The holiday season is upon us, and between managing the rush of last-minute appointments and educating pet owners on holiday hazards—expanding your online reach is likely the last thing on your mind.
Consider this: the festive season presents a unique opportunity to boost your practice’s reach and improve engagement, even with a minimal investment of time.
We’ve compiled 5 quick tips to amplify your online presence with ease, so give them a try at your practice this season!
1. Promote special holiday hours
Whether you’re closing up shop, or offering extended holiday hours—be sure to let your clients know. It may seem like a given, but in an emergency, pet owners might not stop to consider seasonal closures.
Advising clients of holiday hours is also an opportunity to demonstrate that your practice puts pets first by providing alternate emergency clinics to visit should the need arise. You can post updated hours on your veterinary website, your social media platforms, and of course, at your clinic.
Need a quick way to get the word out? With the ALLYDVM Client Communications System, you can send automated, customizable reminders via email or text message to keep your clients informed of any changes to your holiday hours.
2. Cover your bases
Keep in mind, your clinic’s business hours are available on more pages than just your website—make sure your holiday hours are posted accurately across various online platforms. That way, you can avoid having your website pushed down in the rankings due to inconsistencies.
To simplify the process, Google has a list of holidays for which it supports special hours. All you have to do is input the updated hours on your Google My Business listing and potential customers who search for your clinic over the holidays will get the notification.
Staying consistent online also sends the right message to pet owners who look for reliability in their ideal vision for what a veterinary clinic should be—even over the holidays.
3. Partner with local charities
During this time of year, people often seek to give back to their communities and help those in need, including animals. Why not get your practice involved? Promoting local animal shelters or donating food, supplies, and subsidized medical care is a great way to make a difference.
As a bonus, helping animals in need can inspire your clients to get involved too—which is great for the community and your business. Making positive, local connections also improves your organic search engine results online, as your partners engage with you on their own websites and social media.
4. Check out the competition
While you’re making connections online with new community partners, you might want to keep an eye on your fellow clinics too.
Visit their websites and social media to make note of their tone of voice, creative style, and promotional offers. You’ll gain insight into what works within the industry and what doesn’t. While you want to avoid “stealing” any messaging, checking in can help you see things from the perspective of a client to improve your own holiday content.
5. Add some holiday spice
Want to spice things up this season? Get festive by posting fun, high-quality images within a wide variety of veterinary content, like a how-to blog post on safe holiday pet treats or a cute feature of a pet patient wearing a Santa hat (with permission, of course).
Every image you post is also a great SEO opportunity. For an extra boost, add some festive keywords to the alt text of your images. We wrote a blog exploring alt text in detail, so check it out for a quick how-to. The result? Google’s algorithms will know that you’ve added something new and seasonal to your website, prompting your website’s rise through the ranks in a search results page.
The holidays are a busy time, and as much as you might prefer to have Santa’s elves build you a better SEO strategy overnight—reaching pet owners is an ongoing task well worth the time and effort you invest.
