While the holiday shopping madness might already be in full swing for many, there’s still time for websites to take advantage. Here are some relatively simple SEO tweaks you can implement now to make sure you get a slice of the holiday traffic pie!
Update your keywords with a holiday twist:
Remember that because people’s shopping behavior changes as the silly season approach, the way they’re searching for products is changing too. They’re less likely to be looking for something to solve a problem in their daily lives and more likely to be searching for a nice gift for a loved one.
If you want to take advantage, you’ll need to revisit your keywords – especially any keywords you’re using for paid search campaigns. Because you don’t have much time to test and tweak, focus primarily on keywords with the lowest competition, but enough search volume to warrant your efforts. It’s also well worth checking your potential keywords on Google Trends to see if you might be able to capitalize in unexpected ways.
Sprinkle holiday-related content around your website:
Add a short blog post about which of your products make the best gifts and why. You can also add some more content to your FAQ page, which is a relatively simple way to get key phrases and semantic keywords onto your site in a natural-sounding manner.
For example, you could ask and answer:
Q: Is (insert your product name here) a good gift for a teenage boy?
A: All the items in our (insert your product category here) range make excellent presents for teenagers. (Explain why)
Without much effort on your part, your website now features the phrases ‘good gift for a teenage boy’ and ‘excellent presents for teenagers’. While you’re not actually trying to rank for those terms themselves, it does indicate to search engines that your offering is relevant to festive season shoppers looking for the kinds of products you sell.
This time of the year is also a great opportunity to get some general gift-related content onto your website – and not just for the holidays themselves, but also for birthdays, anniversaries, and any other relevant celebrations. You can add to and update these posts year on year so you don’t have to start from scratch each time.
Perform an SEO audit:
You want your website to be performing at its best during this potentially lucrative period, so don’t let silly, easily fixable technical issues like broken links or 404 errors get in the way. Complete a thorough SEO audit, and make a plan to address the biggest issues asap.
If you’re not confident about tackling these yourself, then get an experienced SEO company to perform the audit for you. In addition, they’ll be able to make suggestions on how you adjust your internal link structure to better route holiday traffic towards the pages you want them to see most.
Polish and tweak your meta descriptions:
If you’re specifically looking to attract customers searching for gifts, then your meta descriptions should be tweaked to reflect that. Let customers know with a quick glance at the SERPs that your offering makes a great gift, and mentions any convincing calls to action, such as free shipping if they order before X date. Keep it brief, and mention your primary keyword as early in the description as possible.
Local SEO: Triple-check all your contact forms and directory listings:
If you run a brick and mortar outlet, it’s absolutely vital that people can reach you and know where to find you. We’ve all had those horrific last-minute realizations that we’ve neglected to get a gift for that distant relative who’s coming round for Christmas lunch! There are always going to be shoppers that need gifts in a hurry, and they’re going to be looking for someone local SEO. Make doubly sure your contact forms are working. Ensure your business hours and contact numbers are current and prominently displayed – not just on your website but on your Google My Business listing, as well as any other local directories you have a profile on.
Not part of the year-end madness?
Of course, for many businesses, especially B2B companies, the holidays represent the slowest time of the year. That makes it the perfect opportunity to start making long-term strategic plans around your SEO for next year.
Make sure you’re giving time to those SEO strategies that always seem to end up on the backburner. Start putting together lists of influential bloggers or industry websites you want to reach out to in the New Year. Never get the time to write for your company blog or work on guest posts? Use the opportunity now, and you’ll have lots of content to start unleashing in 2020!
