If you don't yet have a Google My Business page, read this and create one.
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If you don't yet have a Google My Business page, read this and create one.
If you schedule special hours for an official holiday, users will be told that those hours are scheduled specifically for the holiday. If you don't provide special hours for these days on Google My Business, users on Maps and Search will be warned that the location's hours may differ on designated holidays.
Set special hours on your Google My Business page by signing into Google My Business and following these instructions:
It's extremely important that your Business Name, Address and Phone number is accurate and updated across all listings:
This is a surefire way to get people visiting your store.
Branded Instagram hashtags are a great way to help spread the word about your business, find content created about you by your followers, and, of course, promote holiday campaigns!
A branded hashtag is a hashtag that’s unique to your business. It can be as simple as your company name, tagline, or the name of one of your products or campaigns. Or it can be a hashtag that has nothing to do with your brand name, but is linked to your brand identity.
Examples:
If you offer exclusive discounts to those who follow you on social media, you'll get higher engagement and be able to attract those people who are looking for some discount holiday shopping.
See some examples below:
If you add your site to Google Search Console, they will provide you with data such as what people are searching for in order to land on your website, you can see traffic numbers and what channels (social, e-mail, etc) are giving you the most visitors, among many other things!
See more about why it's important and how to get started here.
You can also install Bing Webmaster Tools.
Installing a web analytics tool (like Google Analytics) is also critical for recording and measuring website performance and conversion rates.
Google Analytics even has a handy feature for setting up goals to track how much each conversion is worth for your business.
Consider doing heatmap testing on your site; you can see where people click the most, and you can use that data to improve your pages for the next holiday season.
This is one for the more traffic heavy sites, but if you want to really see what users are doing on your website, you can use a heatmap tracking tool like CrazyEgg.
If you just want to try it out and aren't looking to spend on a feature like this, use Heatmap.
If you already have Google Analytics for your website (and use the Chrome browser), then you can go an even easier route and just get the Page Analytics add-on for Chrome.
Identifying well performing content means knowing which pages and blog posts of yours attract the most visitors and even convert them.
To do this, it's best to have a Google Analytics account connected to your website. If you don't have it, there are also ways you can check where your efforts are paying off:
Once you have a good idea of your top performing pages and content, you can hijack them. Instead of creating a brand new page, you can update your best content to include relevant information on your holiday promos, products and gift guides.
The Big Picture
When thinking about keywords and key-phrases, think about the bigger picture - the theme of your words and content. In short, this means creating content for visitors a every step of your sales funnel.
There are 3 broad steps in this funnel:
What would content for each of these steps look like?
So, now that you know within what kind of content you need to use you keywords in, how will you pick them?
Google Trends will tell you the popularity of a search term globally or by country. You can see how around Christmas time, gift related keywords surge.
For instance, if I had a US-based site that sold unique items that are Made in the USA, I can see that during November and December the searches for this term have increased, so I would create content around this keyword "Gifts Made in the USA".
LSI Graph will give you keyword ideas around a single theme, so you can cover all possible aspects of a topic in your content.
If I sold handmade items, I could make a gift guide called "Christmas Gift Ideas for my Girlfriend", and then LSI shows me that I could also include these keywords in my content:
The possibilities are endless, and you can mix keywords that you already rank well for, keywords that are related to your products, and general christmas and holiday themed keywords to cover all your bases.
Don't know what keywords to pick? Get your FREE 10 day trial of MarketGoo and you can get suggested keywords from a real person as well as real-time and daily diagnostics of your site's SEO issues - and how to fix them step by step.
A landing page is any web page that a visitor can arrive at or “land” on. To be more specific, it usually refers to a standalone web page distinct from your main website that has been designed for a single focused objective, in this case, getting shoppers to buy from your online business or ask you for more information.
You can use Google Posts to speak directly to current or potential customers in real time, for instance you can share:
By using this Google feature, you can increase your chances of being included in search results.
Keep in mind:
Google Posts can be created directly in the Google My Business (GMB) platform, either on desktop or the Android and iOS apps.
If you have multiple business listings in GMB, you will need to create a post for a single location. Should you wish to have the post for all locations, you will need to create a separate Google Post for each local business listing.
Blogs are critical components of your content strategy, and each different blog post represents a different opportunity to use one of the Holiday keywords or keyphrases you have chosen.
If you haven't yet started blogging, there is a chance your posts won't achieve high levels of traffic by Christmas, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't start.
It’s one thing to proofread your content, but do yourself (and your users) a huge favour and check that the links in your website both work and go somewhere meaningful.
You can see if you have any broken links in your Free SEO Report, and if you want even more in depth backlink analysis you can use a tool like Monitor Backlinks.
Correct any broken or irrelevant links as soon as possible.
Next, you should check that your website works in multiple browsers. Record the browsers tested in the form field below.
If you're planning to e-mail your subscribers, clients and any leads, test that your emails are coming through from your various contact and signup forms.
If you haven't thought about e-mailing these groups and you are sitting on e-mail addresses that have been provided to you, think about sending an inaugural e-mail blast during the holidays.
The cardinal rule is to always provide value when you send e-mails. Don't make it all about yourself and why you want readers to buy from you. Offer them discounts, tips on holiday shopping with you and promote your most useful blog posts.
If you don't have an email solution yet, below are 2 great solutions that have free plans:
Social: