Why a small clinic needs a website, and how it works

Why you need one

Owners choose by distance and recommendation, then they check. In a UK survey of 2,376 pet owners (Competition and Markets Authority, 2025), 68% chose their practice by location and 44% by recommendation. The same survey shows what they did next: 54% used the practice website to see the services and 33% to find prices. Of those who looked for prices, a third found them hard to find. There is no equivalent Romanian survey; the figures are indicative.

Your clinic is online whether you like it or not. Directories, Google Maps and review pages list clinics without asking. Without a site of your own, your information is written by others: old hours, a phone number no longer yours, an address from before you moved. Checking 68 clinics in Timișoara in September 2026, we found 52 without a working website, and for several of them the directories disagreed on hours or address.

The law asks for things few clinics display. Law 365/2002 (art. 5) requires a business website to show the company name, registered office, tax number, registration number and contact details, and for regulated professions the professional body. The veterinary code of deontology (art. 23) requires tariffs to be displayed at the place of practice. A properly built site covers both from day one.

A website is not advertising. The same code forbids unjustified advertising, comparisons with colleagues and any impression of lower tariffs (art. 12, 20). A clinic site says what you do, when, where and at what price. That is all, and that is why it is fine to have one.

How it works

1. The clinic’s details. Hours, services, tariffs, team, company data, a few photos. About a quarter of an hour to fill in. Nothing is published that the clinic did not send.
2. The site, in 7 days. The texts are written for the clinic, without superlatives or promises. The site has a privacy page and the legal identification the law requires. It uses no tracking cookies, so it needs no banner. It works well on a phone, because that is where owners look.
3. Review. The clinic gets the site at a test address, reads it and corrects what it wants. It goes live only after approval.
4. The domain stays the clinic’s. The address (for example your-clinic.ro) is registered in the clinic’s name, not the supplier’s. If one day the clinic wants to leave, it leaves with its address.
5. After launch. Hours change, a vet joins, a tariff is updated. Changes are requested by email and made within days. The site stays correct as long as someone looks after it.

Why it helps

Fewer calls for simple questions. “Until what time are you open?”, “Do you microchip?”, “How much is a consultation?”. Every answer given on the site is a call that doesn’t ring during a consultation.

Correct information in one place. Google, the directories and the Facebook page can all point to the same site, and the site is the place you control.

An easier first visit. What to bring, how to book, how to get there. An owner who knows these things arrives prepared, and the consultation starts sooner.

What a site does not do. It does not bring clients from the other side of town and does not replace a good review. It changes nothing for clinics that already have a well-kept site. For the others, it makes what is already true about the clinic visible.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Competition and Markets Authority, Vet Users Survey, January 2025, n = 2,376
2. Law 365/2002 on electronic commerce, art. 5
3. Veterinary code of deontology (CMVRO Decision 3/2013), art. 12, 20, 23
4. Check of 68 Timișoara clinics: Lares Pecoris data, 28 September 2026