Christmas and E-Commerce – What SEO Activities Can You Perform Before the Festive Season Begins?

Shopping opportunities at the end of the year

In which months of the year can you expect the greatest traffic and sales? Which dates in the last calendar quarter should be marked red?

How to prepare your business SEO-wise for the greatest selling opportunities this year?

It’s just October – why should I think about Christmas?

SEO isn’t like Christmas gifts – you can’t buy it at the very last minute. It’s a continuous and complex process that requires a lot of patience. Moreover, Google algorithms are constantly developing and their e-commerce requirements are also evolving. The fact that a given online store was optimized once, doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t be crucial to implement updates in the future.

As an e-entrepreneur, you should constantly monitor updates implemented by Google and correspond to them by adapting your brand’s SEO strategy accordingly. All of these to ultimately see specific benefits such as increased website traffic or more frequent order finalizations.

Google introduces numerous updates and conducting all SEO activities takes months. In this case, “last-minute” solutions won’t be effective. You won’t be able to boast high organic traffic and customers with full shopping carts if you begin your SEO process right down to the wire. The first few months of the activities are dedicated to increasing website visibility on Google. After a quarter calendar, you’ll probably notice improved organic traffic, and only after six months (at best!), you’ll be able to observe a potential increase in sales.

Remember that your market rivals never sleep. Many online stores gain new customers by offering an individual customer service approach and unique product range. Large corporations like eBay or Zalando effectively fight for high positions on Google and offer lower and lower prices. Furthermore, both small enterprises and real e-commerce tycoons invest time and money in top-notch product photos and descriptions.

Staying in one place and not doing anything won’t help you attract new customers and outdo your market rivals. If you don’t perform any SEO activities to develop your company, it’ll simply regress. And we mean it literally – your website will be moved to the subsequent pages of Google search results, where no one reaches it. So how to prevent it and make your online store stand out from the crowd?

What should I do to sell more during the Christmas season?

Well, first of all, you shouldn’t undermine the importance of appropriate preparations. The pre-Christmas SEO strategy will bring measurable benefits both in the long run and in the close future. After all, right after Christmas, we need to get ready for the New Year’s sales, then, Valentine’s and Women’s Day are just around the corner. Increasing online store traffic doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.

What SEO activities can I perform before Christmas?

1. Conduct an SEO website audit

A diagnosis is always needed to start the treatment. You can try to repair your website on your own and conduct a simple audit or trust specialists and order a thorough SEO audit at Delante. The results of the audit are a kind of a prescription that contains all the necessary rules and recommendations that should be discussed with an SEO specialist. If you don’t have any SEO experience, it may be difficult for you to interpret and implement suggestions indicated, e.g. by Siteliner.

If you want to perform an SEO audit on your own, you can take advantage of Siteliner, a free online tool. It’s perfect for detecting any duplicate content, errors, or broken links, it’ll also provide you with useful SEO tips.

2. Determine keywords for your online store

Analyze your current website traffic and check what products on your offer are perfect gift ideas. See what keywords are used by website visitors to access various items and take advantage of appropriate tools to determine keywords for your online store and SEO process.

Remember about implementing both long and short tail SEO phrases – it’s possible that the keyword “jacket” will generate smaller website traffic than the keyphrase “red fall jacket”. Although the latter words will be typed into Google by fewer people, these users will be truly interested in a given product on your offer. And obviously, you aim at selling your goods.

3. Do SEO for the most important subpages of your online store

What subpages and products on your offer are the most likely to succeed? Which items have the greatest margins? Choose your top products and perfect them with appropriate keywords. If you’ve already determined which subpages and products on your offer are the most important, you can begin performing SEO activities:

• Add appropriate keywords to the content,
• Complement your texts with SEO-friendly headers and phrases,
• Correct or implement ALTs and meta descriptions of your product photos,
• Ensure proper internal and external linking,
• Check if your website interface and linking work properly.

4. Create blog posts with Christmas tips and recommendations

Moreover, create content that will enhance your Google position for the exact phrases and keywords you’ve selected earlier.

Exemplary, eagerly read blog posts of a clothing company include:

• What gifts are perfect for moms?
• The finest Christmas sweaters
• Special offers – when is it best to purchase Christmas gifts?

Exemplary clickbait blog post titles for a company selling household appliances and electronics:

• 5 best PS4 games that are ideal gifts for all gaming fans
• Christmas gift ideas for iPhone users – Apple smartwatch, smartphones, accessories, and gadgets

5. Ensure proper internal and external linking

Proper website linking is like a pick-me-up drink for a person who has been working for 14 hours – it can be a real lifesaver. October is still a good moment to start gaining new quality external links to your website and improving the internal linking structure. But let’s keep it simple – what to do to take care of your internal and external linking? Below you can find a few examples.

Internal linking

• Create inspiring blog entries that will present your product range in a completely new light and provide links to individual subpages, for example, “Top 10 Christmas gifts for a preschool baby”.
• Offer your customers products similar to the ones they’re just browsing or buying.

External linking

• Search for guest posting opportunities to implement dofollow links on other websites read by your target group and ranked high on Google. Sometimes you’ll be able to publish such guest entries for free and sometimes you’ll have to order sponsored articles.
• Cooperate with bloggers or influencers who, as a part of an affiliate program or barter cooperation, will share links to your website on their blogs or profiles.

SEO for an online store in the last calendar quarter – is it worth the effort?

Absolutely. Deploying a proper SEO strategy in September or October will start paying off already during the upcoming Christmas and ultimately, it’ll be bringing benefits to your online store throughout the whole year.

If we can somehow help you prepare your enterprise for the coming months, we’ll be happy to do it – just contact us and let’s devise a proper SEO strategy together!