focuses on an individual keyword.

Meta Descriptions

Going back to our book example, a meta description is like the summary of a book which you can usually find on the back cover of a book.

The meta description is the gray text you can find under the URL. Meta descriptions are used as a summary for a website. It is important to note that meta descriptions are important because they help drive clicks.

Meta Descriptions Are Not a Ranking Factor.

In 2009, Google announced that meta descriptions and meta tags are not factors in their ranking algorithm.

You might then be asking why meta descriptions are important if they don’t affect rankings. The answer is that meta descriptions support the title tag in search results. They help users decide whether or not they want to click on a website.

We call this Click Through Rate (CTR). The more users who click on your site, the higher your CTR is. The more users click, the more who will interact with your site.

So the effect of meta descriptions is an indirect one, however, it is still extremely important as they are one of the main factors that determine whether or not someone will click on your site.

Writing a Good Meta Description

Meta descriptions are 160 characters in length. If you go over search engines will usually truncate the results in the results page.

Because meta descriptions are not a ranking factor, there are no set rules to follow. Rather it is important to keep the user in mind.

What will users want to see, and what sort of copy will compel them the most to click on your website instead of the other websites?

Some Best Practices Include:

• Have the important keywords in the meta description
• Communicate the value the user will receive on your site
• Match your description to the title for uniformity
• Read the competing meta description you competing with
• Write the meta description as if it were an Ad Copy