A veterinary practice website has a reader nobody else's site has: the owner of an animal that is sick right now. That reader wants the phone number, the hours and whether you see emergencies, and wants them before anything loads. The rest of the site serves the calmer visit: registering a new pet, booking a vaccination, reading what a procedure involves and roughly costs. A veterinary website builder is judged on whether it lets those two readers find what they need, and this page sets out the pages, the features and the cost of a practice site so a quote can be compared with building it on a platform.
The two readers and the pages each needs
For the urgent reader: the phone number and the emergency arrangement in the header of every page, and a clear statement of which practice takes out-of-hours cases if it is not you. For the planning reader: a register your pet page, a services page split by animal so a rabbit owner does not read about horses, a team page, and a fees page that at least states the consultation fee. Practices that publish nothing about fees are the ones whose reception spends the day answering that question.
Booking, reminders and the features that carry weight
Online booking for routine appointments takes a large share of calls off reception, and vaccination reminders are the feature clients most value, but both usually come from the practice management system rather than the website builder. The builder's job is to embed them cleanly and to hold a registration form that goes into the practice system rather than an inbox. Choose the practice management system's client tools first; then pick a builder that embeds them. The other way round produces a pretty site and a second diary.
Costing the practice site
A veterinary site is around ten pages: home, register, services by animal, fees, team, emergencies, contact, and the legal pages. Content is mostly the practice's own photographs and plain descriptions of what a visit involves. With a veterinary marketing agency the site is usually bundled with review management and search advertising; run the ten pages through the website cost calculator with the practice system's client tools as the feature line and the difference between the calculator and the quote is the retainer, which should be judged on its own.
Questions people ask about veterinary website builder
Do we need separate pages for each species?
One services page split into sections by animal is enough for most practices. Separate pages are worth it only where a species is a specialism you want to be found for, such as exotics or equine.
Should the site show prices for procedures?
A consultation fee and from prices for vaccinations and neutering answer most questions. Surgical estimates depend on the animal and are better given in writing after an examination.
How should we present emergency cover?
State exactly who to call, at what hours, and whether it is your practice or a partner emergency clinic, on every page. An owner in an emergency will not click through to a contact page.