Are you SEO ready for Xmas?

All over the world we are spending more and more money buying items from online shops. Did you know that in 2011 shoppers were planning to spend an average of 704 dollars on gift and seasonal items.

And online shoppers will spend about 22 percent more than shoppers in real physical shops. Take a look at this great Infogrphic from the guys at Outright.com. (Click on the image to see it larger)

How to speed up your Xmas sale

To speed up your Xmas sale you will need to check out last year top selling products from your shop. Write down a list of the top10 in each category.

With this list you can try to get theses products ranking as you can the last couple of months before Xmas. So you will have to work for your Xmas sale maybe 2 to 4 months before Xmas right?

And be sure you have items enough for your Xmas sale – you don’t want to run out of stock in December right? I was just reading about LEGO they can’t produce as much as they can sell right now.

Research your keywords

Now it’s time for a little keyword research. Use the Google Keyword Tool and check out the Xmas keywords for your business. Let’s say you are selling “cameras”. Type in “Xmas camera” and you will see a lot of other keywords that might good to use for your Xmas SEO. Maybe make a page for the keywords “Christmas gift ideas”.

So in the last 2 to 4 months you will have to create special pages, to build links to your new pages with blog posts, press releases, maybe create an Infographic (I hope you like the Infographic in this article). All this takes time so be sure you have enough time to optimize for Xmas.

Some Dos and Don’ts for Xmas SEO

Here are some more ideas you can do to be Xmas ready

• Send out targeted email campaigns
• Add products to your shop which will appeal to people as great gifts
• Be sure you promote the gift items on your homepage. If I was selling an SEO book I would promote it as “a great gift for all SEO people”
• Remember to use your Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts for promotion your offers and campaigns – and remember to interact with your potential customer
• Increase your Xmas sale with coupons and vouchers
• You should create new ad groups in your PPC campaigns where you can focus on Xmas gifts (don’t use or change your normal ad groups)
• Offer something extra for your customers – like a free gift Xmas wrapping or free shipment just in December (this could speed up the sale)
• Show the customers that they can order a “Shipping to a different address” and that the prices will not be displayed.

But there are also some Don’ts

• Don’t change your H1 tags (Xmas should not have a negative effect on your ranking)
• Don’t change all your home page content to one big Xmas homepage (and be careful with your content because of your SEO ranking)
• Don’t make any major updates or make a new website at Xmas time.
• No no no… don’t replace all your text with a Xmas banner (because of SEO)

From all of us to all of you – Merry Xmas

Henrik