Having a solid SEO strategy for the Christmas period could be the difference between making it or breaking it over the festive season. Christmas seasonality often sees an increase in online activity and purchasing for many businesses – granted that you leverage your online business to its full potential. So the last thing you want to do during a busy period is lose visibility and customers.
The key to combating this is preparation. So with this in mind we’ve put together some need-to-know seasonal SEO tips and we share four ways you can optimise your site effectively for Christmas.
What is seasonal SEO and why is it important?
Seasonality is often described as the predicted trends that occur every calendar year for an organisation. Businesses can be affected differently by each seasonal trend, but more often than not, they will see an increase in traffic and sales, and that’s all down to the preparation.
According to WebFX, there are two types of seasonal SEO strategies almost all brands will optimise their site for at some point in the year:
- Time-based – this strategy tends to be centred around specific seasons within the year, like summer or winter, or a certain time of the year, like a particular month for example.
- Event-based – this strategy is all about focussing on certain events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Halloween or Black Friday for example.
Seasonal SEO is important for businesses because it’s the period where they can boost their conversions and increase their brand awareness. By optimising your site effectively at the time where your audience are looking to buy, you’re taking advantage of your seasonal popularity, which increases your revenue and balances out those times where conversions are low.
When should you prepare for seasonal SEO?
When you should start your Christmas marketing can be highly dependent on your industry, however, with Google Trends you’ll get a lot more guidance. This free and valuable tool monitors trends based on the popularity of the specified search queries in Google across various regions and languages.
It can highlight to you when the interest in Christmas related search terms started picking up in a specific country, which allows you to determine the best time to begin your festive campaigns. This should become your go-to tool when brainstorming ideas for a new seasonal campaign.
How to optimise your site for seasonal SEO
Conducting effective SEO for Christmas can be simple if you take the time to prepare well in advance. Here are four ways you can optimise your site effectively for seasonal SEO.
1. Bring your seasonal products and offers forward
By using what you already know about your target audience, data from previous years and your best selling products, you can easily identify what products you can use to entice your customers with.
Your homepage should feature any special offers you plan to promote along with the products that sell well during the festive season. You could also promote a product bundle to further entice your audience. Whatever offers and products you showcase, ensure they suit both new and existing customers.
2. Thoroughly plan out your seasonal content strategy
Not only is seasonal content more inclined to attract natural backlinks and organic social shares, but it also can bring in more sales. However, to ensure it attracts sales, it ideally needs to match the following criteria:
- Caters to your audiences seasonal needs
- Offers gift ideas
- Can help with Christmas planning in some way
- Compliments your products
Your content can combine an array of formats, from articles to blogs, and whitepapers to infographics. You could also consider creating some collaborative content to widen your reach. Many businesses opt to run Christmas competitions and giveaways too as it’s a great tactic for enhancing brand awareness, boosting conversions and retaining customers.
3. Create your social media marketing strategy
To truly reap the benefits of your seasonal SEO, you need to create a social media marketing strategy that features strong and solid campaigns. Your strategy should include cross-team collaboration, keyword and hashtag research and a solid asset library. This allows your social, sales, content and customer support teams to work together to know what products are being promoted, what discounts are being offered and what questions customers may potentially ask.
4. Ensure your site is reliable
Issues with your site can mean your shoppers become angry, which over a busy period like Christmas can result in a loss of revenue. Therefore you need to make sure you have an emergency plan for any potential site issues. You should avoid adding new functionalities until this crucial period is over and load test web pages to handle the rise in traffic. Additionally, you should ensure your site is fully optimised and fix any minor technical issues so your website is reliable and runs consistently over the festive season.
What should you do after the season is over?
Many marketers wonder what they should do with their seasonal content and SEO landing pages when their busy period is over. In most cases, many do nothing and this isn’t always a bad thing because although the search terms and keywords are no longer relevant, they are still ranking and benefiting your site.
However, you should still update some parts of your website after the season ends. For example, you should update your homepage as your offers, products and bundles may no longer be relevant. Keep an eye out on sold-out product pages as well and any essential outdated pages as these could negatively impact your potential conversions.
Once seasonal services expire and the SEO landing pages have no more use, you should clearly state on them that the product or service will be available next year, or show a clear list of the products that are still available. Don’t delete these landing pages if you plan to use them again the following year as you can retain these rankings.
Need a helping hand with your seasonal SEO?
Although seasonal SEO can be time consuming and at times overwhelming, it’s something that gets easier year on year. This is because seasonal campaigns and offers are reusable and processes are recyclable. Additionally, you can learn from what went well and what didn’t to create an even stronger SEO strategy going forward. If you optimise your site for Christmas, you’ll find your visibility and conversions will skyrocket.
Get in touch with us today if you feel you need an expert hand with your seasonal SEO efforts. Our digital marketing team and SEO specialists can devise a killer SEO strategy and provide you with campaign ideas that will help boost your conversions and increase your brand awareness during this crucial period, and we can implement the campaigns for you on your behalf.