Is your small business website set up to attract holiday shopping traffic? You could be missing out on a large portion of internet sales if your website is not on the consumer search radar. Updating your search engine optimization (SEO) for the holidays is an important task that you should not overlook.
SEO is a great way to improve your holiday sales without spending anything on advertising. Your holiday SEO efforts can attract new and additional traffic to your website. And with the tens of millions of Americans who are shopping online this year, even attracting a miniscule percentage of that search traffic can transform your small business website into a sales machine.
What can you do to improve your holiday SEO? Even though we are now in the middle of the holiday shopping season, there are still a few things you can do to help your chances of getting noticed by search engines. Here are a few tips:
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Research and Update Your Keywords
The most important thing you can do for holiday SEO marketing is to update your keywords throughout your website. This doesn’t mean just replacing your current keywords or adding popular keyphrases. You need to conduct the research on what specific keywords consumers are searching for this holiday season, as well as how competitive those keywords are in your industry. Use tools like Google Adwords to help with your research.
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Update Your Main Page Content
If you are the webmaster, or are in close contact with yours, update your welcome page to reflect the holiday. A new holiday color scheme will be attractive to new visitors, but also update with specific holiday keywords. Your home page copy is what most search engine spiders index, and you should ensure it fits holiday criteria.
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Add Special Holiday Sales Pages
Add more pages to your website that are specific to holiday sales and promotions. It might be just one or two pages promoting deals, or you could include a separate page for each of your holiday sales items. Be sure to keep SEO in mind with these pages as well. For instance, many shoppers are budget minded. Why not add new pages and links to them for “Gifts Under $25,” “Affordable Tech Gifts,” or other gift keyword phrases you find in your research?
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Post Frequent Holiday Specials on Your Site
Remember that search engines like websites that offer fresh, new content. If your small business website has a blog, be sure to update it frequently with new holiday promotions, gift ideas, shopping tips, or other topics that might be of interest to your customers.
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Offer Gift Cards
Many businesses do well for their holiday sales simply through the sale of gift cards. If you can or do offer gift cards, promote them with SEO. Part of your SEO strategy should include gift card keywords and having specific links and web pages to purchase them.
The holiday online sales rush is on. Don’t get caught behind this holiday season. Get your SEO updated right away to enjoy more holiday shoppers.
