Do You Need a Seasonal SEO Strategy?
When you think about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, you probably think it involves simply getting as much traffic to your website as possible. While visitor numbers are certainly important, quality leads beat quantity every time, and ideally, you want people who are at least vaguely considering using your products or services.
One way you can do this is to optimize your strategy for seasonal items, whether it’s for periods of time such as summer and winter, or around events such as Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Christmas and the other holidays. Here’s how seasonal SEO could work for your business.
What Are the Advantages Of Seasonal SEO?
Seasonal SEO offers a number of benefits to your business:
- Meeting specific needs means your visitors are more likely to convert to customers.
- More visitors who intend to purchase or contact you, not just use your site for informational purposes
- A similar strategy can be used at the same time each year
You can make a start by simply visiting Google Trends and typing in some keywords around your products or services. This will show you when hits are at their highest, and you can compare trends over the past few years. For example, the number of searches for ‘Christmas gifts’ increases mid-October and peaks early-December before making a sharp decline.
Putting Your Strategy Together
Once you know the rough dates you’ll be running your seasonal campaign, it’s worth finding SEO companies with specialist knowledge who can pull this off for you. It’ll usually start with keyword research, identifying trends from the past, and also thinking about what people are going to be seeking this coming year.
For example, if you work in the wedding industry, it’s important to look at the wedding fashion trends for 2020, as these are things people are going to be looking for on the internet.
You can then start to build a content strategy around your chosen keywords. You can plan promotions, social media posts, and all sorts of creative content to drive traffic and conversions. It’s usually the marketing team that’ll come up with the message and content, while your SEO team will deal with things on the technical side.
Getting the Dates Right
The key to seasonal SEO and marketing is to get the dates right and to release content at the correct time. Usually, there’s a ramp-up period heading towards an event; for example, people might book their vacation early in the year, then start looking for summer clothing in the spring. During this time, you may not be expecting to sell much of your seasonal product, but it’s a good time to get some brand awareness.
The engagement period is when you’ll get your surge of customers, and if you’ve set up your SEO strategy correctly, then it may be more people than you think. As it gets to the end of this season, you’ll find the slow down period begins, which is when you will want to start shifting onto the next campaign. For example, retailers tend to focus on summer clothing until around early-August, when the beginnings of the Christmas campaigns start. This is when it’s helpful to have a content calendar, as different occasions will soon creep up on you if you aren’t prepared.
Nearly all industries see busy and quiet periods, and while things are quieter, it’s a good time to start ramping up your SEO campaigns and ensure you make the most of your seasonal offerings.
