As Thanksgiving looms and Christmas is around the corner, countries that celebrate the Fall festivals (any festival between October and December) will be gearing up for mass-market sales, promotions and shopping galore. From Christmas gifts to fancy suits and everything in between, now is the perfect time for eCommerce website owners to optimise their SEO and create strategies that boost your search traffic.

As our recent blog on Black Friday and Cyber Monday eCommerce strategies explored, now is the time to practice for big winter sales, Christmas booms and Boxing Day returns. But one area that many eCommerce sites forget to focus on at this time – distracted by all the hectic online sales, shipping mishaps and inventory chaos – is the SEO strategy for the holiday season.

Focusing on your SEO is proven to boost website traffic and increase sales conversions more than any other on-site adjustment. No matter how many promotions you share on your homepage, if your SEO is not optimised, people will not be seeing them anyway. 

According to HubSpot, 49% of a website’s traffic begins with an organic search query. That’s why search engine optimisation (SEO) is so important. When you focus on your website’s SEO, you increase your online rankings so that when your new inventory is ready to be sold, your potential customers have already discovered your website. 

However, staying on top of SEO takes a lot of research and experimentation. Google’s algorithms are frequently updated, so it’s essential to stay tuned into the latest news. Alternatively, you can employ the skills of a UK digital marketing agency to take care of the continually updating landscape and ensure you’re always at the top of the hill when algorithms change, market trends flip-flop and target audiences falter. 

Your website content must always satisfy the search engines’ algorithms; however, it must also maintain good readability for your visitors to understand. 

When SEO is done right, a copywriter can infuse content with high-performance keywords centred around the seasonal inventory you will be selling. Targeting the trending keywords and unique elements of your product helps you stand out in Google while still appearing when even the most common of search terms are entered into the search bar.

Up-to-date copy, metadata, and product descriptions are all things that both people and search engines want to see on your website. If your website copy hasn’t changed in the last few years, or no blog articles have been posted in the previous month or two, you must consider the possibility that you have dropped in the SEO rankings. 

Tweaking your current content to promote your upcoming inventory and any new services you’ve implemented is key, especially during the holiday season. 

Another element to be aware of is your website’s performance. Although not directly related to SEO, if your website navigation is difficult for visitors, then you’ll lose conversions instantly. SEO and website functionality play a close dance, informing the user and taking them to the sales basket in the most efficient and user-friendly way possible. When one fails, the other usually cannot compensate enough, leaving you out of luck in the busiest months of the eCommerce year. 

SEO is a forever ongoing requirement for successful websites and eCommerce stores. As search engines continually update their algorithms and consumer needs change, you must be on the ball to react to these changes, keep your website on page one and maintain a healthy customer conversion rate. 

Expert eCommerce consultancy, Myk Baxter Marketing, based in North East UK, performs month-to-month optimisation of your website, so you can continue to meet search engine requirements and appeal to new and returning online visitors without delay. Sometimes it’s easier to leave it to the professionals and focus your time on developing your business, building your brand name and planning your next promotion or inventing your next world-famous product. 

Our advice: Don’t let SEO hold you back and get the professionals in to help.