Local SEO vs Organic SEO: What’s the Difference?

Local SEO vs organic SEO—how are they different? Is one more important than the other? Understanding local SEO and organic SEO is essential if you’re determined to take your digital marketing to new heights and grow your practice.

In the sections below, we explain the fundamentals of local SEO vs organic SEO, so you can understand the key differences between the two. Then, we’ll touch on some important points to consider when implementing local and organic SEO as part of your digital marketing strategy.

Let’s start with local SEO.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a digital marketing strategy that helps you target pet owners in a specific area—such as a city, neighborhood, or county.

Being included in the Local Pack significantly improves your ranking in Google Search, making your practice one of the first that many people will see if they’re looking for a veterinarian near them.

Here’s what the Local Pack looks like to people searching:

local pack results

Any local SEO efforts you make will directly tie in with the Local Pack. Being included in this trio of practices is the goal of every vet practice investing in SEO.

What You Need to Know When Implementing Local SEO

It’s super important to understand how local SEO works, and how it can impact your practice. Here are some key takeaways about using local SEO:

  • Results Take Time

    Local SEO is not going to bring more clients in the door for you right away. It takes time to rise up in the rankings and get noticed by pet owners who are searching for vet practices near them.

  • Google My Business Will Give You a Boost

    Hopefully, you already have a Google My Business listing. A well-optimized Google My Business profile will help to boost your local search rankings.

  • The Location of the Searcher Plays a Part

    If someone is located 20 miles away from your practice, your Google My Business listing is not likely to show up in their search, especially if you are located in a highly competitive area. On the other hand, if someone is sitting just a few blocks away, your listing should pop up when they search for a veterinary practice nearby.

    In short, anyone who is searching for a veterinary practice on Google is going to get results for practices that are closer to their current location.

  • You Can Improve Your Local SEO by Managing Your Citations

    Citations are places online where your business information is mentioned (directories, Google My Business, your website, Facebook page, etc.) It’s essential to manage your citations and make sure your business name, address, phone number, and website URL all match 100% across all citations. If any citation has a misspelling or is formatted differently from the rest, this could affect your local SEO. Google rewards consistency, quantity, and quality of citations.

What is Organic SEO?

Organic SEO is a strategy that involves optimizing for content, rather than location, and using non-paid methods (not pay-per-click) to achieve higher search rankings. Organic SEO can also benefit your local SEO by bumping up your Local Pack rankings.

Organic SEO tactics relate to the organic search results, which you can see after the Local Pack in Google.

organic search results

Similar to local SEO, organic SEO does not yield instant results. It takes time, but if you have long-term growth in mind (and you should), the effort you put into your marketing will be worth it.

How to Improve Your Organic SEO

There are several ways to improve your organic SEO:

  • Build Links to Your Website

    Generating links to and from your veterinary website can increase your organic search rankings.  Link building can take time. You need to foster connections with industry experts and related businesses so they can link to your website, and vice versa.

    Quantity and quality of links are both important ranking factors for Google, and they can help with your local rankings, too.

  • Consistently Add Fresh Content to Your Website

    Your website is a living, breathing entity. To improve your organic SEO, make sure you’re continuously adding new, unique content that promotes your practice and is highly relevant to what pet owners are searching for in Google.

    Blogs are a great way to continue adding new and interesting content to your website that addresses popular queries and keeps your website high in search rankings where people can easily find it.

  • Keep Your Website Up-to-Date and Optimized

    Similar to what we talked about above, it’s important to keep your entire veterinary website up-to-date. Staff changes, service changes, etc. all need to be included in your website content.

    Furthermore, you’ll want to make sure all of your website’s content is optimized for Google Search so you can capture more pet owners who may be searching for the services you offer.

  • Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

    The content included in your Google My Business profile can improve your rankings if it’s properly optimized with relevant keywords and related search terms.

Local SEO vs Organic SEO: The Final Verdict

Do you think you have a better understanding of local SEO vs organic SEO? Both have their strengths, and are equally important in digital marketing. If you want your practice to grow, you need to implement both! Each plays a role in the other’s performance; a well-optimized website can help with local SEO, and a well-optimized Google My Business profile can in turn support organic SEO.

In addition, both your local SEO and organic SEO efforts will take time to nurture before you see results. The goal in using these strategies is to build a strong foundation for the rest of your digital marketing efforts. While there are different tactics involved for both, in the end, local SEO and organic SEO are equally fundamental to the growth and success of your veterinary practice.

If you’re looking for marketing professionals to help you utilize local and organic SEO for your practice, get InTouch by calling (800) 493-9003!