Have the holidays crept up on you this year? It happens to the best of us! Unlike catching up on wrapping Christmas presents, your SEO strategy isn’t as forgiving. If you don’t jump into the game now, you could miss out on huge sales. Fortunately, it’s never too late to add some festive flair to your SEO strategy.
Let’s check out some of the ways to make the most of these last few weeks by amping up your SEO strategy.
Change your titles and descriptions in the SERPs.
One of the best things you can do for your SEO strategy is change the titles and descriptions of your listings in the SERPs. By doing this, you help people understand what you have to offer so they are more compelled to click.
To help you find the best words and phrases to use, find the terms that you already rank for in Google Search Console. Add these terms to your titles and descriptions to improve click throughs. Remember, you are not just optimizing your titles for people shopping for themselves. You’re also optimizing titles and descriptions for those shopping for others.
Test your titles using the Google Ads platform . The expanded text now allows for three sets of 30 characters for titles and 80-90 characters for descriptions. This gives you a lot more room to work with.
Answer queries to be featured in the snippets.
Featured snippets allow you to jump the queue and position yourself in the zero spot. Consider the queries that holiday shoppers might search for when looking for products related to yours. Use these terms and phrases in your content and answer the question as best as possible. Use conversational, natural language, as more people are browsing the internet through voice search.
Update evergreen content with your top gifts.
Another great strategy is to update your search-optimized evergreen content. Identify content that will appeal to your demographic and those shopping for others. Put your new content at the old URL so that you can keep an archive. If you want to use this content again next year, you’ll know where to find it.
Adding festive touches to your evergreen content allows you to push out information without starting from scratch. Gift guides and top lists always perform well.
Rank for during and post-holiday queries.
People shop during and after the holidays, too. Focus on families being together and looking for low cost things to do, as well as people looking to spend their holiday gift cards.
The benefit to targeting during and post-holiday queries is that you can target less competitive keywords. Keywords tend to be specific and include terms like “cheap” or “best deal.” This strategy works especially well if you already rank for the core terms but want to expand them for post-holiday sales.
It’s never too late to get your SEO strategy in gear for the holidays. Next year, you’ll have even more to gain by starting earlier. In the meantime, follow these tips and watch your sales increase for the 2018 holiday shopping season.
