[Marketing] Search Engine Optimization: What Really Matters

Claire Laurie is the Team Lead of SEO at Marketing4ECPs, a company that specializes in developing and executing digital marketing strategies for eye care professionals. Over the past four years, Claire has helped numerous practices increase their online visibility and attract more patients, contributing to the company’s impressive reputation in the optometry marketing space. She combines creativity with data-driven insights from her background in content creation, focusing on making SEO accessible and effective for local businesses.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[02:09] Claire Laurie’s unique journey from content creator to SEO expert
[03:19] Why SEO is the secret for attracting more patients
[05:02] How SEO builds lasting online authority unlike paid ads
[06:19] Three essential SEO tips for instant practice website improvement
[08:41] Why generic website content can hurt your Google rankings
[12:54] Free and expert ways to check your current SEO ranking
[14:35] Why social media now impacts your search engine presence
[16:35] Knowing when to bring an SEO strategist into your website redesign

In this episode…

Most business owners know they should be doing something about SEO, but what does that actually mean in practice? Is it about keywords, website speed, or just showing up on Google’s front page? For many optometrists, it’s a confusing blend of tech jargon and shifting algorithms that feels hard to pin down. So what really matters when it comes to search engine optimization?

According to Claire Laurie, a data-driven strategist and SEO expert, success begins with clarity and consistency. She explains that SEO isn’t about quick wins — it’s about building authority over time through well-structured content, accurate listings, and a seamless user experience. Claire compares it to maintaining a digital storefront: if your website is buried on the third page of Google, it’s like having a beautiful shop hidden deep in the woods. Her advice is simple but powerful — optimize your pages for each service, claim your Google Business Profile, and make sure your site works beautifully on mobile. When you treat SEO as an investment instead of an expense, the payoff is visibility, credibility, and real-world patient growth.

In this episode of the Cleinman Connect Podcast, Kim Carson is joined by Claire Laurie, Team Lead of SEO at Marketing4ECPs, to discuss how optometrists can strengthen their online presence through smart, sustainable SEO practices. They talk about why SEO is a long-term strategy, how to balance on-page and off-page optimization, and what makes a website truly user-friendly. Claire also shares advice on when to bring in an SEO expert and how to know if your efforts are actually working.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“You could have a really great website, but if nobody is scrolling by it on the search engine, it’s kind of like having a billboard in the middle of the forest and no cars are driving by it.”
“SEO is so necessary, especially for local businesses. In general, because if you’re not building your authority on those platforms where people can find you, those potential clients are searching.”
“The more you can get your brand visible across platforms, the better. It’s all encompassing.”
“Everybody’s attention spans are much shorter with every day that passes by, so the easier it is for them to find that information that they’re looking for, the better.”
“If you’re not doing it, your competitors will be and they’re going to start building their domain authority and their rankings, and then you’ll be playing catch-up.”

Action Steps:

Create dedicated pages for each service you offer: Having individual pages helps Google understand your content clearly and rank your site for specific searches.
Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile: A complete, verified profile improves visibility in local searches and builds trust with potential patients.
Test your website on mobile devices: Ensuring smooth mobile performance keeps visitors engaged and signals to search engines that your site offers a great user experience.
Align your website and social media messaging: Consistent branding across platforms strengthens recognition and helps your practice appear in more types of searches.
Consult with an SEO expert regularly: Professional guidance helps interpret complex data, maintain site health, and keep your strategy effective as search algorithms evolve.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Marketing4ECPs!

Working with them is like hiring a full-time marketing professional who knows the industry and understands your goals. Except, instead of one experienced marketer, you get a whole team in your corner.

Whether you’re an optometrist, ophthalmologist, or optician, they can help you grow your business with a plan that’s completely customized for you. Learn more here.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:07

Welcome to the Cleinman Connect Podcast, where we discuss marketing, ownership, growth strategies, and everything else surrounding the business of optometry. Cleinman is Optometry’s trusted business partner for over 35 years.

Kim Carson: 00:27

Hello, I’m Kim Carson with our team lead of SEO at Marketing4ECPs. On this episode of the Cleinman Connect podcast, past guests of the show include the amazing Dr. Kimberly Friedman, vice president of education and scientific affairs at PRN Vision Group, and Andrew Davis, commercial placement broker and account manager at Wilson and Beck. Those episodes are available at Cleinman.com. This episode is brought to you by Marketing4ECPs. Working with them is like hiring a full time marketing professional who knows the industry and understands your goals.

Except instead of one experienced marketer, you get a whole team in your corner. Whether you’re an optometrist or ophthalmologist or optician, they can help you grow your business with a plan that is completely customized for you. Learn more at marketing then the number four. So marketing4ecps.com. Clare Laurie is the Team Lead of SEO at Marketing4ECPs, where she spent the past four years developing and executing data driven content and SEO strategies for eye care professionals.

She’s passionate about helping eyecare practices elevate their online presence through thoughtful, well executed digital strategies. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Claire Laurie: 01:38

Thanks for having me. Yes.

Kim Carson: 01:40

Oh my gosh. I always love when people say yes to my request.

Claire Laurie: 01:44

Yes.

Kim Carson: 01:45

It definitely helps. So before we like totally jump right into the world of SEO, I want to say quickly SEO search engine optimization just right off the top so no one has to guess about it, I it, I guess. And then I want to ask, how did you find yourself here? Like in this online space and and being an SEO expert.

Claire Laurie: 02:09

Oh, that’s such a great question. I come from a content background, so actually, when I started at Marketing4ECPs, I started on the content team, where I got to see that side of things, where I was writing websites, writing blogs, emails, anything with words. I was doing it for eye care practices. And then I lean definitely more data driven in my mindset. And what’s so exciting about SEO and why I kind of really jumped over to the SEO team in the past four years, is you get to mix the the data side of things and see directly how kind of optimizations you make and changes you make result directly in the data, but there’s still a nice mix of creative element there.

Yeah. Yeah, I went from fully creative to a bit more data, and my brain likes that. Yeah.

Kim Carson: 03:06

Yeah. Amazing. So I would love if we could just get from you an explanation of what SEO is and why practices should have a plan for it.

Claire Laurie: 03:19

Yes, absolutely. So like you said, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it basically includes anything that you do to help improve your website to better show up on search engines and search engines would be Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo. Ask Jeeves.

Kim Carson: 03:40

If you.

Claire Laurie: 03:40

Want to throw it back, throw it back to Ask Jeeves. Google being, of course, that main one. But why is it important for for eye care practices? That’s how potential patients are going to find you in their searches. They’re looking for an eye doctor near them.

They’re looking for maybe a symptom. Something doesn’t feel quite right in their eyes. They’re searching for answers. And the more your practice and your brand can show up and your visibility, especially on the first page, you know, not a lot of people are clicking to that second or third page of Google to find the answers they’re looking for. The better.

Nice.

Kim Carson: 04:23

I actually just heard one of our wonderful account managers describing SEO versus pay for click ads. And she equated it to the sponsored ads that come up are like renting a penthouse. So you get the top spot, you get a great view, but as soon as you stop paying rent, you don’t have it anymore. Whereas SEO is more like paying into a mortgage somewhere. So you do these things, you build your SEO, and even if you stop doing it, you likely will still rank high for a while.

You’ll still show up in that kind of penthouse area. You just aren’t paying somebody for it.

Claire Laurie: 05:02

Yeah, it’s it’s a good analogy to help kind of. Yeah, understand the differences. Because SEO, we always say is a long term strategy. You’re not going to get to position number one at the top of Google overnight. It takes a while to kind of prove your authority, build your authority, your trust, your expertise in the eyes of Google and those search engines.

So it’s a longer term strategy, but you really earn your position like page. And I always like to say my favorite kind of visual analogy is you could have a really great website, but if nobody is scrolling by it on the search engine, it’s kind of like having a billboard in the middle of the forest and no cars are driving by it. So it could be the most beautiful website, the most beautiful billboard. But if nobody’s driving by it, nobody’s ever going to find you.

Kim Carson: 05:55

Yeah, nobody can see it.

Claire Laurie: 05:57

Nobody can see you.

Kim Carson: 05:58

What are some. So. Yeah. You say it’s a long term strategy. It’s building up this expertise, this proof.

What are some positive SEO changes a practice could begin making now, to see some positive results later. And then also maybe some things that they should potentially avoid doing.

Claire Laurie: 06:19

So with SEO, it’s kind of multifaceted. If I could break it down into three, it would be on page SEO. That’s anything you do on your website. Directly within the content. There’s off page SEO, so anything outside of the website but still relevant in search and then technical SEO, which is how your website runs.

So kind of if I could give a tip, maybe for each of those facets of SEO on page, I would encourage everyone to go to your website right now, scan through it and see. Do you have a service page on your website for every service that you offer? Why is that important? If you say had one page and it listed all your services, that’s really hard for Google to prioritize where you would rank in the results, because it’s kind of an all encompassing page. But say you had a page very dedicated to eye exams and solely about eye exams.

Everything on that page was answering, you know, frequently asked questions about eye exams, what people can expect. It’s titled eye exam in your location. That is so easy for Google to understand what the page is about and rank you accordingly. For people to find you a in your location and for their searches. Yeah.

So somebody looking for an eye exam in your location, boom. There’s a dedicated page there for it. So that would be number one. Head to your websites right now. Everybody pause this podcast and you’re listening and go look at your website.

And just check to see if those main headings on the page, you land on the page and you see it says eye exam in your location. Because if it just says eye exam, where are you? Yeah, we want to target the right audience, the right people in your location. Those people who are actually going to, you know, potentially convert on your website and become one of your patients. We want to we want to let them know what you do and where you do.

Kim Carson: 08:25

It and where you do it. Yeah. Which might be a good kind of follow up to the what to avoid as well. Totally like avoid kind of vague or generic, like if you’re just having eye care exams, then if you’re showing up a bunch in Timbuktu but you’re in Calgary, it’s not really that helpful.

Claire Laurie: 08:41

Totally. You could be driving. Yeah, a ton of traffic to your point, from across the world, but how valuable is that? Sure, it might be a ton of traffic, but what’s the quality of traffic to your website? Are they the right audience?

The right potential patients who will come and visit you for an eye exam and then off page again, pause this podcast. Go check and see. Do you have have you claimed your Google business profile? And so your Google business profile is what shows up in Google Maps. Or if you ever search your brand name directly, you’ll typically see it on the side, the right side of the Google results.

It shows the reviews, it shows your location, your hours. It’s a great snapshot of your business. Make sure you go claim it so that you own it, and then make sure you fill it out accurately. A of course we want to make sure you know, address, phone number, hours, all that stuff is correct and fill it out to your best ability. There’s a lot of fields kind of once you get in the back end and the more you can fill it out, the better Add some images of your practice, both inside and outside.

That’s my off page. My off page tip. Go claim your Google Business robot.

Kim Carson: 10:05

And then unpause this podcast and continue this.

Claire Laurie: 10:07

Exactly, exactly. Then come back for your next tip here. That’s your technical SEO tip that you can do right away. And basically as you’re listening, you don’t have to pause it for this one. As you’re listening, take your phone, Google yourself, and open your website and see how your website looks on a mobile device.

That is so important to the user experience. And it’s important to SEO because the more somebody engages and stays on your website, the more helpful and relevant your website is in the eyes of the search engine, which helps your rankings. And if it’s really easy to use on your phone, fantastic. It’s loading quite quickly. Fantastic.

Is it easy to click the buttons, find the information. Convert. Fantastic. If it’s not, if things are popping up. If it’s really zoomed in, if.

Kind of. All of all of that feels off. I would highly, highly suggest working with your website team. Your website developers, and seeing how you can improve your mobile performance. Because majority of people are on their phones now, we’re searching things on our phones.

It’s not always on a laptop or desktop. We have the World Wide Web in our pocket now, so that is my technical tip. So as you’re listening, do a quick search. See on your phone how your website looks amazing.

Kim Carson: 11:34

Yeah, I feel like there was always so much kind of hesitation. I mean, at least for me, a millennial to do. Like there’s big screen things that I’ll do and then small screen things, and I’ve started to do big screen things on the small screen now. So booking a flight.

Claire Laurie: 11:53

Oh my.

Kim Carson: 11:53

God. Online shopping, like literally paying someone something was always a laptop thing. And within the last year I’ve I’ve been like, I need to get over this.

Claire Laurie: 12:03

I couldn’t agree more.

Kim Carson: 12:04

I need to start doing this on my phone, which has been not great for the credit card, but has been really great for me getting items that I want.

Claire Laurie: 12:12

I couldn’t agree more. I totally had the big screen tasks versus the small screen tasks, and more and more. Are they becoming small screen tasks? Yes, absolutely. The better user experience, the better someone like us.

Yeah. Will come to the website and make that conversion.

Kim Carson: 12:30

I want to just ask for for anyone that might be listening and not necessarily know they’re kind of score in the game or you know, where they’re showing up now in, in the rankings. If they’re on the first page or the second page or the 20th page, is there a way for people to just find that out there.

Claire Laurie: 12:54

I mean, to be honest, you can totally Google, like free SEO checker or you can, you know, there’s free trials for SEO tools that can kind of give you a snapshot of where you’re kind of at currently. But what I would highly, highly suggest, because SEO is, again, multifaceted and it comes with a lot of jargon. So things like indexable crawlability things that can be super confusing and quite technical. I would highly suggest just chatting with an expert, a market like get a demo with with somebody who can better tell you the the value of the data and what matters and maybe what necessarily doesn’t matter again, to the point of traffic we were talking about earlier. It could be a high quantity of traffic, but what’s the quality?

Right? So yeah, you can totally get a snapshot if you Google, you know, free checker, free SEO checker. A handful will show up. But to really get a true picture, I would suggest to an expert.

Kim Carson: 14:11

Yeah. Okay. So we had on page off page technical some some advice from you. And when we talk about SEO, I find predominantly I think of websites like I think of a person’s website. It’s their hub.

But do things like someone’s social media come into play, like does the online presence as a whole count in SEO?

Claire Laurie: 14:35

Yeah, you want to definitely think of your marketing overall as it’s all integrated, especially when it comes to your brand and your messaging. You want that to be cohesive Move across platforms and and recently social media, for example, has now started ranking in the traditional results. So those ten blue clickable links on Google, you’ll see Instagram coming up there now where it previously wasn’t. So there’s lots of opportunity for keywords on Instagram and some kind of cross function between a typical website and your social media, for sure. And just even having the same message on your website, on your social media, and building your visibility overall, no matter the platform people are on.

And of course, AI searches, that landscape is ever changing. People using different AI platforms like ChatGPT, for example. So the more you can get your brand visible across platforms, the better. It’s all encompassing. Okay.

Yeah.

Kim Carson: 15:55

We currently are redesigning the Cleinman website. We have found ourselves falling into some of these traps. And, you know, everybody needs kind of a fresh look on things once in a while. So because we have, you know, such great team members here like yourself and your team, we are rebuilding our site. And could you just explain a bit about your role in, I mean, specifically that website rebuild?

But when people are looking to rebuild their websites, is it, you know, good to bring in someone who knows SEO right away. Should we wait until there’s content on the pages or. Yeah. What kind of is your role in that?

Claire Laurie: 16:35

Yeah, that’s that’s a great question because anytime a website changes, whether it’s a content overhaul, whether it’s the what’s called the site map. So kind of the structure of all your pages on a website. Anytime that changes, what Google does is it crawls through, we call it. It essentially scans through the pages on the website to better understand what it’s about. And then that’s it ranks it accordingly.

It indexes it on in the results. So when anything changes, Google essentially has to come and recrawl through it. Re-understand. And that’s where we see fluctuation in performance, because Google has to reevaluate where they’re going to place it in the search engine rankings. So it’s important, I think, for an SEO strategist to come in at a few different points.

Point number one being taking a look at what’s changed and why are we changing it. So is there a change to the sitemap. Are we adding pages. Are we getting rid of pages. Why are we getting rid of pages.

How well did those pages perform before. Is it worth keeping them or is it? You know, it’s better to remove it. It’s more confusing for the user experience. There’s obviously content changes.

Making sure the content that is going to be updated on the website has the keywords where they need to be, that the content is really easy to read and understand and scan through, and that comes through the form of what we call a heading hierarchy structure. So obviously if it’s let’s say an eye exam page, it’s eye exam in your location, that’s your main title. And then all your secondary headers break up your content in a really easy way for people to as they scroll through the page, they can see what that section is about. They can easily read through it. The paragraphs aren’t super long and overwhelming.

Maybe there’s bullet points. We can break up that information because everybody’s attention spans are much shorter with every day that passes by, so the easier and nobody on any page that they land on is is going to read the whole thing word for word. So the easier it is for them to find that information that they’re looking for, the better. At the beginning stages too, I’ll see the current website, what keywords the website currently ranks for, how much traffic it’s currently getting, and then work with the content team to make sure we’re keeping those keywords so that we don’t see fluctuations in those high performing ones, making sure the keyword frequency is there where they need to be, because you don’t always have to change every word of content, either are structured well and performing well. And then of course, as the website kind of gets to more final stages and and ready to launch, you want to make sure any technical aspects are in place.

So if any redirects need to happen, we want to make sure those pages aren’t leading to a dead end. Yeah, there’s lots of lots of different steps. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Carson: 20:00

You’re quite involved.

Claire Laurie: 20:01

Overwhelmed with too much information. But yeah, it’s super important. I guess the the key takeaway of that is it’s super important whether you’re getting a new website or refreshing your current website or anything that changes, it’s important to to put some thought into it. Even, you know, for example, some changes I typically make on a on a Iqair website would be looking to see if, you know, a dry eye, dry eye treatment, dry eye therapy, dry eye treatment, dry eye solutions. There’s a bunch of different ways you can refer to the same service.

Well, which what are people searching for? Are they looking for a dry eye treatment or are they searching dry eye solution. And that can depend on where you’re located. So tailoring that to picking the right name for the right page. That also comes into play.

My gosh I could nerd out about this for you’ll have to stop me. I well yes I do.

Kim Carson: 21:01

I do have one question left. I will stop us. Perfect. But I I’m truly so thankful for your time today. And if anyone wants to listen to more episodes of the podcast, they certainly can at Cleinman.com.

But my final question for you, Claire, is what percentage of someone’s marketing budget would you recommend that they put into an SEO strategy or getting an SEO strategist? And maybe like, how important is it for a practice to have that?

Claire Laurie: 21:38

Yeah, I mean, I may be biased, but I think.

Kim Carson: 21:41

Yeah, maybe I’m asking the wrong person, but I.

Claire Laurie: 21:44

Think SEO is is so necessary, especially for local businesses. In general, because if you’re not building your authority in on those platforms where people can find you, those potential clients are searching. You know, it’s one thing to absolutely build your brand and be a recognizable brand, but it’s another thing to show up for those kind of searches where people don’t necessarily know who you are, but they’re looking for your service in your area. And so to build your authority and earn your position is so, so crucial, especially again with the the introduction of AI and AI searches, the better SEO foundation you have in traditional results, the better you’re going to find. You’re showing up in AI and what people are saying about you getting Google reviews and that sort of thing.

So and if you’re not doing it, your competitors will be and they’re going to start building your, their domain authority and their, their rankings. And then you’ll be playing catch up. But in terms of percentages that I would encourage you to kind of think about your competition. So the area that you’re in, you know, if you’re in a big city with 20 surrounding practices, kind of just in your neighborhood, that’s a whole lot different than if you’re in a smaller town with five surrounding competitors. So that’s going to play into how much you should invest.

But a general rule of thumb, I would say would be around like 20.

Kim Carson: 23:21

Amazing.

Claire Laurie: 23:22

Yeah.

Kim Carson: 23:22

Well, thank you so, so much for your time. And thank you for joining us today and and explaining the world of SEO. I, I happily work here and I feel like I have learned a lot.

Claire Laurie: 23:35

Awesome, awesome.

Kim Carson: 23:37

So yeah, thank you for coming on and explaining your demystifying, I guess some, some SEO things for us.

Claire Laurie: 23:43

Yes. Thank you for having me. And now that you’re done listening, make sure you’ve done all those things that we talked about earlier in the episode. Go check your website on mobile. Go claim your Google business profile.

Go check all the pages on your website. And if you have any questions, of course, feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on Marketing4ECPs and we’re happy to help continue to demystify your SEO.

Kim Carson: 24:08

Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, if you want to listen to more episodes of the podcast, you can at Cleinman.com and wherever you like to listen. Thank you for joining us today.

Outro: 24:22

Thank you for listening. At Cleinman, we take pride in helping our partners unlock their full potential. Subscribe to get the newest episodes or visit us anytime at cleinman.com.

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