How to Optimize Google My Business for Veterinarians

If you’re looking to verify your Google My Business listing please check out the first video https://youtu.be/meRhS1hf8do where it will give you the basics for Google My Businesses and how to set it up for an animal hospital. 

In the second video we show how to optimize the information tab, we go down in order if you would like to follow along.

1. Make sure your practice is the correct business name, do not add any keywords or locations since it can be suspended due to violating Google guidelines. 
2. Category, your main category should be the one closest to your business services and business. A veterinarian will usually pick the main category as “Veterinarian” first. Then you can add additional categories if it makes sense for your business such as “animal hospital”, “pet groomer” or “pet boarding”. We recommend keeping it to 5 additional categories. 
3. Check if your business address is correct.
4. Service Area, if you’re a business who goes out to customers like a mobile vaccinations or pick up pets for boarding add locations to where you go to. We recommend adding 5-10 locations. 
5. Double check your hours of operation, only include hours where you’re physically in the practice. It is a violation of Google Guidelines to have incorrect hours and may lead to suspensions if things look fishy ex. Claiming you’re open 24 hours when in reality it’s 8-5pm
   • Special hours; add holiday hours to let your customers know if you’re open or not.
6. Short name, go ahead and claim a short name for yourself this will create a short GMB url that you can share with your clients.
   • Ex.@TheVetMarketingFirmStPetersburg
7. We recommend checking your phone number every few weeks, people do have the ability to change a business number and steal clients. It’s always a good idea to do a thorough check on your information. 
8. Include the full and correct website url and add your appointment link as well. The easier clients can contact you the better!
9. Include all of your veterinary services. Once you click on services it will take you to the services tab so you need to click back on the info tab to return to the optimization.
10. Add any attributes you might have. 
11. Business Description is very important! Add a short and concise description of your animal practice, do not over keyword stuff it, try to add the main category in here as well. 
12. Add any photos you might have, people love animals and it’s a good idea to upload a few every week or so. 

At the end press save, your changes might take up to 3 days to fully show on your listings. Check periodically if the changes made were correct and continue to upload photos. Next month we will tackle posts and reviews! If you don’t have the time contact our veterinary marketing experts today and we can help you out!