Your veterinary website is your digital business card. It’s a way for local pet owners to find your business, learn about your services, and have easy access to your contact information. If your website is not being found on a Google search, however, you could be missing out on a lot of potential new business. If you are wondering why your website isn’t showing up on Google, we’ve got 5 simple tips to help you find and fix the issue.

Poor Technical Performance

While so many factors can impact your Google ranking, poor technical performance could be hurting your search rankings more than you realize. When your site is not technically sound, it makes it difficult for:

• Search engines to crawl and index the site, which means it will not show up on search engine results pages (SERPS).
• Users to navigate the site, which can increase bounce rates and decrease time spent on your site.
• Your website to rank well, which means it will not show up in an organic search when someone is looking for a nearby veterinary hospital.

Technical factors like page speed, poor mobile design, sitemap issues, and broken or dead links can all negatively impact the technical performance of your site and need to be addressed.

Bad Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions summarize what’s on a webpage. These descriptions are what you see on a SERP underneath a website’s name and are meant to entice a user to click on a your website’s link in search results. When a meta description is poorly written or is missing key information, however, it could actually deter pet owners from clicking on your site. Search engines will recognize this lack of clicks as an unpopular website and push it farther and farther down a results page. It’s important to make sure your meta descriptions are informative and meet Google’s standards.

Outdated Content and a Lack of Keywords

Fresh website content is vital to obtain a good ranking on Google. Continuously updating your content is a good way to show Google that your website is up-to-date while providing valuable information for local pet owners. For example, If the last blog on your website is from 2019 and half of the staff listed on your team page no longer work with you, this could be a problem. Additionally, including relevant keywords is vital for your organic search rankings. Make sure you are regularly updating your content and avoiding using generic, stock “content library” or duplicate content throughout your site.

Lack of Local SEO

Local SEO increases your chances of showing up when someone is searching for veterinary services in your area. If you only focus on general topics and keywords, your website could be missing out on reaching local pet owners. This includes:

• Updating your Google Business Profile
• Including local content like blog posts and links to nearby events
• Taking advantage of local backlinks and citations
• Keeping up with local, geo-optimized keywords

No Site Security

Google looks to see if a website is secure before sharing it with others. A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is a digital certificate that ensures your site is secure enough for users to visit safely. You can tell a site is secure because its URL will begin with an “https”. Be sure to update your SSL to keep your site searchable.

We’re Here to Help

The SEO experts at Beyond Indigo Pets are here to help you ensure your site is optimized for Google and other search engines. We monitor the back end of your website to keep it up to Google’s standards so local pet owners can find you when they need you. To learn more, please call (877) 244-9322 or fill out our form.