It’s time to get started with SEO strategies to help your organic search rankings before the holidays come. Why? Because Google can take some time to notice changes.
As you may know, SEO takes some time to show improvement. Turnaround is not as quick as a Pay Per Click campaign in which one strategy change, such as raising bids or changing ad copy, can have near-immediate results. With SEO, some changes may have faster results than others, but it can take months to see a stable outcome.
To see significant results by the winter holidays, I recommend getting started during the summer. This is the perfect time to start thinking about your landing pages, targeted keywords, content and your internal link strategies (such as articles, blogs or important pages where you want to be mentioned or linked back to).
Now’s the perfect time to start thinking through what kind of content you’ll want to create for the holidays, planning for your blog, social media profiles and email marketing. Once you have a plan in place, you can begin creating that content so it’ll be ready when the busy holiday season rolls around.
Keyword Research and Landing Page Optimization
Long-tail keywords are more descriptive keywords that might not have the big search volume numbers of shorter keywords, but they can still be great traffic drivers for your site. Long-tail keywords usually have higher conversion rates than more general keywords because those searchers know exactly what they’re looking for.
As you’re preparing to make Christmas sales, you should consider what makes searches for gifts different. Consider what kind of qualifications your customers might have when they’re looking for gifts, and use those to create landing pages that target more specific keywords. For example, if you sell jewelry, you might create landing pages for different price ranges, as people will search with queries like “necklaces under $50.”
One tool that can help as you determine what keywords you’d like to target is Google Trends. Google Trends can show you the types of queries in your industry that spike during the holidays, which can help as you consider product lines to push and where to put your time.
Network with other websites
One of the best ways to drive traffic for the holidays is through networking online. Creating relationships with other sites can help you get your business in front of potential customers and has the added benefit of making link building easier.
You can start link building by finding various websites where you want to be mentioned, like online catalogs, product review sites, industry related blogs and articles written by you regarding your products or industry.
A great holiday link building tactic for ecommerce businesses is to look for blogs that your target audience frequents and reach out to them to see if you can get on their content calendar. A giveway can entice bloggers to write about your products and introduce your company to many new customers, so decide on a budget for giving away some of your products and approach the blogger with that pitch.