Christmas SEO essentials for retail sites

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Nov 25, 2022 / by
Christmas SEO essentials for retail sites

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Indeed, it seems to come earlier every year and while it’s only mid-November no doubt you’ve already seen a few lights go up on your street and all the festive ads on the telly. With all of that going on it might be understandable to assume it’s too late to shift your SEO strategy to align with the winter holiday season.

But there’s still plenty of time to make the most of the surge in traffic you’re likely to see in the coming weeks.

Be mobile-first

The most important step is to ensure that your website is not only mobile-friendly, but that mobile is the platform in which you invest the most time and resources. UK shoppers are expected to spend over £17.4 billion online this Christmas and most of that will be done from smartphones.

Run a health check

There is going to be a lot of extra traffic coming your way in the next 6 weeks. You need to ensure that your site is ready for it as if your site is too slow to load, has a tonne of broken links and is difficult to use, shoppers could end up turning to a competitor. Ensure that the shopper experience is smooth and that it’s as easy as possible for them to add to their cart and check out!

Switch up your keywords

People are going to be searching for different products and services in the run-up to Christmas than they will be at other times of the year. Think about what people are going to be searching for and focus on these keywords in your SEO. Google AdWords is your best friend here.

Boost your Xmas offers

Identify the trends in your niche and consider creating offers to capitalise on these trends. Looking at the sales figures for previous years can help here. Also, create festive landing pages specifically for these offers and direct customers to them by placing colourful themed banners elsewhere on your site. If people are looking for Christmas gifts and spot a glittery banner directing them to gifts that are on offer, they are more likely to click through.

Create a bit of urgency

Cultivate urgency in your customers by adding things such as final Christmas shipping dates to your site and underlining the last date people can order to guarantee delivery before the big day. You can even tailor this to different locations and use different shipping methods for added flexibility.

Reuse last year’s content

If you have some nice URLs already set up from last year don’t be afraid to reuse them. What’s the use in building new landing pages every year if the song remains the same? This way you’ll also retain all the backlinks and stats. So, if you had a “Top Christmas gifts for 2021” page, don’t be afraid to use the same page for 2022. Just remember the change the title!

Study the competition

Finally, the importance of keeping up with the competition can never be understated, particularly at Christmas. Don’t be afraid to keep an eye on what they’re up to. It’s not copying; it’s just levelling the playing field!

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