For independent and owner-run vet practices, whose price lists pet owners will soon compare online. Our job is getting yours found, and chosen. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results: nothing upfront, and nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
110 to 173calls a month straight from the Google Business Profile, up 57%
“My business is doing very, very well. I wasn’t expecting this in this short period.”
Ash, Norwich Tyres & Auto Servicesowner-run tyre and service garage, Norwich
May to August 2026. Source: Google Business Profile.
Read the full storyWe don't have a vet practice as a client yet, so nothing below is veterinary. These are the nearest we can show: an owner-run garage that lives on local bookings and urgent repairs, and a home care firm in a field where families check credentials before they choose. Each figure runs from the first month we tracked to the best month since, using Google's complete monthly data: May to August 2026 for Norwich's calls. Protocol's figure compares clicks a day from Google in the first fortnight of the work (15 to 31 July 2026) with October so far (1 to 18 October, the latest complete data).
+121%
more clicks a day from Google: 16 a day when the work began, 35 a day in October
“We’ve seen our online presence increase massively.”
Hastings, Protocol Healthcare Servicesagency staffing and home care, Edgware
15 to 31 July against 1 to 18 October 2026. Source: Google Search Console.
Read the full storyNorwich's calls are Google's own count of taps on the Call button in its profile (Google's definition), so numbers dialled by hand aren't in it. Protocol's figure counts clicks through to its website, and is three months of work, so treat it as an early sign rather than a long-run trend.
It puts your practice in front of pet owners searching nearby, on the map and in the results under it, then makes the pages they land on answer what they came to check: what you treat, what it costs and who answers at night. 'Vets near me' gets about 165,000 UK searches a month. That's roughly four times as many as 'vets' on its own (Google Keyword Planner, 12 months to September 2026).
Google's own guide boils local results down to relevance, distance and popularity: how well you match the search, how close you are, and how widely known the practice is. It adds that nobody can pay for a better local ranking. So the work is making Google certain what you treat and where, and giving owners reasons to trust you. For a practice it comes down to the four jobs below, built on the same profile work as our Google Business Profile management.
'Veterinarian' is the main category that fits a general practice. 'Emergency veterinarian service' goes on only if your own team sees emergencies. Species belong in the services and description: 'exotic vet near me' gets about 5,400 UK searches a month and 'rabbit vet near me' about 1,600. How categories work.
A page each for what owners price up and book: neutering, vaccinations, dental work, microchipping. Some need translating. Owners in Great Britain can no longer enter the EU on a pet passport; they need an animal health certificate (gov.uk). Yet 'pet passport' still hit 12,100 UK searches in April 2026.
Set up to the CMA's website rules, which are below, and linked both ways with the treatment pages. Items on the list can't carry free-text descriptions, so the reasons to choose you sit one click away from it.
We ask every client for a review, and keep the ask to one simple request. A reply shouldn't identify the client or the animal without their consent, and a complaint is better met with an invitation to contact the practice than a public argument, as RCVS guidance sets out.
It makes your website the page owners compare you on. The CMA's Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order 2026, published on 22 September 2026, requires practices treating pets to publish a standard price list on their website. The compliance date is 22 December 2026 for businesses with 15 or more practices, and 22 March 2027 for everyone else (CMA guidance).
Owners already search by price. On Keyword Planner figures, UK owners type 'cat neutering cost' roughly 2,900 times a month, and 'dog neutering cost' roughly 2,400. Google already answers with vets' own pages. On 20 October 2026, five of the nine results for 'how much is a vet consultation' were price pages from vet practices and charity clinics, most with the fee printed in the result.
Few practices gave it much to work with. When the CMA started, just 16% had any prices online. In 2025 over 40% still showed none, and some prices that were online sat under headings like 'visit our practice' (CMA summary). The RCVS's Find a Vet will carry prices too, but practices needn't send theirs before 22 September 2027. Until then, owners compare website by website.
We set your price page up to the Order's website rules and make it easy to find. The prices, and checking the page against the Order, stay with you. This is what the Order asks of the page:
By being easy to find as what it is. Six large groups own over 60% of UK practices in whole or in part: CVS, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus, Medivet, Pets at Home and VetPartners. In 2013, large groups owned 10%. Yet only 47% of the group customers in the CMA's survey knew their practice belonged to one (CMA summary).
That changes on 22 March 2027. From then, a group-owned practice must show the group's name on its homepage and in every page's metadata. The name must also appear in its paid and organic search results and its map listing, at least as prominently as the practice's own name. Where it can't control a result directly, it has to ask whoever does (Article 5 of the Order).
Some owners want to know. In the CMA's survey, 21% considered ownership when choosing a practice, and 68% of those preferred independents. On Keyword Planner figures, 'independent vets near me' averages about 4,400 UK searches a month and reached 12,100 in January 2026. Search doesn't sort it out for them yet. When we ran that phrase across the UK on 20 October 2026, a group practice's page came top of the ordinary results.
So we make your ownership as visible as theirs will be: who owns the practice, named in full on the website and in the Google profile's description, beside your vets. Not in your Google business name, unless it's on your sign. Google wants the real-world name there and nothing added (its guidelines).
Prices may help you too. The CMA found average prices at five of the six groups were, together, 18.3% higher than at independents between January 2023 and July 2024. That's a market average, not a forecast for your street.
Truthfully, with the details where a frightened owner can see them. On Keyword Planner figures, 'emergency vet near me' averages roughly 22,200 UK searches monthly, peaking at 33,100 in August 2026. Someone typing it at 2am needs a phone number and an address, not your daytime hours.
The RCVS already expects this. Every vet in practice must take steps to provide 24-hour emergency first aid and pain relief, though not necessarily in person (RCVS guidance, chapter 3). Full details of the cover should be public, including phone numbers, location, when it runs and what it is, and clients should be told the likely initial cost. For practices that outsource it, claiming 24-hour cover without those details 'is not acceptable'.
From your compliance date, the Order adds to it. If another provider covers your nights, your site has to give that provider's name, phone numbers, website, address and opening times. Your price list has to show what a consultation with them costs, with a link to their own list.
So the emergency side is built around whoever really answers. If your own team covers nights, your profile and pages compete for those searches. If a dedicated provider does, we won't try to rank you for '24 hour vet'; your pages get the owner to the right number fast. Google doesn't allow opening hours in a business name either, so '24 hours' stays out of yours.
'Hospital' and 'specialist', unless the accreditation or listing behind them is real. RCVS guidance says 'Veterinary Hospital' is considered misleading unless a practice is accredited as one, whether or not it's in the Practice Standards Scheme. Practices in the scheme can't use 'hospital' in any form unless they're accredited at that level or working towards it (RCVS guidance, chapter 23).
Google makes this easy to get wrong. 'Animal hospital' is one of the categories on offer. On 20 October 2026, Google's own AI answer for 'seo for vets' even suggested it as the main category for full-service clinics. In the UK that can put you on the wrong side of the RCVS, so we use it only where your accreditation supports it.
'Specialist' is tighter still. Only vets on the RCVS Specialist List can use the title or imply it. Everyone else can say 'having a particular interest in', 'experienced in' or 'practice limited to'. Practice names count as advertising, and advertising should follow the CAP Code, which the ASA enforces.
One new rule works for you. From your compliance date, the Order makes your site list the qualifications of the vets and nurses who work there long term. Any Practice Standards Scheme accreditation or award goes on too, with a link to the RCVS's explanation. The scheme is voluntary, practices are assessed every four years, and owners can filter Find a Vet to accredited practices only (RCVS). If you hold it, we put it where owners and Google both see it.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results. There is nothing to pay upfront: you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
Websites, ads and social media are quoted separately after the free analysis. How pay on results works
Tell us your trade and area. We record a short video of where you rank, who is above you and what would have to change. It is yours to keep.
If your market is not winnable, we say so. If it is, we agree in writing what a result is and how it is measured, before anything starts.
Your Google Business Profile, the pages that need to rank, citations and reviews. One business per trade per area, so never your rival as well.
Clicks, calls and where you show up, in your own portal, straight from Google. You pay once the agreed results are met.
Not yet. Rather than borrow another sector's numbers and call them veterinary, we show where ours come from: a garage and a care provider, each with its months and source. It also means every area is still unclaimed, yours included.
We don't publish prices, because the work changes so much from one area to the next. A market town with two practices is a different job from a city where several groups fight over the same streets. We quote once the free analysis has shown us your catchment, and before you sign anything. There's no upfront charge for the local SEO and profile work, and no charge at all until it hits the results we've agreed with you in writing. After that it's a monthly fee, with no contract term to sit out. Stop before the result is reached and no invoice ever arrives. The pay on results terms.
No. The duty sits with your practice, and no agency can take it off you. We set up the pages the Order touches (your price list, practice information and out-of-hours details) to its website rules, and make them easy to find. You set the prices and check the pages against the Order and the CMA's guidance. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
Some owners will shop on price, and no page changes that. The RCVS's own advice to owners says the most expensive option isn't necessarily the best, and the cheapest isn't always the best value (RCVS). The list itself is names and prices only, so the case for your practice goes on the pages one click away: your vets, what's included, your reviews and who answers at night.
No. We work with owner-run practices and small groups, not national chains. We also take one practice per area, so while you're with us we won't take on another practice competing for the same owners.
You can still appear, but we won't help you sell a night service you don't run. Searches like '24 hour vet near me' (about 3,600 a month on Keyword Planner figures) are better answered by the provider who picks up. From your compliance date, the CMA Order makes your site name that provider and give its details anyway. We make those details quick to find, and put the effort into the daytime searches you can win, from neutering and vaccinations to new registrations.
Nobody can honestly put a date on it. It turns on your distance from the people searching, how hard the nearby practices already work their profiles and the state of your site today. The free analysis shows the gap between you and the practices on top, and says so if your area isn't worth fighting for. Because you pay nothing before the agreed result, a slow market costs you time, not fees.
Usually not. If it's sound, we work with the site you have, whoever made it. The one thing it must manage is a price page one click from the homepage, as the Order requires. If it can't, or something else is holding it back, the free analysis will show it. Any rebuild is priced as a separate job; the results-based fee only applies to the SEO and profile work.
Yes, where it fits, though the results-based fee applies to the local SEO and profile work alone. Paid Google ads, social posts and site builds are quoted on their own, once we've seen your catchment. Vet adverts carry a rule most businesses never meet: a prescription-only medicine can't be advertised to the general public, and a paid search ad counts as an advert (VMD guidance). So ads and posts are best built around the service rather than a named prescription product.
Send us your practice name and the area your clients come from. Within two working days we'll make you a short video: where your practice shows when someone nearby types 'vets near me', which practices beat you to the top three, and what would change that. If your catchment can't realistically be won, we'll tell you so in the video. Keep it whether you hire us or not.