Shopping holidays such as Black Friday, Amazon Prime Day, and Christmas provide great opportunities for organic marketers to capture heightened consumer interest and drive significant traffic and sales.
But to fully capitalize on this seasonal surge, enterprise SEOs need to plan ahead and implement a strategic, data-driven approach. Doing so involves understanding the nuances of holiday search behavior, analyzing past performance data, and optimizing their digital presence well in advance.
In this blog, we’ll delve into the essential steps for crafting an effective holiday SEO marketing strategy, providing actionable insights and practical tips to help you maximize your organic search potential.
To ensure your holiday SEO marketing campaigns are a success, you need to strategically time your content creation, development, and deployment. Start by mapping out your holiday marketing calendar well in advance and aligning it with all necessary teams, including marketing, merchandising, and sales.
Once you have your plan, begin the content creation process which includes writing blog posts, creating promotional materials, and optimizing landing pages. Ideally, you should start developing your holiday content at least two to three months before the holiday season. Doing so provides enough time for a thorough QA process to ensure that all your content is free of errors and optimized for both user experience and search engines.
Lastly, we recommend deploying your content at least one month before the holiday. This gives search engines enough time to index your pages and build authority on your targeted keywords.
A crucial step in creating a successful holiday SEO strategy is identifying target keywords that pertain to the holiday you want to optimize for. A good place to start is by looking at past major sale data around the holiday to identify your most in-demand products as well as top product traits or categories for that specific period.
Then, consider how people usually find your products based on traffic and conversion rates, such as by branded keywords or non-brand terms that highlight product traits (i.e. “best cooler” or “locking cooler with wheels”). Narrow down your list of keywords to target by considering the seasonal search demand for the terms.
Easily view keyword search volume trends in Topic Explorer to see if interest in specific terms spikes around the holiday you want to target. Keywords that show increased search volume during this time are prime candidates for your strategy. For example, the search volume for the keyword “candles with wooden wick” spikes significantly around November and December each year, making it a good keyword to target for holidays like Black Friday, Christmas, or Kwanza.
To find holiday-specific terms to target, search for relevant keywords and then select “keyword contains” and input the holiday of your choice. In this example, our keyword was “coffee maker” and we filtered by related keywords containing the words “Black Friday.”
Another option is to filter keywords by the holiday that you want to optimize for (i.e. Black Friday) and then filter by your industry or your domain. Consider what products or themes were frequently searched around the time of the holiday during the previous year.
You should review a mix of product keywords (non-brand) as well as popular brands in your industry.
When determining which keywords to ultimately target, ensure that the search trends align with the brands you carry and your key product categories based on marketing priorities, profit margins, and product popularity. You can do this by using tools like VLOOKUP in spreadsheets or conducting a database analysis.
Once you’ve identified the holiday-related keywords you want to target, it’s time to create content that focuses on them and moves people through the sales funnel such as:
Ensure your holiday content is engaging, provides value to your readers, and is optimized for search engines by using your identified keywords strategically in titles, headings, meta descriptions, and throughout the content.
In addition to creating new content, it’s also beneficial to optimize the content you currently have on your site.
If you’ve already created holiday-focused content in the past, give it a refresh to reflect current trends, new information, and your latest products. Here are some effective ways to do so.
Optimize existing category pages to attract holiday shoppers by adding holiday-specific elements to the title tags and meta descriptions before the holiday and removing them afterward.
To do so, consider using a combination of the holiday name, product category or brand, and value propositions such as free shipping or discount percentages. Here’s an example, “Nike Black Friday Deals - Free Shipping - Kohl's.com.”
To do this at scale, either update your product feed with templated titles and metadata or utilize AI.
Sia, seoClarity’s intelligent AI SEO assistant, allows you to automatically generate optimized titles and meta descriptions across thousands of pages in seconds. Unlike generic templates, the results are distinct and SEO-optimized, powered by your data to achieve your specific goals.
When using AI, always implement a two-pronged QA approach: one for editorial quality, including grammar and typos, and another to ensure content is on-brand.
Recommended Reading: Overcome the Challenges of Writing Titles and Meta Descriptions at Scale
Utilizing structured data, specifically the Product Offer schema, can significantly enhance your holiday SEO strategy.
This schema type allows search engines to understand and display your product discounts effectively, increasing visibility and click-through rates during sale durations.
To implement the Product Offer schema, determine which products will have discounts during the holiday sale period. Make sure to note the discount percentage, sale price, and the duration of the sale.
Then, use Schema Optimizer to easily deploy the Product Offer schema markup on your product pages at scale – no dev resources required!
Throughout your site, provide clear and visible links to your holiday guides, reviews, and product pages. Doing so will help guide visitors to the content as well as help search engines understand its importance, improving its ranking potential. For “holidays” like Amazon Prime Day, consider also including links to your Amazon storefront, making it easy for visitors to find and purchase your products directly.
Once the holiday season wraps up, it's essential to review your strategy to understand what went right and what areas need improvement for future efforts.
Recommended Reading: Common Holiday SEO Mistakes to Avoid
To analyze the success of your holiday SEO marketing strategy, start by reviewing your KPIs such as:
You should also calculate the revenue generated from your holiday SEO campaign and the return on investment (ROI). Compare the sales data with the cost of your SEO efforts to determine the overall profitability of your campaign.
Reviewing the keywords that led people to your site can provide invaluable insights for refining your content strategy for future holiday campaigns. Start by analyzing which specific categories and products attracted visitors, particularly noting any 'waiting for sale' behavior, where customers were anticipating discounts on certain items.
This could show up in keywords for specific types of products (non brand) or product lines and models (brand) searched with terms like “on-sale” or “discount,” indicating that searchers had more price sensitivity. These insights can guide you in optimizing and populating selections for future sale events.
Additionally, examine the split between brand and non brand keywords. Determine if people were shopping based on brand familiarity—indicating they already knew your brand and were looking for sales—or through non brand searches, such as searching by product type or trait like 'best cooler.'
Also, pay attention to holiday-specific branded keywords, which show targeted interest in shopping specifically with your brand during that holiday. This analysis can help you craft more effective SEO strategies that align with consumer behavior and search patterns.
Properly maintaining your holiday content is key to keeping its search equity strong. After the sale ends, update the page to let users know the offer is no longer available, but keep the URL and core optimizations like the title tag, H1, and meta description live.
Each year, refresh the content with relevant updates and get it ready for the next holiday season. This way, you keep your users informed and engaged while boosting your page's performance in search results.
When it comes to tracking holiday-related terms, enterprise SEOs with extensive keyword lists may wonder whether to track them year-round or just around the holiday itself.
For high seasons like Black Friday and Christmas, it's beneficial to keep pages live throughout the year and track relevant keywords continuously. This ensures your site maintains its search equity and remains prepared for early interest and searches leading up to these peak times.
During the actual holiday season, consider adding more keywords to capture the full breadth of search behavior.
For mid-seasons or smaller holidays, you might only need to add keywords three months before the event and remove them afterward. However, managing this process can be challenging, which is why many SEOs opt to track all holiday-related keywords continuously.
By identifying holiday-related keyword targets, creating engaging holiday-focused content, implementing strategic internal linking, and using structured data, you can create a strong and effective holiday SEO marketing strategy.
Then, reviewing KPIs and maintaining your content assets post-holiday will ensure that you build on your successes and refine your strategies for the future
