Say "Bah Humbug" to Holiday Marketing Stress
How to avoid holiday stress by getting a jump start on your holiday marketing campaigns.
How to avoid holiday stress by getting a jump start on your holiday marketing campaigns.
I’ve been reading blogs and articles about gearing up for holiday marketing. They don’t even have the Halloween candy out in the stores… Do we really need to start thinking about things like Hanukkah or Christmas? The short answer is yes, and the long answer is yes – if you’d like your search terms to be ranking during the holidays and have some semblance of a stress-free winter season.
Planning Ahead for the Holidays
I was talking to some clients recently about holiday marketing. They were surprised I was bringing this up so soon. They own a small bed and breakfast in California, and they start getting quite busy before Thanksgiving and throughout Christmas. They’re not necessarily “booked full,” but life is hectic during the holidays. They’ve never been really happy with Web site performance during this time period. The traffic from their holiday specials doesn’t seem to materialize in time to do them any good.
I had to be honest – they weren’t paying attention early enough in the year. If you’re going to be busy, you need to plan ahead to ensure great traffic and rankings at the right time. This is true any time of the year – holidays, summer, and fall. If you depend on a seasonal spike in traffic, you must plan ahead.
Using the Right Data
Search Engine rankings don’t happen overnight, and being proactive can help your holiday terms and specials rank during the holidays – not after. Start in September, and make sure you’ve optimized some of your text, page titles, and headers based on keyword research you did last Christmas.
Here’s the kicker – most keyword research tools will show data from the last 30-90 days. You’re not going to see accurate holiday shopping keyword data from July and August numbers. Data from your last holiday season is probably a lot closer to what’s going to happen this holiday season.
I can hear you out there: “Yeah, yeah – its still too early – I’ll think about it in November.” Sure, you can think about it in November, do things in a rush at the last minute, and you’ll see no return on your valuable time and design investment. It needs to happen now, not later.
Don’t worry – there’s hope. I put together a timeline for ensuring your holiday specials are well thought out, marketed, ranking, and profitable, come Christmas.
Your 2007 Holiday Timeline
September
October
November
December
Have a Stress-Free Holiday Season
Plan ahead. Get content on your site early to rank for the holiday season. This time of year is extremely competitive, and if you have a strategy that makes it easy to execute when you’re busy, the holidays won’t seem so hectic. Give it a try, jump on board with those early holiday revelers, and hopefully, your holidays will be merry and stress free.
Season’s Greetings!
PS: I can’t wait for snow!