Seasonal SEO can be a great way to maintain customer engagement during the busiest time of the year as well as help you find new customers. But what you may not realize is that seasonal SEO can also increase your SERP ranking through increased traffic and conversions, setting you up for a very good new year SEO-wise. Creating holiday content for SEO doesn’t have to be difficult, and if done right the first time, it can be modified over and over rather than rebuilt annually. Here at TracSoft, we’ve done the research so you don’t have to. Read on to find out how you can build a winning seasonal SEO campaign for your business.
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Start Seasonal SEO Early
You may not like seeing holiday merchandise in September, but when it comes to seasonal SEO, the trick is to start early. There’s a practical reason for this; SEO marketing takes months to produce results, which means if you want lots of traffic for your holiday page in November, you need to start building that traffic in…yes, September.
The rule many experts follow is to start sharing seasonal SEO content 45 days before the event, but remember that you need time for planning and creating the content, too. For that reason, Search Engine Journal suggests you begin planning your seasonal SEO content six to eight months before the holiday. This allows time for auditing existing content, reworking old materials, developing a new content calendar, and creating any new content your marketing strategy will require.
Build Reusable Holiday Landing Pages
Many businesses benefit from creating holiday landing pages. These are seasonal pages used to promote special products, events, or services that your business offers during certain times of the year. One advantage of well-designed seasonal landing pages is they provide excellent user experience by offering one page where customers can find all the information they need about these specials. The easier it is for customers to purchase your product, the more likely they are to do so.
But an additional benefit of holiday landing pages is they provide an opportunity to optimize for keywords you don’t usually try to rank for. This doesn’t mean you should throw out your usual keywords, but instead, you should add seasonally-appropriate keywords that can help get your website in front of new eyes that might not find it otherwise.
Similarly, using internal linking on holiday landing pages is a great way to boost traffic on other important landing pages, too. You can link related, existing content such as blog posts to your seasonal content, or you can link to sites that review your products or services. All this linking will help increase your website’s traffic and performance, thereby improving your search engine visibility.
When the holiday season is over, don’t ditch your seasonal landing pages. A good holiday landing page can be updated from year to year, saving you the trouble of creating new seasonal content annually. By reworking old landing pages, you can keep the SEO traction you built up this year (important stuff like backlinks and crawlability) and build on it next year. According to Yoast, you don’t even need to take these pages down during the off-season. Instead, leave holiday pages up all year, but only promote them during your seasonal SEO campaign.
Cross-Linking And Cross-Promoting Seasonal SEO Content
If you use print marketing materials, remember that your print and digital marketing campaigns should be aligned. If customers see holiday content in one marketing channel but regular content in another channel, this may cause confusion. Further, having your marketing channels aligned reinforces your holiday message, and the more times consumers heard your message, the more likely they are to believe and act on it.
This goes for social media as well. Start your social media campaign at the same time you launch seasonal landing pages, holiday sales, and print marketing campaigns. When your marketing channels are coordinated, it increases the chances that your campaign will peak at the right time. Depending on how much seasonal business your company does, it may make sense to use paid social from Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social media platforms you rely on.
Don’t Neglect Technical Features Of SEO
Successful seasonal SEO means lots of new traffic. More traffic is great for your wallet but can strain websites and overwhelm servers, so before you launch your holiday promotions, take time to review your website’s technical specs. Is the site speed slow? Are there broken URLs or too many redirect URLs? Is the site navigation intuitive? Are there crawl errors? These problems will push you low in Google SERPs no matter how great your content is.
Poor website functionality hurts your credibility and frustrates consumers. No matter how great your product is, if the purchasing experience is negative, that will lead to poor reviews and non-repeat customers. And many websites in the past have missed out on sales when Black Friday traffic overwhelmed them, crashing the sites. It’s well worth the time to review and fix site issues before the holiday rush begins.
With a little planning and site revision, your business can use seasonal SEO to tap into the holiday rush, driving more traffic, greater conversions, and better search ranking that will boost your business year-round.
Need some help with your seasonal SEO campaign? Looking for a fresh way to market your business? TracSoft offers customized digital marketing to meet your unique needs. We provide SEO optimization, social media management, PPC, and content production. Reach out today and discover what TracSoft can do for you.
