SEO: What do I need to do on an ongoing basis?

As the internet has become an integral part of many of our daily lives, ensuring that your business has a considered and comprehensive search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy is key to securing long-term growth and success.

Your SEO strategy needs to be robust enough to help you to connect with new facets of your audience and ensuring that it is consistently kept up-to-date is essential. This, essentially, means that effective SEO is a process, not a singular event.

Let’s take a quick analogy break here…

It might be helpful to think of SEO as being akin to painting the Forth Bridge; as soon as the entire structure has been given a fresh coat of paint, it’s time to go back and begin the process over again.

Why?

Because this is what keeps it in prime condition and ensures the integrity of the structure is effectively maintained.

Good SEO is integral to the overall visibility of your veterinary practice online. Utilising a range of techniques can ensure that when someone types relevant keywords into a search engine (for example ‘vets in (your local area)’), your practice website ranks as highly as possible.

So, as SEO is so integral to the success of your practice, let’s jump straight into some of the optimisation tasks you will need to complete on an ongoing basis.

1.  Staying on trend

The SEO landscape is in a constant state of change. With new technologies, strategies, algorithms and best practices emerging all the time, staying on top of the latest trends and developments will help you to identify new ways to refine your strategy and drive a better return on your investment (ROI).

It’s always a mistake to assume that everything will stay the same, particularly in a digital landscape where things are moving forwards at an ever-increasing pace.

2. Evaluating your strategy

With a solid SEO strategy comes access to advanced analytics tools and a wealth of useful data that you can use to make essential refinements to your digital strategy. It is important to closely monitor what is happening on your website and to carefully respond in a timely manner to any issues that might arise.

In 2014, for example, Google made significant changes to its algorithms which saw many websites experience a significant reduction in traffic. Site owners who saw this problem arise were best placed to make strategic refinements to mitigate the impact and ride the wave with relative ease.

3. Refreshing your content

From refreshing the copy on your homepage to relaunching an on-site blog or overhauling your entire digital presence, keeping your content fresh and up-to-date is an essential part of ensuring that you are in the best possible position to connect with the right audience at the right time.

Frequently sharing accurate, fresh and fully optimised content will help you to secure a more prominent ranking position in search engine results pages (SERPs), which will help you to attract steady streams of high-quality traffic. So, whether you’re offering new treatments, have altered your practice opening hours or have identified creative ways to connect with new segments of your ideal audience, it is essential to ensure your website grows with your business.

Need more help with your SEO, or not sure really where to start? Get in touch with us – we’re just a phone call (02382 250102) or an email (hello@vetsdigital.com) away, and our team of SEO experts are here to help!