5 Holiday SEO Optimization Tips for Your Dental Website

Did you know that 86% of people rely on the internet to find local service providers near them?

Patients are no different. They also use the web to find the best dentists in their area.  

This is why it’s essential to make sure that your site is optimized for dental SEO and positioned to capture new patients, especially during the holidays when cancellations and no-shows tend to increase.

By making sure that your website accurately represents the high-quality dental services you provide patients every day, and that it appears in front of potential patients looking for the best holiday dental care packages near them, you can keep your bottom line solid!

In this article, we will teach you five ways you can optimize your dental website for SEO, so you can capture new patients and keep your treatment rooms full for the entire holiday season and after.  

Five Ways to Boost Your Dental Website for The Holidays

Map out all the important events that happen every holiday season, like Christmas, New Year, Halloween, and more. Then, anticipate what will likely happen during these times and plan your optimization strategies accordingly.  

Here are some website SEO optimization tips to help your practice prepare for the holidays:

1. Improve Your Website Speed

The very first optimization you need to do is to increase its page loading speed.  

Modern users don’t have the patience to wait for your site to load. If it takes more than three seconds before they could access the content of your site, they won’t hesitate to bounce and head straight to your competitor.

According to Portent, website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% for every additional second of load time. This means that having a slow website will cause you to lose potential patients.

This holiday season, people will want to look their best because of all the parties and gatherings they’ll be attending. So, expect a gush of patients who will want restorative and cosmetics dental services. Individuals with dental insurance will also want to max out their benefits before their contract renews.  

Prepare for a surge of traffic to your website by increasing your website speed and providing a delightful experience to visitors.  

2. Use Holiday Dental Keywords in Your Content

Optimizing for dental SEO means incorporating the right keywords into your website to ensure you appear on the top results for relevant dental searches.

This holiday season, give your keywords a holiday twist to reach potential patients who are looking for dental care packages or those who want to undergo a smile makeover before the year ends.

To identify what the best keywords are to reach your ideal patients, you need to do keyword research.  

Keyword research is the process of determining what terms or phrases your target patients use to find the products or services you’re offering.  

Here are the six best practices for successful keyword research:

• Put yourself in your patient's shoes and think about the key terms or phrases they'll likely use to find your dental products or services online during the holiday season. List them down on a spreadsheet.
• Use Google Trends to identify common search terms related to your industry or look at trending topics on social media. You can also use the "People also ask…" and "Related searches" section in Google search results to determine relevant keywords that people are searching for on the web.  
• Study your competitor’s keywords and find out which terms they rank for. You also want to study their content and determine any gaps. If you’re confident you can publish more thorough articles than they do and fill out those gaps, there’s a huge chance you can outrank rank them. If you don’t think you can compete, it’s best to choose other keywords with high search volume and low competition.  

• Aim for long-tail keywords to target users who are likely going to turn into patients. You can attach adjectives that best describe your dental practice and add your neighborhood or location to target patients nearby. For example, if your dental practice specializes in family dentistry and is affordable, don't target the term 'dentistry'. Be more specific like 'affordable family dentistry in West Palm Beach’ or ‘the best affordable family dentist in West Palm Beach’.  
• Optimize your keywords for voice search. This means using more conversational phrases. For example, instead of using ‘affordable family dentistry in West Palm Beach’, go for ‘where can me and my family get an affordable dental check-up’.  
• Give your keywords a holiday twist to attract potential patients looking for dental care discounts and packages.  

Once you’ve determined the right keywords to use, it’s time to incorporate them across your site and create content around the terms that your ideal patients are searching for. Doing this will help boost your visibility on the web.  

Here are the key places where you should be placing your holiday keywords to boost your dental SEO:

• Page titles – Create dental landing pages for your holiday deals and packages, and incorporate your holiday keywords. Page titles will let both Google and searchers know exactly what your page is all about.  
• Meta descriptions – Include your holiday dental keywords in the meta description of your content to help Google determine your relevance to specific queries.
• Subheadings – Incorporate some of your keywords into your content's subheadings because they may appear as a rich snippet. It can help establish relevance.
• Content – Create holiday-related blog posts, like ‘Healthy Dental Tips for Holidays’ and ‘How to Keep Your Teeth White During Christmas Festivities’. Then, make sure to include your main keyword in the first 100 words. Next, use that keyword and its variation throughout your content as naturally as possible. As much as possible, avoid keyword stuffing.  
• Images (Alt text) – Make your content accessible by adding descriptive text to your images.  

• URLs – You want your URLs to give users a clue about what’s on the page so you want to make them descriptive. Don’t forget to include your main keyword to establish relevance.
• Link Anchor Text – Anchor your link to search terms that are related to the main keyword you’re targeting.  
• Directories and other online business listings- Include dental SEO keywords in your business description to increase your chances of showing up when searchers type relevant holiday dental keywords.  

3. Spruce Up Your Website for The Holidays

Spread the holiday cheer and get your web visitors in a festive mood by “dressing up” your website for the holidays.  

You can use festive colors and add holiday design elements to your homepage and even give your logo a holiday twist to provide a delightful browsing experience to users.  

Holiday branding will also make potential patients feel excited to explore your dental offerings and service packages when they visit your site. It can help drive traffic and boost your conversions during the festive season.  

Here are some website design ideas you should consider using to get potential patients to avail your dental services:

• Welcome your web visitors with a popup of a holiday coupon or holiday dental packages and joyful deals.
• Add fun Christmas games like spin the wheel to grab users’ attention. People love to play games. It’s entertaining, creates a positive experience, and incentivizes them to follow your call to action.

• Use a Christmas-themed background but make sure to stay true to your core branding. Consistency is important in website design to ensure you're providing users with a quality experience specific to your brand.  
• Add festive banners that give off a Christmassy vibe.
• Add a Christmas countdown to your deals and dental service packages to create a sense of urgency and motivate potential patients to engage with your site.

4. Feature Patient Testimonials that Are Relevant for The Holidays

Instead of featuring the usual patient testimonials you use all year round on your site, why don’t you create a “holiday edition”?  

Your patients can share how your dental practice helped them achieve a beautiful and healthy smile that they’ve always wanted; just in time for the holiday festivities!

It could also be how they received the immediate care they needed during dental emergencies or how your same-day dental implant service helped them look great in holiday photos. They can also talk about the other goals they wanted to achieve during the holiday season with the help of your services.  

Holiday-specific stories like these resonate and speak directly to people who are experiencing the same dental dilemmas. It convinces them to avail your dental services and choose you over other dental clinics in your area.  

5. Build Links and Local Citations

Technically, almost all dental offices are considered local businesses because of how they cater to patients within their respective areas. This is why it's crucial to optimize for local dental SEO too to boost your visibility for near-me searches.  

Building links and citations can boost your local dental SEO because they allow search engines to verify the legitimacy of your dental practice.  

They also help your dental practice gain visibility online, improve patient discovery, and boost search engine rankings.  

Local citations refer to any mentions of your practice’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on the web. These citations can be found on websites, business directories, and apps like Facebook, Yelp, and Apple Maps.  

All you have to do is ensure that your NAP is consistent across the web to let search engines know that your dental practice exists and is honest about the services you provide.  

Six months before the holidays, you need to start building links towards seasonal keyword pages to generate more traffic and capture new patients.  

Here are some best practices for building citations and securing links to boost your site’s visibility in time for the holiday season:

• Make sure your listings on Google My Business, Bing Place, Yelp, Apple Maps, and other business directories are consistent and accurate.  
• Enlist your business on five types of sites: data aggregators, industry-specific directories, horizontal directories, region-specific sites, and local blogs or local online newspapers.  
• Update old citations and get rid of duplicate listings.  
• Feature your holiday dental deals and discounts in your listings.  

Take Your Dental Practice to The Next Level During the Holiday Season with Dental SEO!

Optimizing your website for holiday dental SEO is a lot of work. But it’s all worth it in the end, especially when you see your treatment rooms full and appointment slots maxed out until January next year.

If you don’t have the time or knowledge to boost your dental website on your own, don’t hesitate to reach out to experts.  

At Digital Resource, our SEO specialists will work with you to create a custom dental SEO strategy that will put your dental practice ahead of the competition during the holidays and beyond!

Want to see your dental practice grow and expand to new locations? We can help you grow your patient base to achieve this. Contact us today to know how!

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