holiday SEO

Holiday SEO Tips for Your Website

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Shorter days and dropping temperatures signal the start of the holiday season, and businesses of all sizes are starting to prepare their holiday SEO strategies. The turn of the seasons often brings on a frenzy of advertising campaigns, with holiday marketing starting sooner and sooner every year. 

But if you haven’t planned your holiday marketing strategy yet, don’t worry—there’s still time. If you begin now, you will be ready for the holiday season in no time. Here are a few holiday SEO tips from our content marketing experts. 

How to Optimize Your Website with Holiday SEO

Step 1: Focus on Seasonal Keywords

Select the keywords you want to use for each specific event or time of year, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc. Seasonal keywords are only relevant for a short period of time, so the trick is to find the perfect window to start infusing seasonal keywords into your content. 

Don’t wait until November to start using holiday keywords in your ads and content, because most people will have already started shopping by then. Instead, aim for early to mid-October, when people are just starting to write their shopping lists. Starting in September will give your keywords even more time to start ranking, bringing you more success. 

Never underestimate the importance of seasonal keywords. They can help your business gain more visibility, traffic, and sales. Follow these tips for seasonal SEO:

  • Plan timely marketing strategies, since seasonal keywords are only relevant for a short time.
  • To rank higher in search results, start using your seasonal keywords as soon as possible to outrank your competitors.
  • Integrate your SEO strategies into your social media ads as well as your site content.

If this is your first time doing keyword research, have no fear. There are many online tools you can use to get a list of keywords together relevant to your business and the holidays. 

Step 2: Update Your Existing Content

Select some of your top-performing blog posts from the past and refresh them for the holidays. If you own an e-commerce store, this tactic is especially important. Add terms from your list of holiday SEO keywords or include holiday-specific calls to action. Don’t be afraid to update the title or meta description when you update existing content for the holidays. 

You can update product images to include festive backgrounds, or update the photo description and alt text to include seasonal keywords. You can also refresh your product descriptions and titles to include seasonal keywords. If you use ads, update your most successful campaigns with new copy that incorporates seasonal keywords. 

Step 3: Create New Content

The holidays are also a great time to share new content about the holiday season. Looking into holiday trends is a great way to get ideas for new content. And this doesn’t just have to include blog posts. You can also create new landing pages and social media posts as well. And make sure whatever content you write contains keywords from the seasonal keyword list you created.

Here are some ideas for new content you can use to promote your business:

  • Start writing blog posts or email campaigns with holiday gift guides.
  • If you own a brick-and-mortar store, promote holiday events in your area to get more foot traffic.
  • Create holiday-themed blog posts to promote your products or services. For example, if you are in the health and wellness industry, you could create a list of healthier alternatives to common holiday treats.

Step 4: Optimize Your Site for Mobile Searches and Shopping

It is more common than ever for people to find inspiration and do their holiday shopping online. First, optimize your website to improve its speed. This is one of the most important aspects of SEO, but it is especially important during the holidays. 

The holidays tend to bring large surges of customers to different types of stores, so you want to make sure your website can handle the surge without bogging down and lagging. You’ll also want to make sure that every page on your site is mobile-friendly, and that it’s easy for customers to make purchases via their phones. 

Step 5: Leverage Local SEO

Whether you have a storefront or you operate completely online, you must claim and optimize your Google Business Profile listing. It’s a great way to leverage local SEO any time of the year, and it can help drastically with holiday SEO as well. 

You can add any special holiday events you may be hosting, promotions, and anything else prudent to your business during the holidays. Having a Google Business Profile will increase your online visibility, bringing in more customers and more sales. 

Get Your Website Ready for the Holidays

With these holiday SEO tips, you’ll be ready to launch your holiday marketing campaigns in no time. But running a business comes with infinite responsibilities. If you’re too busy to focus on holiday SEO, let us help! The experts at New Wine Digital can handle your holiday SEO strategy so you can be there for your customers. Contact us today to find out how we can help you initiate your holiday SEO plans.

Images used under creative commons license – commercial use (9/23/2024) Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

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