SEO Checklist: Getting Ready For The Holidays

As the holiday season approaches, that only means one thing for your e-commerce website: more traffic and more sales. However, are you as prepared as you should be for this lucrative time of year? According to the National Retail Federation, online holiday sales should grow by about eight to nine percent in 2024 compared to 2023. That equates to around $980 billion overall.

If you want a piece of that massive pie, you need to prepare for Cyber Monday & Black Friday by following these SEO tips. Now is the perfect time to get your website set up to process as many sales as possible through the end of the year. So, let’s dive into some actionable e-commerce SEO solutions.

Holiday Checklist: Preparing Your E-Commerce Website

At first, updating your site to make it more “holiday friendly” can seem overwhelming, especially if it’s your first year in the e-commerce space. However, it’s imperative to break down your tasks one by one so that they’re more manageable and easier to complete. For many entrepreneurs, making a checklist is the best way to stay on top of everything. Here are some quick and easy Cyber Monday & Black Friday SEO tips:

• Start Early
• Make Landing Pages With Seasonal Content
• Use Deals and Discounts to Drive Traffic
• Don’t Forget Technical SEO
• Start Implementing Holiday SEO Strategies Year-Round

Let’s break down each step on this list and what you should be doing.

1. Make Big Changes Early

Ideally, the best time to start updating your site for the holiday season is during the summer, when traffic may be relatively light and there aren’t any big dates to work into your marketing schedule. However, even if you’re starting in the middle of the season (e.g., close to or post-Halloween), don’t worry. There’s still time to make big changes to your site to get it ready for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas.

What are these changes? Well, it depends on where your site is currently and what you want to achieve during the holiday season. For example, maybe you want to focus on top-selling items and drive most of your traffic to the top five or six products in your inventory. Alternatively, maybe your goal is to promote holiday-themed products and accessories.

Once you have a primary goal in mind (outside of just “selling more”), you can start to align your e-commerce site to deliver on your expectations. The sooner you start making these adjustments, the better. You don’t want to be updating pages or technical SEO elements the day before Thanksgiving (if possible).

Also, don’t forget to double-check all updates on different computers and mobile devices to ensure everything is running smoothly.

2. Holiday Landing Pages for Seasonal Success

Consumers already expect retailers to pull out all the stops for the holiday season, so you must cater to those expectations. Holiday landing pages should feature keywords like “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” to help grab as much of that traffic as possible. If you already have holiday pages from previous years, make sure to update them for the current year and focus on your current best-selling products.

Even your calls-to-action should be holiday-themed whenever possible. This lets your customers know that any deals or promotions are temporary and bound to end after New Year’s.

To get started, look at ads from other retailers to see what they’re doing. You can also run A/B tests to determine which layout, color scheme, and text works best to improve your click-through and engagement rates.

3. How to Drive Traffic With Deals

Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are a given at this point, so you really have no choice but to offer some kind of special pricing for these days. Since everyone else is doing it, you don’t want to miss out by sending traffic to the competition. But you also have to do more than just discount your most popular items. Some tips and tricks for maximizing traffic with holiday deals include:

• Fear of Missing Out – Show how many items are in stock and notify customers if a particular product is almost sold out. This lets visitors know they must act fast to get the best deal.
• Time-Sensitive Discounts – Rather than discounting all products throughout the holiday season, create a specific timeline for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (e.g., a 24-hour sale). Even better, you can give subscribers or loyal customers early access to these deals, helping boost your mailing list for the rest of the year.
• Social Proof – When people see others buying the same product, they’re more likely to do the same. If possible, set up a notification bar that shares whenever someone buys a particular item.

4. Technical SEO Preparations

As you’re making changes and updating your e-commerce site, don’t forget the technical aspects of SEO. Run a website audit after each significant update to ensure that your landing pages still rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). If anything pops up, fix it before moving on to the next stage.

Also, run through and verify that all of your meta tags and titles are consistent and keyword-rich. Even if you have a lot of work to do to get ready, that’s no excuse for sloppy SEO execution.

5. Continued SEO for Year-Round Success

As you refine your holiday SEO strategies, many of these tactics can work to boost sales year-round. Best of all, if you capture more traffic during the holidays, you can increase your brand recognition and build a stronger customer network into the new year and beyond.

Also, take advantage of your increased traffic by looking at the data once the holidays are over. Pay attention to the tactics that had the most impact and which ones were duds. This way, you can customize your strategy next year and outperform your sales goals accordingly. Fortunately, many analytics tools exist to help you make informed, data-driven decisions about your business and marketing plan.

Let CSP Supercharge Your Holiday SEO Strategies

When it comes to e-commerce SEO, CSP knows what it takes to supercharge your business and boost sales. Whether you are looking for holiday SEO help or want to dominate the SERP year-round, CSP’s professional services can help you achieve your e-commerce goals.