Christmas is a time for joy, spending time with family and of course….Shopping! We all love to spoil our loved ones with unique gifts, heaps of food and elegant wines, making it one of the most profitable times of the year for most businesses. Black Friday and boxing day sales mean that most retail stores can make record-breaking profits, but how can you translate this into your online business? So, let’s discover how to optimise your SEO strategy for the Christmas period.
It can be challenging to stand out in an already crowded market but, don’t worry, people are shopping just as much online as they are in person, if not more.
We at White Digital help small to large businesses grow their online presence through digital marketing and SEO strategies, making us well-versed in the challenges faced when thinking about a last-minute SEO strategy for Christmas. Stop googling ‘SEO for Christmas’ and ‘How to do SEO’, we are here to help and give you some valuable tips and tricks for the festive season.
So, don’t be left out in the cold, check out some ways you can optimise your SEO strategy specifically for the Christmas rush.
Getting in Early
To really get the most out of your hard work and ensure that any landing pages or blog content you develop can be indexed by search engines, it is ideal to start well before the Christmas season.
The perfect time to start planning: Just like Santa, you and your team should be setting up your online stores roughly 6 months in advance. That goes for any holiday that you are trying to target, such as Valentines day, Easter etc.
Top Tip: You can start later in the year, however, we would recommend at the very least planning to start it three to four months in advance to get the most out of the campaign for this year.
Christmas SEO Keywords
When you think of the Christmas holidays, many keywords come to mind, like festive, Xmas, Santa Claus, and the list could go on and on. Keywords are what you are going to try and rank for in the google search engines, such as ‘Christmas T-shirts’ if you sell T-Shirts. However, with all the competition in the online world, you may have to be more specific. Let’s look at some of the most searched keywords during the Christmas period.
- Target family members or genders: Around this time of year, “gifting keywords” and ones based on gender and family members (such as “Christmas gift ideas for him”) are some of the most frequently searched keywords. Make sure to include these in your pages or gift guides.
- Think about your price ranges: “price” derived keywords (i.e., gifts under £25) are more relevant at this time of year as people will need to knuckle down on their spending. Make sure you are creating content or pages that are specifically targeting this.
- Black Friday/ Boxing Day Deals: Everyone loves a deal and many people will be searching ‘Black Friday deals on Phones’ or specific types of products, the same with boxing day sales. Make sure to include this in your strategy by targeting these keywords with your products or industry.
Top Tip: Think about what you will be typing into the search engines during your Christmas shopping, and take some inspiration from that to help with your own website’s keyword rankings and to help optimise your SEO strategy for the Christmas period.
Posts that will sleigh
When creating your content for the festive period, you need posts that will absolutely sleigh the competition. We have laid out a few of our top recommendations for posts and plans you need to be doing on your website this winter.
- Gift guides: When you are stuck on present ideas for your second cousin’s brother, a gift guide can be yours and many other people’s saving grace. The internet is full of well-written gift guides, but did you know that they are mostly written to advise that website’s products? Try and make as many as possible for specific people and genders in order to target the most amount of keywords.
- Festive Pages: Develop specific landing pages for your ‘presents under £25’ etc. Make sure to pack these pages with fun, copy-write-free Christmas-inspired images and text. After they are created, these pages can be promoted and used as landing pages for PPC and email campaigns to increase keyword conversion.
- 25 Posts for the 25 Days of December: We recommend creating a gift guide or blog post every day in December, not only will this allow for more content on your website but it will show your loyal customers that you are consistent and caring!
Top Tip: Struggling to keep up with all the posts whilst also running your online business? Outsource to a digital marketing agency! Check out our digital marketing and SEO services today.
Mistletoe and Metadata
What is MetaData? Metadata is the content you see in the search engines, such as the meta title (The clickable link you see in the SERP) and the meta description (the small blurb of text you see below the clickable link).
Why is MetaData Important? Metadata is significant because it tells search engines something about the content on your pages and users what they are about to click on. The more eye-catching and descriptive, the higher you will rank in the search engine and the more likely people will see your page.
How to optimise your metadata for the Christmas period: As we have stated previously if you want to rank for certain keywords, use them. Make sure your meta descriptions and titles are optimised and include some of these Christmas-based keywords or phrases.
Top Tip: Make sure to include a Christmas call-to-action. An example of this would be ‘Get your perfect Xmas gifts now!’
These are just a few of the many ways your online shop should be setting up for the Christmas period. If you need some more advice on your current digital marketing / SEO strategy or are looking to work with an SEO agency, contact us here.
