“The best time of the year” is officially around the corner. The seasons are changing, the Starbucks around the block is selling Pumpkin Spice Lattes by the dozens, scented candles are burning on every coffee table, and even Target has started to roll out their fall/winter decor. The holidays are coming fast, and it’s easy to get wrapped up planning for this season’s memories and to forget about another important plan that should be in place at least three months out; your SEO holiday strategy!
Take the time to revamp last year’s holiday media, thoughtfully plan your new content, and set a plan in motion to make your goals achievable for the 2018 holiday rush. By setting this standard, your competitors will be enjoying leftover Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, and you’ll be flexing your SEO muscles, knowing companies who blog well and consistently get far more traffic and increased profitability than those who don’t. Check out the advice below for our three best tips on staying ahead of the game, and eliminating the stress of your content creation holiday season.
For Those Who Want to Be a Breakout Leader in Their Industry
Do you want to emerge as a leader in your industry this holiday season? Here are a few easy ways you can accomplish that goal during the holidays.
Rock Your Holiday SEO Strategy by Capitalizing on Trendy, List Style Blog Posts
According to Huffington Post, Google is coded to run according to an algorithm which filters results based on accuracy and relevance, and leads the user to the most closely matched, most relevant (and local) search landing pages. Because of this, list articles consistently float to the top of your Google search bar.
Think about it: when you are overwhelmed by a busy day, an easy way to relieve some of the mental pressure is to make a list with clear steps to help you achieve your goals. Similarly, list style articles must be relevant, easy to follow, and should encourage your reader to take action. Once the reader has perused your content, they should feel motivated to buy your products, solicit your services, or to follow the goals your content inspires.
Improve Your Long Form Content
You may be thinking: “This makes no sense, you just told me to write more lists, and those are short!” Different formatting types will appeal to different readers. For this reason, it is crucial to master content creation that will attract the broadest of audiences – in this case, both types of content work.
Although there is no “magic blog length” that will most effectively boost your SEO, challenge yourself to sprinkle in a few longer pieces. Think about topics your audience is genuinely interested in. You may be pleasantly surprised with your conversion results.
If You Want to Sell Stuff
While breaking out of the pack from a thought leadership, for some businessess, selling products will always be the most important indicaor of success for the holidays. Here are a few simple ways to sell more products, goods, or services during Q4.
Cultivate Better Landing Pages
Are you banking on the most important aspect to your high performing landing page to be length? Think again. Although the breath of your landing page does impact your conversion rate (the average attention span is six seconds), there are pros and cons to both lengths. The key to a good landing page is keeping your content effective, and to not bombard your audience with too much “fluff.”
Find a key piece of media that pops, and make it the focal point of the page. Does your company branding have a distinct color palette? Use one of the shades as a page background. Have some awesome product reviews come in recently? Dress them up in an eye-catching font and make them front-and-center on your page. Have a killer video from a recent digital marketing campaign? Post it on your social media pages and link it to a relevant point on your landing page. The holidays are coming, but that does not mean your SEO holiday strategy needs to suffer.
Keep Your Digital Content Authentic and Encourage Organic Consumer Involvement
The newest generation of consumers is drawn to authenticity and user generated content. More and more companies are working with real people to promote their brands, and consumers are eating it up.
By putting a portion of your marketing budget toward influencers, you are getting your products in front of a relevant audience, using a vessel they are already comfortable with. This serves a double purpose and boosts your SEO services without requiring a large portion of your budget.
Forbes speaks of influencer marketing as a powerful tool, with the potential to be either wonderfully authentic or deceiving. If this is a marketing strategy you choose to use, make sure you know your audience, trust your brand, and can rely on your marketers to not fall flat on content creation over the holidays.
The best way to connect with your audience to involve them in your content creation this holiday season. Posting on your instagram about the company Christmas party? Add a caption asking your audience how they celebrate the holiday. Building a holiday playlist? Turn to your Twitter fam to contribute their favorite song. Better yet, host a holiday fundraiser and point people to your website to get involved.
Take on the Holidays with Snap
No matter what approach you take to tackling this season’s holiday SEO strategies, build in time to work ahead of the craziness, and to ensure you have a plan to keep your social media and content creation relevant over this holiday season. Need help with this? Give us a call to take the next step in your digital marketing.