How can I improve my SEO strategy for the holidays? That’s a common question people ask this time of year when we go to the Christmas countdown. While there are a number of perspectives, as a top website development company, we wanted to share our vision developed over the past decade and work with clients of all shapes and sizes across the country.
To be fair, the playbook is shrinking a lot at this time of year. While there are plenty of effective SEO tactics available, such as building links, realistically, only a handful of them can deliver results in such a short time. So, for those procrastinators out there, we have some quick tips to improve your SEO rankings in the time available.
Santa is already making that list and checking it twice, so let’s figure out a few ways to improve your SEO strategy before all the Christmas shopping is done!
Last Minute SEO Strategy Boosting Tips
View Titles and Descriptions – This is one of the easiest and most effective tips we give regularly. Titles and descriptions are key to better Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) results. During the holidays, people often do not search for themselves, but for others. That could mean a lack of familiarity with products, services and the like. That’s why it’s important that your titles and descriptions are aimed at the uninformed buyer versus the expert. A title like “Expert-Rated Top 10 Skateboards for Christmas 2018” describing, “Lounge Lizard has enlisted the expert advice of Tony Hawk and Bucky Lasek to rate and rank this year’s best skateboards for buying Christmas gifts Easier, ”Will quickly bring knowledge of your content to a buyer View your pages through the Search Console and look at the pages you rank for, providing clarity and focus for your titles and descriptions.
Low-hanging keyword focus – With limited time, it would be nearly impossible to top other sites for the best phrases and keywords, so efforts should focus on the low-hanging fruit instead. When you do keyword research, you start at the bottom of the list of keywords that are still used, but also have less competition when it comes to SERP results and work. While this is a dink-and-dunk approach, sometimes you need to take what you can get to improve your SEO strategy if you’re short on time.
Update and optimize content – This time of year, you need to refocus based on the concept of the Holiday Shopper persona that is one who buys for another. It is important to recognize the difference between this buyer person compared to your standard customer. This means thinking about who’s shopping for a specific audience, such as parents buying video games for children. From there, you need to think about the questions or issues they may have and target those aspects with your content. For example, most parents have quite no idea about specific video games, which is why Staff Picks and Top 10 lists are useful to them. If you regularly provide guides, staff choices, reviews and ratings or top X lists, make sure they are updated and include the current year so people know the content is current. If you have non-optimized content, of course, take the time to update it, possibly including some of those low-hanging keywords.
Optimize Google My Business – Any business with a physical location must create, verify and optimize your Google My Business. Simply put, you will miss out if you don’t. The main reason for doing this is that Google recognizes that your business has been verified in a specific location, which helps strengthen your business legitimacy. Second, when people search for your business, it includes information from your Google My Business listing, including reviews, location, and your phone number. Last but not least, this really helps with local SEO rankings and customer trust.
It comes down to
The bottom line is that the holiday season can make or break a business. We often get asked how to improve your SEO strategy for the holidays, and this list of tips is the blueprint you need to follow to maximize your success in this late phase of the game. Time is short, and by focusing on these fast-hit areas, you have the chance to compete and rank in areas that will boost your year-end results.
