If you’re like me, now is the time to sit back, review what went right this year, and identify what needs attention in our business next year. For many vet practices they get a lot right. Patient care is the focus, and servicing their clients with kindness and compassion is where they excel. Marketing their practices, however, is an area that often requires examination.
In this article, I examine two essential marketing strategies for 2026.
“In 2026, successful vet marketing isn’t about manipulating Google; it’s about delivering clear, human answers that build local trust and authority.”
If you do nothing else, optimising your Google Business Profile is the priority.
Pet owners often search for a vet in times of crisis, and many of these searches are time-sensitive. Searches such as “vet near me”, “is there a vet open now”, combined with phrases like “where can I get my puppy vaccinated in XXX suburb”, Google prioritises location, proximity, and trust signals in these searches. If your practice is not optimised locally, you simply won’t appear.
Your Google business profile drives conversions. For local service businesses, the Google Map Pack (the top three results) often receives more clicks than websites. Pet owners frequently call directly, request directions, and check reviews on Google. The Google Business Profile acts like a mini-website and can be the first impression.
Details such as updated business information and positive reviews help build trust with both the search engine and the pet owner. At a minimum, ensure that your core details are accurate and populate your service offerings, such as vaccinations, emergency surgery, desexing, and dental care. Ensure you use natural language and local reference. “Puppy and dog desexing in Parramatta”
Keep in mind that optimising your business profile on Google is a small and easy task that is a non-negotiable; however, it is a tiny part of a marketing plan.
Whether you operate a single-site independent vet practice, have multiple sites or specialise in a particular veterinary discipline, you must optimise your website for SEO (Google) and GEO (AI search). These two requirements now work hand in hand, and both are necessary to ensure your website can fulfil its purpose.
SEO focuses on ranking webpages in traditional search results, such as Google and organic listings. The goal is visibility, which is achieved through the use of keywords, technical performance, authority, user experience, consistency, and longevity.
GEO focuses on being cited, summarised, or recommended by AI platforms, including Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, voice assistants, and others. Its goal is to answer questions, not just list possible solutions. Traditional SEO rankings alone do not guarantee visibility in AI searches. Without the “proper” GEO optimisation, AI summaries can ignore your website, and you can be outranked in trust, not position. GEO ensures your expertise is used, not just indexed.
To stay ahead of the pack, you must ensure that your website’s technical aspects are sound.
For SEO, traditional search engines will prioritise sites that are fast, secure, mobile-friendly and crawlable. If the technical SEO is weak, GEO won’t matter, as AI will only pull from high-quality sources. Other factors, such as on-page SEO, are crucial. Never confuse on-page SEO with keyword stuffing, as you will be penalised; instead, ensure a proper content structure, natural language, internal linking, and meta titles and descriptions are all working together to create visibility and relevance.
Your content is a valuable asset, and prioritising depth over volume is highly recommended. Develop an achievable content plan and schedule that aligns with your goals. You will need to post articles regularly and consistently, ensuring they are relevant to the topic at hand. Thin content and generic blogs will fail to engage. Secondly, AI-generated content and fluff pieces are a waste of time. You need to write and develop content that solves real problems, demonstrates your subject matter expertise and authority, and includes relevant examples, clear explanations, and appropriate context.
You can do this yourself; however, the danger lies in the creativity, technical SEO writing expertise and the time required to commit to the regularity needed.
For GEO traction, your website must also be technically robust. Schema markup, FAQs, clear headings, author credibility, and you need to be an “answer first” service provider. Users increasingly ask questions such as, “How often should I vaccinate my dog?” “What should I do if my cat stops eating?” AI tools summarise answers using trusted, structured, authoritative sources.
It is critically important to write and publish answers, not just pages of content. Ensure you include FAQs, author profiles, and high-quality, trustworthy and credible information. Ensure it is human-written in a natural language and conversational tone, has a logical structure, is as free as possible from ambiguity, and has a local flavour.
I rarely write in the passive voice; however, times have changed, and there are a few things you need to stop doing in 2026.
AI search will detect low-value content faster than humans.
What you must do in 2026
Remember, your content must be crafted to be understood, not just rank.
To summarise, digital marketing techniques have shifted. SEO gets you discovered, while GEO gets you recommended. You can view this a positive. Embracing change and adapting to SEO and GEO will enable your business to dominate in its discipline, location, or both. It will require initial effort and ongoing attention; however, I am seeing positive outcomes for clients who have made digital marketing a priority.
Make 2026 a priority for your digital marketing. The ROI is measurable, and your business will thank you.
“SEO gets your veterinary practice discovered — GEO gets it recommended”
We are one of the few digital marketing agencies in Australia that specialise in the veterinary industry. We work closely with independent veterinary practices, specialist vet services and multi-site veterinary clinics.
Book a discovery meeting, and we can help you make an informed and researched decision on the most appropriate marketing strategy for your business.
Deb Croucher is the founder of SVMG, a strategic growth partner for veterinary businesses. A former veterinarian and practice owner, Deb combines industry fluency, commercial strategy, and structured marketing systems to help clinics, specialists, suppliers, and industry partners become clearer, more trusted, and better positioned for growth.
Find answers to common questions about our clinic and your pet’s visits below.
Optimising your Google Business Profile is the most critical priority. It directly affects whether your practice appears in time-sensitive local searches such as “vet near me” or “vet open now”. An accurate, well-maintained profile builds trust, drives calls and directions, and often converts more effectively than a website.
For many local searches, pet owners often call directly from Google, check reviews, or get directions. Your profile acts like a mini-website and is often the first impression potential clients see.
At a minimum, ensure your contact details, opening hours and location are accurate. Clearly list key services such as vaccinations, emergency care, desexing and dental treatments, using natural language and local references. Regularly update photos, posts and respond to reviews to reinforce trust.
SEO helps your website rank in traditional search results, while GEO ensures your practice is cited and recommended by AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and voice assistants. SEO helps you get discovered; GEO enables you to get recommended. Relying on SEO alone is no longer enough in 2026.
GEO prioritises clear, structured, authoritative answers to real questions pet owners ask. Websites must include FAQs, clear headings, schema markup and human-written content that demonstrates real expertise. AI tools summarise trusted answers, not generic or keyword-stuffed pages.
Practices should stop creating thin, AI-generated blogs, keyword-stuffed pages, duplicate location pages and content written only to please Google. Low-value content is detected quickly by AI and can damage both visibility and trust.
Specialist vet marketing agencies understand the unique challenges of veterinary services, including trust, urgency and local relevance. We help practices align SEO and GEO strategies, ensure technical performance is sound, and create authoritative content that attracts both pet owners and AI recommendations.
Specialist Vet Marketing specialise in the veterinary sector, bringing industry insight, proven frameworks and experience across independent, specialist and multi-site clinics. This enables us to develop customised strategies that save time, prevent costly mistakes, and deliver measurable outcomes for veterinary clients.
