Marketing During the Holiday Madness: A Guide to Effective SEO

From America and Canada to Singapore and the Philippines, consumer craze increases as the holidays approach. This year is expected to bring in 13 percent more e-commerce sales than last year in the US alone. A survey including over 10,000 e-commerce sites and consumers suggests that online sales are expected to reach $136 billion.

Given how tough competition is and how tight the margins are during holiday promotional sales, it’s crucial that you improve your SEO strategy. Your company will bring in more customers if you have an effective strategy just for the season.

Take a look at these ways to optimize you SEO:

Managing Your Timeline: Strike While the Iron is Hot

Thanksgiving is a little later than usual this year, but it isn’t something to feel bummed about. It’s something to be — as the holiday implies — thankful for. You get extra time to add finishing touches to your SEO strategy before the holiday madness really kicks in. But when exactly does it start?

There is no official date that marks the beginning of the holiday season sales. The rule of thumb is for stores to launch these shopping sales around Black Friday. It continues throughout the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. It can even extend to the Chinese New Year. You can launch your holiday sales campaign before all of these holidays, but the ideal timing ultimately depends on the nature of your business and the market you serve.

Keep these in mind when fixing your seasonal sale timeline:

• Know when to draw the line

The quickest way to lose potential buyers is by pushing too hard for pre-holiday sales. It’s important to strike while the iron is hot, but putting up the Christmas inventory right after Halloween may not get you clicks. Potential buyers may simply be looking for year-round merchandise and end up clicking the close tab without making a purchase.

If you also run a physical store, getting seasonal hires too early may only end up costing more than the sales you generate during the cool-off time between back-to-school shopping sales and the holiday season sales.

• Choose the right products

Consumers are generally more generous with their spending as the holiday season approaches, but you still have to be careful about the products and services you discount. Remember who and where your target market is and base your discounts on their needs.

For example, you may find it easier to market scarves, mittens, and other winter items in places that associate the cold air with the holiday season rather than in warmer places, like Southern California and Florida.

• Find the right timing

The success of your holiday season sale all depends on timing. Know your target market’s paycheck cycles and spending habits. Some people don’t have enough money to spend until they get their year-end bonuses — a layaway plan may work best for them. Alternatively, some people prefer shopping after the holidays, when they have lighter work schedules and maybe more gift checks to use.

Effective SEO is all about the ideal timeline.

An established SEO service will tell you successful strategy starts with identifying when your target market starts their holiday shopping. As such, there is no reason to hurry just because another business started their holiday season sale back in October — the best timing depends for every business.

Sending the Right Message: Focus on Content Overhaul

You’ve heard it countless times, and it still rings true: content is king. It isn’t enough that you get the timing right.

You need to send the right message to the right people at the right time.

Content doesn’t only refer to web content and social media posts advertising your holiday promotional sale, too. There are many ways to generate income from a blog. For example, you can subtly advertise your products on articles that get people ready for their holiday plans.

Here are some content ideas that are optimized for the holidays:

• For businesses that sell gift-worthy merchandise: “Best Christmas Gift Ideas for Moms this 2019”
• For travel and tour agencies: “Top Holiday Destinations You Will Want to Visit Soon”
• For interior designers: “House Design Trends that Will Take 2020 by Storm”
• For educators: “Certifications that Will Boost Your Career in 2020”

Make your content relevant by considering what consumers are looking for and expect. More importantly, never forget these surefire ways to tell an effective holiday story:

• Know yourself

It’s one thing to know what you sell and it’s another to understand your brand and what it stands for. The first step to creating compelling content that your target market wants to read is having a strong brand identity that knows just what problems it intends to solve.

• Identify your audience

You want more people to buy your products or book your services as the holidays approach. Discount deals and buy-one-get-one promos will turn more heads, but converting leads to sales means identifying the crowd you want to reach out to. And this means creating buyer personas.

Use interviews and surveys. Study buying habits. Observe their social media engagement. These factors help you understand your audience, their tastes, and their preferences. This understanding lets you create content that matches their needs.

• Provide value and connect with your readers

You won’t gain buyers simply through discounted prices and holiday offers. Consumers are more inclined to buy from you when they connect with your brand emotionally. For this reason, your content needs to be relatable.

Create content for humans, not for search engines, and your target audience becomes more willing to explore what you have to offer.

With content creation for your holiday Effective SEO strategy, you cannot forget link building.

Consumers are more likely to click on holiday activity and gift guides. Maximize this traffic by creating backlinks to your products. Consider reaching out to writers who create holiday gift lists or things-to-look-forward-to lists, and offer special deals in exchange for your product to land on those lists. Of course, internal links are also important in helping visitors navigate through your site.

Finding the Right Words: Use Long-Tail Keywords for Better Leads

Don’t play safe with your keywords. Low-hanging fruits might help you gain more visibility.

Ultimately, however, specific keywords are the ones that direct the right people to you — the people who are actually looking for and are interested in buying your product.

Long-tail keywords that are holiday-related and product-specific are the way to go. Optimize your landing pages with this type of keywords to narrow down the competition and gain more leads.

For example, just because it’s Christmas season, a décor store shouldn’t settle for a generic keyword, like “Christmas home décor.” Go for something more specific like “Christmas throw pillow covers.” You also have the option of localizing the keyword, like “Philippine-made Christmas throw pillow covers.”

Adding the year to your keyword also boosts relevant traffic because consumers know that your content is up-to-date.

Keeping Things Simple: Give People a Real Reason to Buy

With so many brands competing for consumer attention and sales, it may be easy to go overboard with the Effective SEO and marketing strategy. The real key to bringing in relevant leads is to keep things simple: pitch an idea, state one solid benefit for the buyer, and link it to an emotion that draws them in.

Also, keep in mind that consumers can recognize false urgency and know a good deal when they see one. With the internet on their side, they can check all their options before making a decision. Give them a reason to buy your product or book your services — maybe you only hold promotional sales at the end of every year or maybe you’re donating part of your holiday profits to charity.

On a related note, it’s best not to experiment with your persona now. Potential buyers are drawn to you based on your brand’s reputation. Seal the deal by sticking to that persona for now.

Maintaining Solid Relationships: Take Care of Existing Customers

The holidays are a time to bring in more customers and generate higher revenue. This isn’t the only purpose of seasonal sales, though. It’s also a time to turn shoppers into repeat customers.

Review the data you gathered from existing customers — the type of content they like, the products they are most interested in, and their buying habits. These factors give you a clue on how to optimize your website and what types of content to create so that you can reel them back in.

Gear Up for the Holidays

Given that Thanksgiving is on a later date this year, you have more time to iron out the kinks of your holiday Effective SEO strategy. Nevertheless, you have to finalize it before the actual holiday consumer craze. Also, make sure your NAP information is updated and your mobile page speed is consistently fast.

Cover all the bases before Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll in, and be rewarded with an influx of traffic throughout the holiday season. And on the topic of getting ahead, start planning for the post-mortem meeting so that all wins and losses can be promptly and accurately documented as the weeks pass.

Author Bio:-

A web professional of 20 years, Bernard is the General Manager of Truelogic, an SEO Company based in the Philippines. He is a strong advocate of creating a culture of leadership. He has launched 4 companies, over 300 websites, and more than 11,000 marketing campaigns.

Featured Image Courtesy : Pixabay