START OPTIMIZING YOUR CONTENT AND SEO STRATEGIES FOR HOLIDAY SHOPPING NOW

Start off the holiday shopping season with a strong content marketing and SEO strategies plan. If customers can’t find your site or your store, then your competitors will quickly snap up their attention.

The earlier you start planning your holiday content strategy, the better. If you haven’t had a chance to think about your strategies, don’t wait any longer. Get started before the end of October, and drive local business to your site through a Fort Collins SEO strategies plan that is built for your local target market.

Here are a few quick content and SEO tips to get you started:

Make the Content Your Target Market Is Searching For Online

The holiday season is rushed, and that means your visitors don’t want to waste time. If your content doesn’t immediately answer their question or solve their problem, they are going to leave your site. Not only do you risk losing those visitors as future customers, but this also negatively impacts your website’s ranking in search engine algorithms.

Make your holiday content ahead of time so you can maintain a consistent schedule. It’s also important to post early in the holiday season so the articles have time to gain strength on social media and through search engine algorithms. For every piece of content this holiday season, make sure you do the following:

1. Let readers know what your page content is about.

Word for word, the title of your article is the most important part of a new article. It needs to tell readers precisely what they’re going to get from it. Easy identifiers are:

• “How to…” Preparing for the holiday season involves a lot of tasks that aren’t part of your readers’ everyday routines. This can include everything from getting their front lawn ready for winter to organizing travel plans. Offering helpful content makes your company a reliable, useful resource.
• “X Tips” or “X Ways to…” People love list articles. They’re fun to read, and they’re easy to skim. More importantly, most readers will skim through the whole list even if the first point wasn’t useful for them.
• “X [Products] That Are Perfect for…” The holiday shopping season is all about gifts. But most people don’t go into a shop and know precisely what to buy. Instead, they’ll browse the Internet for present suggestions. You can quickly make a lot of content that is tailored for all of the different people in your visitors’ lives. Be sure to hyperlink everything to your product pages for both better SEO strategies and to reduce shopping barriers.

2. Put quick answers at the top, and fill in the details later.

Your online visitors don’t want to scroll through lots of paragraphs and pictures to get the answers they need. Most of your online traffic will come from mobile devices, and a majority of those visitors will be browsing as they wait in line. Most mobile browsing sessions last less than one hundred seconds, so you have to make that count before your audience loses interest.

3. Use long-tail keywords to make your content match specific queries.

Everyone is competing for shoppers’ attention. You need a smart content marketing strategy to capture the right attention. Use long-tail keywords to specify geographic factors, especially if you have a physical store. For example, if your region has heavy blizzards during the end of autumn, incorporate weather-related searches. If you create a lot of recommendation pages, each one should have focus keywords for ‘gifts for mothers-in-law,’ ‘what to give your employees for Christmas,’ and super specific search engine terms.

Even though fewer people may be searching for that specific term, you know they’re more likely to make a purchase. You’ll also face less stiff competition for their attention.

Work with Search Engine Tools, Especially if You Have a Local Business

Search engines want you to succeed. If you have a good business that customers will trust, your website is the kind of resource that search engines love. So make sure you use their resources to make your online presence stronger.  You can quickly shore up your local business details by taking these steps:

1. Build your Google business page and make sure you show up on the map.

Search engines need context to understand what your website is all about. One of the best indicators that your business is a local business is to fill out business-specific pages with your store’s address, all of your contact details, and keywords that describe your business. Filling out the basics makes your site rank higher. It also means you will be easy to find when customers search for products and services through Google Maps because they’re in a hurry.

2. Create profiles on local business directories.

Even during the rush of the holiday season, people don’t like experimenting with new shops. They don’t have time for fruitless searches, bad return policies, or shipping delays. That means potential customers are going to research your business briefly through sites like Yelp. Build out a profile page with complete contact details (especially a URL and a physical address), and keep an eye on the reviews. If you don’t control your profiles, then either angry reviewers will or you won’t have any profile pages at all.

Learn More About SEO Strategies for Holiday Shopping

These are just a few of the SEO strategies your company needs to incorporate this holiday season. Creating well-tailored and convenient content will bring new visitors to your site. Building out the online infrastructure for local business brings new customers to your store. If you’re looking for a Fort Collins SEO agency that can build and implement your holiday SEO strategies plan, contact us at Red Rocket Web Specialists here. We can help you get started with a free SEO audit of your current site.