Local SEO for healthcare firms has become essential in the current digital business scenario. The world is dominated by the Internet, and healthcare practices are approaching healthcare website design experts to achieve their marketing goals. As traditional methods are no longer effective, healthcare practices need to incorporate the right SEO strategies into their marketing campaigns to improve visibility. To expand reach within a specific locality, local search optimization services are essential. This flexible approach is now widely adopted by healthcare providers, as people prefer services available in their immediate area. Most of these searches happen via mobile phones. Leveraging local SEO strategies helps improve site visibility and ensures fast and easy access to your services.
Why Local SEO for Healthcare Firms Matters More during the Holiday Season
During the holiday season, patients’ interests and behaviors may change. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, holidays are the time people typically choose to have cosmetic surgeries, because they will get enough time to recover and take proper care of themselves. Holiday season digital marketing becomes vital for your website visibility and engagement.
During a health crisis or a global shutdown, there may be fewer patients looking for services, but a successful healthcare marketing strategy can help ensure a profitable holiday season for your medical practice.
Regardless of external situations, you should market your healthcare practice and increase engagement with your patients to reassure them. To increase engagement, you can promote social media campaigns, send out a newsletter to patients to recap the current year, etc. Include certain SEO strategies to boost your visibility to maintain existing patients and attract new patients. Try implementing effective healthcare marketing ideas for the holiday season to stand out in your community.
Tips to Boost Holiday Visibility
- Accurate Local Business Listings: Local business listings provide customers with the right information at the start of their search process.
- Sign in to Google My Business.
- If you have more than one location, open the one you want to manage.
- Click the Special Hours section.
- Click Confirm Hours next to an upcoming holiday or if you want to choose a different date, select Add New Date.
- Enter the time of opening and closing for that day.
- Slide the circle to Closed to show that the location is closed all day.
- If you are working 24 hours, click Opens At and select 24 hours from the dropdown menu.
- If the closing hours you enter are past midnight, ensure that you set them properly.
- After entering the special hours, click Apply. For the designated days, your special hours will be visible to your customers on Google.
Don’t yet have a local business listing? This holiday season is the perfect time to change and improve your listing. If you don’t do that, you will be missing people who are looking for your service. During the holiday season, the working hours and working days may change. So, update your GBP listings to help your customers reach you at the right time. Here are the steps to set holiday hours on Google Business Profile (GBP).
- Optimize On-page Content for Holiday Keywords: Another local SEO strategy for the holidays is to optimize your on-page content for holiday keywords. You can use tools such as Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, and SEMrush to find out the keywords that drive users to your website, and what pages people are going to after they arrive. It is important to remember that SEO is not an evergreen product, you need to stay up to date on seasonal keywords from year to year. Strong SEO content for medical practices should address seasonal needs and patient expectations.
- Be Proactive about Google Q&A: The Q&A section of GMB is an important local SEO strategy. An important thing to note is anyone can answer in your brand’s Google Q&A, so you have to provide brand-verified answers. During this situation, you have to create Q&A related to holidays such as holiday store hours, contactless experiences, etc.
- Prioritize Your Reputation Management: To retain your customers, make them feel heard and cared for. Your brand must have the tools and resources to actively monitor reviews across all major review platforms and social media channels. According to a survey by Yotpo, the majority of review writers expect a response from a business within 24 hours after giving feedback. It is one of the strongest ranking signals when determining your local search visibility. Responding to reviews helps strengthen relationships and boost rankings.
Optimize Your Digital Presence: With retail sales increasing through digital channels, focus on making your healthcare website mobile-friendly for holiday traffic. Ensure easy access and a seamless experience across devices.
During the holidays, don’t make the mistake of not marketing your practice. If you do that, you are counting yourself out of the decision-making process for patients who are seeking care. Include these local SEO strategies in your healthcare website design. By leveraging local search optimization services, you can boost your website’s visibility, drive more traffic, and improve your search ranking to stay competitive during the festive season.
