Search engine optimization (SEO) is a common marketing term, and can be a little scary sometimes. There’s so much to know, and it changes so quickly!
When you get back to basics, though, SEO is the use of keywords to improve a website’s results in search engines – and it doesn’t have to be tricky to build up.
Having a blog on your veterinary website can be a great way to improve your website’s rankings if you update it regularly, but did you know there are other formats you can use both to keep your audience engaged and to help build up your SEO strategy?
Here are a few of our favorites – and how you can make them work for your practice.
SEO-Friendly Content for Your Veterinary Website
Traditional blog posts.
This one is kind of a no-brainer, but publishing traditional blog posts is a great way to help build up your SEO. It gives search engines fresh content to comb through, and keeps things from getting stale! Plus, blog posts are really flexible, and can even get regular updates or be republished in order to keep them fresh and relevant. We’ve been known to do that once in a while!
Tip: traditional blog posts are a great place to express a more personal side of your practice by weaving in your opinions and thoughts (and even an inside joke or two). This will resonate with your audience and keep them coming back for more!
Short-form, evergreen content.
This one is a little trickier. Evergreen content is exactly what it sounds like – a topic that never goes out of style and is always going to be of interest to your audience.
This type of content is especially beneficial for SEO because it will continue to bring pet owners to your site long after it’s been published. You could try using it for brief reference pieces that your clients could reference – maybe detailing some (but not all!) of your advice on common ailments and illnesses.
Tip: this type of content tends to perform better over time, so don’t expect it to necessarily go viral.
Longer-form content.
It’s a bit of a dispute in the content marketing world whether long-form or short-form content is better; short-form is more digestible for readers (and sometimes is more likely to be clicked on), whereas long-form gives you more real estate to implement your SEO strategy. Both have their uses for bringing in audience, though!
These posts are a good way to build up your practice’s reputation as a go-to resource for pet owners, too. Use them to build on existing veterinary information, or even to answer common questions from your clients. For example, if you or your staff frequently get asked about the specifics of a certain procedure, or the detailed differences between two similar conditions, you could delve into the topics with a longer-form post.
Tip: these posts usually take longer to write, so don’t plan to do these as your sole type of content! Plan to intersperse them with the shorter, less time-consuming types so you don’t get overwhelmed.
Photo and visual galleries.
This format is perfect for incorporating a bit of fun into your SEO strategy, because let’s face it, galleries were practically built for SEO. Or, at least, for clickbait titles! After all, who wouldn’t want to look at a Top 10 Cutest Corgis compilation?
Okay, so not everyone is a dog person. But still, you can build galleries featuring some of your patients, especially if you have unique visitors! Just be sure you have permission to use the images.
Tip: you can build extra buzz around a gallery using your social media – share it in a series of posts featuring the various images.
Lists, lists, lists!
Don’t believe me? You’ve gotten this far into this list! The idea here is that by organizing your content into a list, it’s more digestible – and even if your readers don’t go over everything with a fine-toothed comb, they can still get the important information.
Plus, lists give you plenty of places to make use of subheadings, which have two functions: They help those readers who may not go over everything with a fine-toothed comb identify any points they do want to read, and they help search engines comb your page for relevant search terms. Time to put that SEO to work!
Tip: this type of content works really well with topics like methods for preventing heatstroke in summer, or for quick pet care advice that pet owners can do at home.
Videos.
Grab the popcorn! Videos are very digestible content for your audience, and although they don’t afford much room content-wise for SEO, video uploading sites like YouTube give you room to add meta information (including tags and keywords). Plus, these sites typically function as search engines in their own right.
Tip: want to make videos, but not sure where to start? Maybe live streaming is for you.Fresh content is the best cure for SEO woes, and by mixing up the styles, you can establish what works best for your practice.
Need somewhere to put all your new SEO-friendly content? We thought of that too. WebDVM veterinary websites come with a blogging platform for just such an occasion!
