Questions to ask before hiring anyone for search, with our answers

What does it cost?

One flat monthly fee, quoted in writing after the free ranking check, sized to the clinic and the 90-day plan we propose. We do not publish a price list, because a one-doctor practice with a sound website and a three-doctor practice whose site needs rebuilding are different amounts of work, and a number on this page would be wrong for one of them. What we do publish is the rule: no setup fee, no percentage of revenue, no fee per lead or per new client, no minimum term: 30 days' notice from either side ends it. The number in the quote is the number on every invoice until we both agree to change it.

How long until anything moves?

Changes to the Google Business Profile (categories, services, hours, photos, the description) are reviewed by Google usually within minutes, sometimes up to 30 days, and can change what the map shows within days of going live. New pages on the website are on the slow clock: Google says crawling a new or changed page can take days to weeks, that requesting a crawl guarantees nothing, and ranking follows crawling. Expect the map to move first and the web results to move over two to four months, and expect us to say in each report which is which. Nobody can guarantee a ranking, and Google says so itself.

Do you guarantee results?

No. Google says no one can guarantee a local ranking, so we don't. What we commit to is the work in the written plan, done when we said, approved by you, and reported every month.

A corporate group or a management company already runs our marketing. Can you still help?

Usually not, and we will say so in the free check rather than take the work. If the clinic is owned by a corporate group, it is not independently owned and we would be working at cross purposes with the group's own marketing team. If an independent clinic has hired a management company that handles the website and the profile, two people editing the same profile is worse than one, so we step back. The exception is an independent clinic whose management company does bookkeeping and HR but not marketing; then we coordinate with them and get on with it.

Do you work with more than one clinic in a town?

No. One general practice per town, first come. Two clinics compete when they would show in the same map results for "veterinarian [town]", so a town here means the town or city a clinic's own clients search from, plus any town we write a page for on its behalf. We cannot write "the clinic to call for puppy visits in Joplin" for two clinics in Joplin. An independently owned specialty or emergency hospital is a different service, and we would consider it separately. If we can't take on your town, we tell you straight away.

Do you need access to our patient records or our practice software?

No, never, and we will not accept it if offered. Everything we do uses the public side of the clinic: the Google profile (where we are a manager, not an owner), the website, the review pages. The review routine runs from the front desk with the clinic's own review link; we never see who was asked. If a client replies to a review with a question about their pet, the clinic answers it by phone.

What happens to the accounts if we stop?

Nothing changes hands, because nothing left the clinic's name. The Google Business Profile was always yours; you remove us as a manager, which only an owner can do. The website and every page we wrote are yours. The tracker is ours and stops. Thirty days' notice, nothing else.

What do you not do?

Ads of any kind, including Google's Local Services Ads for the Veterinarian category, which any licensed clinic can buy and which we will explain but not sell. Social media. Email or text campaigns to your clients. Website design beyond what search needs (if the site needs rebuilding, we will say what it needs and you can choose a designer). Anything that touches patient or client records. Reviews on Yelp, which forbids asking. Pages for towns where the clinic has no presence. Any claim about outcomes, cures, awards or being the best.

What are the rules on reviews, exactly?

Google allows a business to ask for reviews, by link or QR code, but prohibits offering anything in return (payment, discounts, free goods or services), selectively asking only happy clients, discouraging negative reviews, and staff reviewing their own employer. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews, in force since October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews, buying reviews that must express a particular sentiment, and suppressing reviews by threat; the FTC also says sorting clients before asking could violate the FTC Act. Yelp is stricter: it says not to ask at all. The AVMA's ethics principles treat testimonials as advertising, limited to claims that can be verified, and require veterinarians to protect client privacy. So: ask everyone the same way, offer nothing, reply to everyone, and never confirm in public that a person is a client.

Google, prohibited and restricted content; FTC, consumer reviews and testimonials rule, questions and answers; AVMA, Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, 3.2.4 and 3.7.2.

Can we call ourselves a specialist, or the best, or an emergency clinic?

Specialist: the AVMA's ethics principles (3.6.2) reserve the word for a veterinarian who is currently board-certified, and Texas (rule 573.30), Florida (61G18-21.001) and California (Business and Professions Code 4883) make it a licensing matter. The best: Texas 573.30 and Florida 61G18-21.001 list unverifiable superiority claims as misleading; California bars misleading advertising generally. Emergency: California's rule 2032.5 says an on-call arrangement may not be advertised as an emergency hospital, and Florida requires emergency advertising to state the hours and whether a vet is on the premises or on call. We flag the words boards commonly restrict (emergency, specialist, best, guarantees), and a veterinarian at your practice approves every page and profile change against your state's rules before it goes live.

Our website was built by a relative in 2019. Do we need a new one?

Probably not for search. Google needs the site to load quickly on a phone, to have a page for each thing people search for, to say plainly what the clinic is and where it is, and to work. A dated design does none of those things wrong. We tell you in the free check what the site needs; if it genuinely needs rebuilding, we say so and you hire a designer, and the pages we write go on the new site.

We already have a lot of reviews. Why would we need more?

Because the map pack compares two or three clinics with each other. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and the clinic that gets nine reviews in a quarter against a neighbor's thirty is losing ground however many it has in total. In our October snapshot of 14 towns, every map pack was clinics; recent reviews are the part of that contest a front desk controls.

Should we be worried about AI Overviews?

Not for now, as far as we can see. In our October snapshot (one search for "veterinarian [town]" in each of 14 towns), no AI Overview appeared; Google showed a map and the clinics. One day of searches can't rule it out for your town. AI answers appear for some health questions ("why is my dog limping"); we have not measured how often. A clinic page can be cited in them, but that is not where a new client picks a vet. We watch it; we do not build the plan around it.

What about online booking? The corporate hospital has an app.

The AVMA's 2024 economic report found 38.6% of companion-animal practices offered online scheduling, so most companion-animal practices nationally still take appointments by phone. A clinic does not need an app. It needs a request form that works on a phone, a reply within a business day, and, if it adopts a booking tool that connects to Reserve with Google, the Book online button on the profile. Which tool, if any, is the clinic's decision; we have no arrangement with any vendor and take nothing from any of them.

Who are you?

Veterinary Marketing Company is operated and based in Austin, Texas. Our background is agency search work, including search and advertising accounts for 39 small businesses at a UK digital marketing agency. We have no relationship with any corporate group, consolidator, private-equity firm or software vendor. More on the About page.

Do you have vet clinic clients we could talk to?

Not yet. Vet clinics are new for us. The case study comes from a business in another field, and we don't name it.

How do we start?

Email the clinic's name and town to [email protected]. The check is free and usually comes back within two business days.