SEO, like technology as a whole, is constantly changing and being reinvented.
There’s no reason to ever see your SEO projects as “finished,” and doing so can mean your site – and business – will stagnate.
A great way to keep your content and business fresh and innovative is to employ seasonal SEO strategies. At its most simplistic, seasonal SEO involves focusing on different facets of your business different times per year. It also includes different timeframes to be aggressive, and which to ease off.
Unsure if seasonal SEO is the right approach for your business? Read on while we get a little more in depth with it below!
What is seasonal SEO?
If you’re already up to speed on regular SEO and you’re comfortable with how it’s constantly in flux, you’ve already got a decent grasp on what seasonal SEO is made up of.
Seasonal SEO uses most of a normal SEO strategy, but you have to take an active approach in keeping up with trends.
Did you know that most search terms and keywords have times of the year where they’re at peak searchability, and times where that dips and plateaus? This is part of a seasonal SEO strategy, and taking it into consideration can help your SEO projects become more dynamic.
There are two types of seasonal SEO strategies to take into consideration. One is time-based, which takes the “seasonal” part of the phrase literally.
Time-based SEO depends on the literal season or an actual timeframe, whether that’s monthly, bimonthly, yearly, and so on.
There’s also event-based SEO, which tends to focus on holidays – both national ones and the ones Hallmark made up for profit. It makes sense that search terms involving “donuts” or “teachers” would spike around National Donut Day or Teacher Appreciation Week, for instance.
If you take these into consideration for your overall SEO projects and strategy, you’ll be able to create content that constantly stays ahead of the game. This can help ensure that your business needs and your content align well and that you’re meeting your customers’ needs.
Additionally, this helps you scoop up more leads and convert them as your site gets more traffic. Then, your rankings may just climb – and that’s what the ultimate goal is, right?
This is absolutely something to keep in mind when your business depends on it. If you have a heater repair company, you likely aren’t seeing much business in the summer months, when it’s hot out.
Therefore, the needs of your business change seasonally, and that needs to be factored in.
Why you need seasonal SEO
If you want long-term success (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) seasonal SEO matters.
Individual seasons, whether they’re quarters or segments created by your company or dictated by the rotation of the earth, need to be factored into your overall business plan.
That might seem obvious, but you might underestimate the speed with which you’ll need to take advantage of seasonal SEO for your SEO projects. Let’s go back to Teacher Appreciation Week.
Let’s go back to Teacher Appreciation Week. The length of that timeframe is evident right in the name: one week. Sure, you’ll have some time to build up and remind your customers that you sell the perfect products for Teacher Appreciation Week, but that’s a very small window.
You need to move quickly to capitalize it. This matters even more when you’re focusing on holiday, particularly one that isn’t national.
It might seem stressful, but seasonal SEO is a fantastic way to take advantage of opportunities for custom content and optimization. Even just focusing on the weather can remind customers that you’re in the present, and you have the perfect product for them.
This is an awesome way to convert leads into sales, and you may even be able to open new streams of revenue.
Generally, you need to be changing up your content and optimizing it for different seasons in order to meet the needs of your customers. This will net you higher conversions, and it’s a strategy that can be used each year.
How to create your seasonal SEO strategy
When you’re planning out your SEO projects for the coming year, it obviously makes sense that you’d want to include a seasonal strategy to boost your sales and convert more leads.
One of the easiest places to start, then, is to look at data from past years.
You can do this with help from Google Analytics or personal data that you’ve accrued. This data can show you shifts in the market, like different spikes and drops, and it can also give you some insight as to when people want certain things.
This is a great starting point because it helps you learn when you need to implement certain strategies. By using your existing performance data, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect when a certain season rolls around.
Additionally, you need to remember that timing is absolutely paramount when it comes to helping out your SEO projects. You need enough time to both develop those projects and time to execute them.
Master SEO execution facets
This means that there are 3 distinct facets to executing your SEO projects.
Gearing up
You need a “gearing up” period at the very beginning. This should start a few months prior to the season you’re anticipating. You want to spread awareness about your brand, so get your social media in tip-top shape and start engaging! You can also take a look at advertising schemes.
Engagement period
After that is your period of engagement. This is the part where your high season has begun and you’re (hopefully) raking in the sales. A great way to take advantage of this period is to offer a sense of urgency. Frame your services as the kind that can take care of a customer’s problems – now.
You can also use this time to give customers information or give them reasons why they might need your product or service than they may have previously anticipated.
Cool-down
Then, after that’s said and done, you’ve got the cool-down. This gives you some room to breathe and some time to shift your SEO projects away from the full-throttle game you’ve been playing up to this point.
During the cool-down, you’ll want to focus your SEO elsewhere, like your other services and products. If this fits the mission of your company, you can also begin to take the same approach in another region of the country.
To ensure that you’re meeting your goals in the short timeframes given, it’s probably a good idea to create a content calendar to help you out during these peak seasons.
By having a content calendar for your SEO projects, you’ll know exactly what needs to be created and executed, and when. It will give you a sense of whether or not you’re behind or you’re ahead of the game. Additionally, it will help you plan for all your web channels to line up with cohesive information and content.
Things to consider
You’ll still need to take care of things like keywords for your seasonal SEO projects. After all, different seasons require different products, and different products require different keywords.
This is a great chance to take advantage of long-tail keywords to make sure your content is super relevant to what your potential customer is looking for.
Additionally, you’ll want to make sure your website is optimized to its full potential – both desktop and mobile.
Your desktop site needs to be sleek and streamlined, with the information organized and easy to read. You need to make sure your call to action is in place, and ensure that your landing page is cleaned up.
For your calls to action specifically, you may want to customize them for the season or the customer. Different seasons allow for different plays on words, so why not have a little fun with it?
Keep your SEO projects chugging along!
When it comes to seasonal SEO projects, the bottom line is that you need to ensure that your customer has the best experience possible, regardless of the time of year.
Remember, your search for different things during different times of the year. You’re not going to search for Christmas trees in the middle of June, are you? Your customers are exactly the same.
Timing is everything when it comes to seasonal SEO. You need to make sure you give yourself and your team ample time to both develop and execute the plans you have in mind.
This involves 3 different timelines for your projects: gearing-up, engagement, and a cool down. Both operate at different speeds, and they give you solid, all-important data that can be utilized the next year. What better way to come up with a gameplan than to follow what already works, right?
If you have questions regarding SEO or Internet marketing, feel free to ask us! We’re the experts.