Veterinary Practice Marketing
The Veterinary Marketing Agency
for Clinics That Compete With Groups.
The hospital two miles away may belong to a group with hundreds of clinics, and it probably still carries its old local name. We build the search program that gets pet owners to choose your doctors anyway, and keeps them coming back for every visit.
550,000
Monthly searches for “vet near me”
201,000
Monthly searches for “emergency vet near me”
22,200
Monthly searches for “exotic vet near me”
Source: Semrush US database, monthly searches and keyword difficulty, October 2026
Where Vet Clinic Marketing Breaks
Most Clinic Marketing Is Built for a Market That No Longer Exists.
Ten years ago your competition was the other owner across town. Now it is often a consolidator with shared booking, shared reminders and a marketing team, running a clinic that still looks local. Generic clinic marketing does not account for that.
“Locally owned” is on the homepage, and nobody knows what it means.
In our pull of 17 veterinary results pages, 37 of the 57 corporate results ran under a clinic’s original local name. Pet owners can’t tell the difference from a search result, so the word only helps when the page says what it means for them: the same doctor, the owners on site, decisions made in the building.
You are chasing “emergency vet” and you close at 6.
Corporate ER and specialty groups held 9 of the 12 top-three spots for emergency searches in our data. A general practice spends its budget better on an after-hours page that sends worried clients to the right hospital and brings them back the next morning.
The homepage doesn’t say what city it serves.
The #1 result for “vet columbus” in our pull was a clinic in Columbus, New Jersey. Clinics that bury the city and state in the footer lose the plain “vet + city” search, the lane where independents rank best.
Reviews only get requested from happy clients.
Google’s policy and the FTC’s 2024 rule on consumer reviews both treat a selective ask as a problem. The clinics that build review volume safely ask every client the same way, after every visit.
Reminders run on autopilot while visits fall.
Vaccine, dental and annual exam reminders are the marketing that pays best in a clinic, and the groups run them the same way at every hospital. When reminders go out as one generic email, the clinic is giving up its strongest retention tool.
Telehealth brands answer the questions you don’t.
Online vet services rank for the questions pet owners ask before they book. When your site doesn’t answer cost, symptoms and “does this need a visit,” those services become the first voice your clients hear.
What We Do
Veterinary Marketing, Built Around the Client Relationship
Six disciplines, each planned around the visits and services your hospital wants more of.
How Veterinary Search Works
What Makes Veterinary Marketing Different
Pet owners choose a vet on trust, reviews and a short drive, like patients choose a doctor. The difference is who owns the clinics they see. These are the veterinary specifics we plan around.
Ownership
Independents Still Win the Plain Vet Search
In our October 2026 pull, independent clinics held 60% of results for “vet + city” and 9 of 18 top-three spots. Corporate groups held 67% of emergency results. The lane you pick decides whether a year of work pays off.
Big Names
The Household Names Barely Rank
Banfield, which runs more than 1,000 hospitals, held zero results in any of our 17 searches, and VCA held 2. The groups that did rank used the clinic’s local name. Your real competitor is the acquired clinic down the street, not the national brand.
Advertising Rules
“Specialist” Is a Protected Word
The AVMA’s ethics principles reserve “specialist” for vets currently board-certified by an AVMA-recognized specialty organization, and state boards such as California’s and Texas’s discipline false or misleading claims. We write service pages that describe a vet’s focus without crossing that line.
Reviews
The FTC Review Rule Applies to Clinics
The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, in effect since October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews, insider reviews without disclosure and suppressing negative ones. A review program has to ask everyone the same way.
Telehealth
Online Vet Services Can’t Replace the Exam
Under the federal definition FDA applies to extralabel drug use, a veterinarian-client-patient relationship requires that the vet has recently seen the animal. That makes your clinic the place a new patient has to start, and telehealth a tool for keeping your own clients close.
YMYL
Google Holds Pet Health Pages to a Higher Bar
A wrong answer about a symptom or a medication can hurt an animal, so pet health content sits close to what Google calls Your Money or Your Life. A named veterinarian behind every medical page is the simplest trust signal you can add.
Pet Owner Search Demand
The Searches Pet Owners Run
National monthly searches and keyword difficulty for the queries a clinic can build pages around. Lower difficulty means a clinic page can realistically break in.
General Practice
- vet near me550,000/mo · KD 70
- animal hospital near me74,000/mo · KD 59
- vet denver480/mo · KD 59
Emergency & After Hours
- emergency vet near me201,000/mo · KD 67
- 24 hour vet near me18,100/mo · KD 65
- emergency vet austin1,300/mo · KD 46
Species & Specialty
- exotic vet near me22,200/mo · KD 33
- cat vet near me14,800/mo · KD 58
- dog dentist near me3,600/mo · KD 52
Services
- spay and neuter near me12,100/mo · KD 40
- low cost vet near me18,100/mo · KD 30
Source: Semrush US database, monthly searches and keyword difficulty, October 2026
How We Work
How a Veterinary Engagement Runs
- 01
Map who owns page one in your market
We pull the searches you want, from “vet” plus your neighborhood to the services you want to grow, and check which ranking clinics are independent, corporate, nonprofit or telehealth. Some lanes are open. Some belong to the groups and are not worth the budget.
- 02
Fix the homepage, profiles and reviews first
City and state where Google reads them, one Business Profile per hospital, consistent listings everywhere and a review ask that goes to every client. This is the fastest work to show up in the map pack and in AI answers.
- 03
Build service, cost and after-hours pages
Pages for the services your doctors want more of, reviewed by a vet on your team, plus an after-hours page that names your referral ER. Paid search covers new hospitals and services while the pages earn their rankings.
- 04
Report on booked visits and returning clients
New-client exams tracked by hospital and source, plus the reminder and retention numbers that show whether clients come back. You see what each new client costs and what they are worth over the years they stay.
Working with Bryan Passanisi
“Bryan makes things happen and has an incredible attention to detail on all of the small SEO tweaks that add up to big results.”
Jean Kim Hahn, Senior Director Global Marketing, MiniMed
“Bryan takes the time to educate other business partners on SEO. Because of that, more integrated branded ideas were able to be executed.”
David Nielsen, Lead SEO, Genentech
“Bryan has an unbelievable drive to excel at everything he does. He thinks through all the approaches, identifies those most likely to yield the most impressive results, executes quickly, analyzes the results, communicates the insights and builds upon them.”
Mike Berry, Ex Adobe, eBay, PayPal
The Expert
Bryan Passanisi
Founder, Brown Bear Digital
Bryan Passanisi is establishing himself as one of the sharpest emerging voices at the intersection of SEO and AI search. With 15 years of hands-on experience building and scaling search programs, he brings a depth of knowledge most agencies simply can't match, and a relentless focus on what's actually moving results right now.
As search evolves around AI Overviews, generative engines, and large language models, Bryan is at the front of it: testing, building, and translating what's changing into strategy that compounds. He understands the full search landscape, from technical SEO and entity optimization to GEO and LLM visibility, and he founded Brown Bear to give businesses direct access to that expertise without the agency overhead.
- 15 years across SEO, AI search, and paid strategy
- Deep expertise in every content format: product pages, branded content, long-form guides, interactive tools, and video
- Direct access: no account managers, no hand-offs
Enterprise Experience
- QuickBooksPrincipal of SEO & AI Search
- ShutterflySenior SEO Content Manager
In-House Agency Partners
Bryan worked with these agencies as the client at QuickBooks and Shutterfly
- Wpromote
- Seer Interactive
- Stone Temple
- Bruce Clay
- Neil Patel Digital
- 97th Floor
- Citation Labs
- Builtvisible
Awards
- 2025Semrush AI Visibility Awards, Growth Engine AwardAward recipient with the QuickBooks team, SEO and content
- 2023Intuit Star Award, OptimizerDriving innovation and delivering results for the holistic search experience
- 2022Digiday Awards, Best Search CampaignAward recipient with the QuickBooks team, SEO and content
- 2020Intuit Star Award, Innovator, Marketing & CommunicationsLed SEO for the QuickBooks Paycheck Protection Program campaign
- 2017Shutterfly SEO & Content Marketing AwardRecognized for SEO content marketing results
Common Questions
Veterinarians, Answered
A veterinary marketing agency gets a clinic found, chosen and booked by pet owners nearby, then helps bring those clients back. At Brown Bear that means local SEO for your homepage and service pages, a Business Profile for every hospital, review and reminder programs that follow Google’s rules and the FTC’s, paid search for new services and locations, and AI search work so ChatGPT and AI Overviews describe your clinic accurately.
On the right searches, yes. In our October 2026 pull, independent clinics held 60% of results for “vet + city” and #1 for “vet denver,” “vet charlotte” and “animal hospital phoenix,” each with a homepage. Emergency searches are different: corporate groups took 9 of 12 top-three spots there. We point your budget at the lanes independents already win.
Only if you say what it means. Most corporate clinics in our data kept their original local names, so the word alone doesn’t separate you. Name the veterinarians who own the practice, how long they’ve been there and what ownership lets you promise, such as seeing the same doctor at every visit.
Only if they are currently board-certified by an AVMA-recognized specialty organization. The AVMA’s ethics principles reserve the word, and state boards enforce their own versions. A vet who focuses on dentistry or exotics can say “practice limited to” or describe that focus plainly, and we write service pages that way.
No. The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews bans rewards tied to a positive review, and Google’s policies prohibit incentives for reviews. The safe program asks every client the same way, after every visit, and asks them to mention the reason for the visit and the vet who helped.
The veterinary marketing guide on our blog is the research: the full Page-One Map of 17 results pages, the ownership breakdown and a payback calculator you can use without hiring anyone. This page explains how Brown Bear runs that work as an agency engagement, across SEO, AI search and paid search.
Yes. Bryan has worked with veterinary clinics before, and most of our recent client work has been with medical practices, where people choose a provider on trust, reviews and a short drive, just as pet owners do. We have also published our own research on who holds page one for vet searches, and we will show you that research applied to your market before you sign anything.
Further Reading
Veterinary and Local Search Research
- Veterinary Marketing: What 17 Google Results Pages Show→Our Page-One Map of vet, emergency vet and animal hospital searches in 6 metros, with who owns each clinic.
- Multi-Location SEO for Medical Practices→How to structure listings and location pages for groups with several hospitals.
- What AI Actually Reads Before It Recommends Your Practice→The third-party sites that shape what ChatGPT and AI Overviews say about a local provider.
- What Your SEO Agency Won’t Tell You Before You Sign→The questions and contract terms to check before you sign with anyone, us included.
See Where Your Clinic Stands
Tell us which hospitals and services matter most. We will show you who holds page one for them in your market, which of those clinics belong to a group, and what it would take to move up.