As consumers are being flooded with Christmas specials in brick and mortar stores, some online vendors have not even started bothering about the festive season yet. As the below Google Trends screenshot shows, the search volume for “Christmas present” already starts increasing as early as the end of August. If you have not done any optimizations for the holiday season yet, then this is the last moment to get started. In this blog post we present you six quick wins that will get your SEO and SEA campaigns in the mood for Christmas.
1) Improve Your Google My Business Profile
The reason why you can so easily find directions to businesses in your Google Maps app, is because the business owners made the effort to get their business listed on Google My Business. It is the way to be found in Google Search, Google Maps and Google Plus. If your business is listed, verified and you think you are ready, you might be wrong. Also make sure you have filled out the special opening hours, so customers know whether or not you will be open for business during the holiday season. If you think your profile may need more work, then take note of these five tips for improving your Google My Business profile.
2) Fine Tune Your Social Media
Just being present on social media is not enough for it to have a positive impact on your SEO rankings and your business success. Make sure that your social media profiles are up to date, that all business information is added and that you regularly post something new. The moment you stop maintaining your social media channels, they stop being social. Use the holiday season as an opportunity to offer something new, to run a campaign or to give your profiles a wintery look. Just changing a cover photo in Facebook can already make a huge difference in engagement.
3) Check Your Bids and Budgets in AdWords
If you have AdWords campaigns running, you should make sure that your CPC bids and daily budgets are sufficient to meet your marketing goals. Because competition is likely to pick up, there is a fair chance that some of your keywords are not performing as they should, or that AdWords shows that your campaigns are “Limited by budget”. This means that your ads are not running as often as they could. This could lead to missing out on business potential and Santa buying Christmas presents elsewhere.
4) Write Content
If you want your brand to stand out, you should write content. Especially if there are thousands of businesses that do the same, you should stand out with your relevant content. Your audience can learn from your professionalism and through writing about your industry you are working on your skills and your professionalism. This can make you a leader in your industry, regionally or even nationally and internationally. On top of that it will do your SEO good. Use the holiday season to come up with something new. Bring your services into a Christmas vibe by offering a few tips for the season, or write down your expectations for the new year. If you are experiencing a writer’s block, you could use Google Trends to discover some new topics.
5) Optimize Your Landing Pages
Writing some fresh content is not enough. You also need to make sure that your latest blog post and your most important landing pages are well optimized for your relevant keywords. A good keyword matches your offer, has a high search volume and in an ideal world does not have too much competition. Make sure to use the most important keywords in the following areas on your landing page:
- URL
- Title Tag (max. 70 characters)
- Meta Description (120-160 characters)
- Heading Tags (H1 tag, maybe H2 tags)
- Body Text
Especially eCommerce websites often lack a body text. According to a recent Searchmetrics study, online shops that offer detailed product descriptions and have 25% higher word count are likely to perform better than competitors with product pages with little to no text. Where it is okay to have product descriptions of around 200 words, it is recommended to use 600-700 words for a relevant blog post.
6) Get Ready for GDPR
Looking forward to the New Year, this can also be the right time to read into the EU’s new data protection regulations. These new regulations govern what data you can collect from your customers and how you can use these. The General Data Protection Regulation, short GDPR, will come into force on the 25th of May 2018 and it is going to have an impact on your digital marketing activities. If you are unsure about whether or not your campaigns are compliant, you can let us run an audit. Organizations in breach of GDPR can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or 20 million euros (whichever is greater). If you want to enjoy a relaxed holiday season, you rather be safe than sorry.
Feel free to contact me, should you need any help with one of the above. For now, we wish you a wonderful holiday season!