Posts Tagged: Google

In the ever-changing world of social media and veterinary marketing, it can be tough to get a handle on everything that you need to manage. Sure, we’ve all heard of Facebook – but what about all those Twitters and Snapchats? There are many more secondary social media platforms than just Facebook, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. While these platforms might not have the granular control over ad targeting that Facebook does, they each serve a particular niche and can be great complement to Facebook, especially when reaching younger demographics.

Let’s look a bit more closely at three additional social media platforms and how to best use them to reach your intended audience with the content they crave.

It has been said that rules are meant to be broken… And while that may sound exciting, we all know that breaking the rules can have its consequences. For example, if you drive too fast, you’re likely to get a speeding ticket. Likewise, if you don’t eat your meat, you won’t get your pudding!

Pink Floyd references aside, websites also have rules – and if those rules are broken, there are consequences.

Google commands the internet and its gospel must be heeded if a website is to be successful in search. The “Gospel of Google” rules aren’t typically the easiest, fastest, or least expensive route, but the payoff is immense.

So, what exactly does the Gospel of Google proclaim? Continue reading

People demand instant, accurate, and helpful information on Google. Because of this, it likely comes as no surprise that Google has had to make many complex updates to its algorithm to keep up. Gone are the days of “cookie-cutter” search results. Google near me now strives to deliver the most customized, local search results possible. A Brooklyn pet owner, for example, searching for “veterinarians nearby” will get totally different results than a pet owner in the Bronx searching the same keyword phrase – all thanks to Google’s local-search result algorithms.

When it comes to the veterinary industry, near me searches has many applications. A pet owner who has recently moved to a new city and is looking for a new family practice veterinarian, for example, may Google “veterinarian near me.” Meanwhile, a person worried about the chocolate their new puppy just consumed may hurriedly Google “nearby emergency vet.” It is crucial that your veterinary clinic or hospital show up in positions 1-3 during these deciding moments.

Local listings in Google have become essential to gaining local visibility. They also provide a way to gain multiple places on the front page of Google if you also have a strong organic presence. Recently, Google went from having seven local listings display on the front page to three. This has made gaining a local presence even more competitive. Having an unclaimed listing will likely prevent a practice from ever being listed.

Your business likely has a Google My Business page (formerly Google Local). Google automatically creates pages for businesses based on existing listings on other websites. The problem with unclaimed, unoptimized pages is that they can have outdated or wrong information, ultimately preventing people from contacting your business.These pages, if utilized correctly, can provide a great boost in visibility at the local level. Part of that utilization is the proper claiming of the page.

Is social media presence an option? If you want to grow your business, then ultimately, no, having a social media presence is not an option—it’s essential these days.

1. Savvy Consumers. Today’s consumers are savvy about where and from whom they purchase products and services. They take the time to research online before they ever pick up the phone or get in their car to make a purchase. By having a social media presence that is both engaging and engaged, it helps reassure clients that your business is reputable and cares.
2. Humanize your brand. Social media gives your business the opportunity to reach out and actually connect with your audience. Real one-to-one relationships are formed.
3. Your competition is using it. The vet down the street is likely using social media. If you aren’t currently engaging and interacting with social media, how easily will you be found? And just because you aren’t participating, doesn’t necessarily mean others aren’t doing it for you.
4. You target audience is using it. Here are a few quick facts about Facebook.
   a. 845 million monthly active users at the end of December 2011                                                                                                                                                                                                                        b. 483 million daily active users on average in December 2011                                                                                                                                                                                                                           c. 425 million monthly active users who used Facebook mobile products in December 2011
5. Google counts social sharing when ranking. When many different people on social media refer to your content, your website, or your videos, it means those individuals find your content useful, entertain, informative, or all of it. When this happens, the search engines pay attention and in return use this as a factor to provide better search engine placement for your content.
6. It’s the next generation version of word-of-mouth marketing. One of the best ways to interact with potential clients is by way of people who have already experienced what your brand has to offer. When your social media presence starts to generate conversation and reaction, such as likes, shares, tweets, pins, etc., it’s a visible reaction of their approval and they are sharing this with their friends and family.
7. Provides transparency. Social media is an open book. If someone likes you, that’s great, everyone can see it. If someone doesn’t like you and mentions something negative about your brand or experience, then this too is available to the community. Many successful clinics that leverage social media use this as an advantage to show how in tune they are by replying and finding a way to close that loop. This shows to those watching that your clinic has integrity, values interaction and criticism, and cares about its clients.
8. Opens up conversation. Your clients are the best people to learn from when it comes to making things better. By asking questions about their experience or their needs, you will get an understanding as to what clients are looking for. Social media for small business success is truly about listening as opposed to marketing

9.  Aids customer service. Use your social media outlets to answer questions concerning customer service. By doing it this way, you can not only highlight to your community that you are available, but also get other people within the community to provide answers and support to new or potential clientele who have per haps experienced the same issue themselves.
10. Brand exposure. Everybody wants a larger piece of the pie. The more targeted people who are aware of your business, the greater the chance you have of turning those individuals into paying clients and them becoming an advocate of your services.

Google+ is a social media site, a search engine, and a news feed all rolled into one. In addition, content that is found in your Google+ pages and circle of friends is used to offer search results in the part of Google called Search Your World. Having content that is current is a must to keep your readers interested and secure a solid placement in the Search Your World feature. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when crafting content for Google+:

1. Update regularly. Posting one to two times per week on Google+ is sufficient to keep your page looking fresh and relevant, but don’t be afraid to post much more often than that if you’d like to devote a little more time to the site.
2. Create posts that are unique to Google+. If you already have Facebook and Twitter accounts, don’t just recycle the same content on Google+. While it’s okay to share some content, you should create posts that you haven’t shared elsewhere to give users an incentive to add you to their circles.
3. Share content. Similar to Twitter, Google+ is a great place for sharing links to useful blog posts and articles, whether they’re yours or someone else’s. When you’re sharing content from other people, be sure to add a short comment along with the link to make your posts more engaging.
4. Post links to online coupons and offers. Google+ doesn’t allow you to host promotions or coupons directly on their site, but you can link to special offers or promotions that are hosted elsewhere online, such as your blog or website. This is a great way to encourage people to spread the word about your business because they can share your posts with their friends.
5. Be engaging. Reshare content that your followers have shared on Google+, and request that people reshare your relevant posts as well. Don’t be afraid to ask your followers questions about what they’d like to see. Google+ is still a new network, so everyone is feeling their way around to determine what they want it to become.

When people want to find services in their area, from an oil change for their car to a dentist for their dog, they start with an online search. A very large majority and growing number of consumers now use online media when researching products or services in their local area, rather than using the phone book. If your business isn’t found, it doesn’t exist for them. Join us for our Wednesday webinar  to learn about ways to make sure potential customers find your business online. We’ll be covering areas such as the basics of how search engines work, as well as various ways to help your business get found — including how organic search stacks up against Google’s paid search advertising options. And in addition to touching on how Google AdWords/Pay-Per-Click campaigns fit into the overall picture, we’ll take a peek at Google’s new “AdWords Express” option, and the buzz this is creating amongst location-based businesses.

Google Analytics version 5 recently launched and includes a completely reworked user interface and many, many infrastructure improvements. Navigation has been simplified to let you jump to the areas that are most important to you, including a new Dashboard section and My Site for Reports.

The new Dashboard tool has more data visualizations options, including:

• Absolute metrics

• Data over time graphs containing multiple metrics

• Pie charts

• Tabular data

You can also apply filters to each widget on the dashboard to further customize the data in the widget. These changes will make it much easier to create reports and visualize important data about your site traffic.

Visit a recent blog post from Google Analytics to learn more about what the new version has to offer and what’s coming in the near future.

Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that gives users insight into their website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your website’s traffic data to help you know how you can strengthen your marketing initiatives. To sign up for this free service from Google, visit the Analytics home page.

It turns out, a lot. As many of you know, Google and Facebook do not have a “formal” relationship, but that doesn’t mean they don’t talk to each other. In fact, it turns out, they’re quite close!

If you care about your business getting ranked high in Google search, then you need to start paying closer attention to Facebook. That’s right, Facebook. It turns out that the more you incorporate links back to your website from your Facebook page, the better you’re business will do when someone searches for you on Google.  According to Hubspot, there is a “correlation between the amount of action your website gets on Facebook and how websites in the top 30 search results rank on Google’s SERP (search engine results page).”

Of course, don’t insert links just for the sake of links. Always think about your audience and provide content that’s relevant, interesting, and ultimately drives business back to you.