Check it once, check it twice: A Checklist to Ensure You're Making The Most of Holiday Google Searches

According to the National Retail Federation, online search is the most popular way to get ideas for holiday gifts, with 43% of people using this method compared to friends and family (35%) and window-shopping in a brick-and-mortar store (31%)

Unless a customer already knows about your business and seeks it out intentionally, you'll most likely have to rely more on search methods to attract them. Here are some techniques to boost your marketing efforts during the most wonderful time of the year.

Ways to boost your SEO for the holidays

SEO is just one consideration of a content marketing plan, but it’s a big one. These tips can aid your SEO strategy without compromising the quality of your content.

1. Refresh existing content 

Why recreate the wheel when you likely have the makings of a great content strategy? Refreshing existing blog posts, ebooks, landing pages, and newsletters gives you a bigger bang for your buck by using what you’ve already done well and making it more relevant. Update your promotions pages with new products, advice, or sale information. Give the pages your visitors often frequent (such as shipping explainers) with the specifics for the 2022 shopping season.

2. Use your best-performing content 

Whether it’s a holiday or not, content that already ranks high should link to buy pages and holiday-specific content that people will want to act on now. Internal linking is a highly-effective strategy that signals to Google that your content is of high quality while helping customers navigate your web pages. Just be sure your anchor text is highly relevant to the page it links to. (Nothing is more frustrating than following a link to someplace you didn't intend to visit.)

3. Create new Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Giving Tuesday pages 

Google shares that mobile search for “black Friday deals” increased over 200% in the past two years. People will be searching for this content. Whether you can rank for it this year or not, building these pages sets you on the path to ranking for it down the road. It also makes it easier for existing customers to find information quickly.

4. Ensure Google Business listings are up to date 

One of the first things a customer will see when Googling your business is your Google Business listing. If you haven’t revisited this vital piece of info, check it out now. Include any information to help buyers during this time of year, including any special hours your shop will be open due to holidays, curbside ordering, or links to holiday menus. Not having updated holiday details can be frustrating for the customer who relies on this Google profile to make their shopping decisions.

5. Consider a holiday FAQ page 

FAQs are loved by Google and can help customers practice “self-service” when they need quick info on shipping or returns. This not only frees up your customer support staff to handle more complex customer issues, but it is also another avenue to bolster search rankings. Be sure to use the language customers are most likely to use when seeking out answers, such as “how long will it take for my product to ship?” and “what is your return policy?”

6. Check the trends, then adjust 

Look to see what google search traffic you received last year, and pivot to include new product information on those pages that may still get traffic again this year. This still works if those pages are out-of-date or you aren’t offering the same products; just make adjustments to keep the search traffic while providing updated info. Last year's "Game of Thrones teddy bear" search could lead visitors to this year’s “House of the Dragon teddy bear” landing page.

7. Stretch out your holiday trend-watching

Don’t end your Google analytics data or keyword trends on December 25^th. People continue to shop after the holidays, especially if they receive gift cards as a gift.

Speaking of gift cards, do you sell them? If so, that’s a content category in itself. Create content sharing how to use gift cards, ideas for using them for set dollar values ($5, $10, $100), or any other info that can serve this specific customer category.

Bottom line: The truth is that any changes you make to your content now may not move the needle as much as you wish for the 2022 season, but you will be laying the groundwork for next year – and beyond. To boost the chances that your content will be found this year, consider enlisting the help of experts to ensure your technical search details are up to date. From schema markup to how fast your mobile pages load, these all play a role in getting your holiday content out there for the shoppers spending money today.