It’s never too early to start planning for the most wonderful time of the year. So, if you have an online business, start thinking about the Christmas holiday shopping season already!
Ranking on Google isn’t something you do overnight. That is why it’s never too early to start. Remember, the end of the year is approaching rapidly. Don’t forget, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are kicking off this year’s holiday shopping season next month. You can set up a lot of content for all occasions. Here, we’ll go over some things you can do to get prepared!
The festive season is still not the same in 2021
As with everything else in 2021, the holiday shopping season will still be different. The past year was tough on everybody with COVID-19 spreading across the planet. And while it looks better in a lot of places it might still take some time for things to return to ‘normal’. People are concerned about the future. Many have lost their jobs. As such, it’s hard to predict what will happen exactly, making it hard to plan for.
While shops are emerging in most places now we’re into post-lockdown, it looks like a large part of your audience will still be content with shopping online. Last year, online shopping reached new heights. Well, that trend isn’t slowing down any time soon. So prepare for a holiday shopping season that’ll be an online event for many.
This year, most retailers likely will continue to offer the best deals online. This is because shops would want to prevent vast gatherings of people hunting for that one exclusive deal. Of course, in-store or curbside pick-up will prove popular.
So, if you don’t need to have people come to your store on a specific day, why not extend the online deals for a few days? Don’t be surprised when the holiday shopping season starts well before Black Friday and keeps going for weeks. This makes sense because if you want to get those people to your stores spreading these over a more extended period would be good.
If anything, don’t forget that shoppers will do most of their shopping — or preparations for that — online. In any case, it isn’t getting any easier!
Start preparing early, i.e. now!
As previously mentioned, it takes a while for content to rank. So take that into account. A safe amount of time that’s often suggested is 45 days. Of course, you can always start preparing earlier. But to keep up with the competition, try to get your content in gear at least 45 days ahead. Dive into the data you amassed during previous Black Friday events and see if you can come up with improvements to make. Once you’re on track, your schedule could look like this:
- 45 Days prior: Post your promotion to your website calendar and post a save-the-date post on social media and in your email newsletter.
- 7 Days prior: Post an upcoming events/promotions post to social media and via email. T
- 1 Day prior: Post a reminder event post on social media.
These steps and time frames are a good rule of thumb. But we think you can do a lot more in setting up new pages and renewing old ones. Let’s look at a few practical tips.
1. Set Up Content for the Holiday Season
First, you need to consider what category or particular landing pages make sense for the upcoming holidays for your website. On your Top4 page, you can always set up posts like ‘Best gifts for fathers/girls/teens’, ‘Newest deals for your 6/10/12-year-old’, ‘Best mum/friend/grandparents discounts’ or even think along the lines of ‘Top 10 gifts for outdoor/skiing/parasailing enthusiasts’ and ‘Top 3 deals for stay-at-home moms/dads/etcetera’. These are just to name a few. Maximise Top4’s features like the Article Post module and Promotions to set up this content.
Make sure these gift landing or category pages, the page title and the meta description fit the upcoming holiday season. You can re-use the gift content for Valentine’s Day and your summer sale. Find (old) content that fits the holidays, rewrite titles and meta descriptions to match the upcoming season. It’s the smart thing to do as chances are you won’t have to do that much work to get them up to date.
To increase the chances of your gift pages to rank, boost their internal linking structure. You can also link the previous all-year holiday season pages, such as specific Christmas landing pages (‘Top [insert number] gifts for under the Christmas tree’) to boost these when the time has come. That could be around the 45-day mark but stretching that to 60 days wouldn’t hurt. There has to be enough time for Google and other search engines to follow your links and find your specific holiday season landing pages in time.
2. Promote on Social Media
Social media like Twitter and Pinterest (though this one is technically a visual search engine) can play a massive role in the success of your (online) holiday sale. Take Pinterest, for instance. Raise your hand if you or your spouse has a Pinterest wish list? It’s okay, no judgement. Many people have that. Your goal here is to get your products on people’s wish lists. If you manage to do that, it can positively impact your sales.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to share your holiday season gifts pages on Facebook and Instagram as well. Recall the top 10 lists we have mentioned earlier. We all know these still work pretty well on social media. Leverage Top4’s ample features like
Similarly, we’d recommend setting up holiday gift guides. And of course, don’t forget to share them. Create an excellent overview for all kinds of gifts for many people. ELLE has a page like that and so do many other companies.
Last but not least, don’t forget your email marketing! For many companies, newsletters provide a steady stream of income. Be sure to plan a good campaign for your newsletters.
3. Launch New Products
The holiday season is an excellent time to pitch new products. If you know of potential best-sellers for the upcoming holiday season, be sure to start writing content about these products now. Think about how tech sites write about concept iPhones, features that Apple might add and things like that.
Don’t forget to add these products to your Top4 microsite. Be sure to write proper product descriptions and make sure to improve the product images.
The more you write about new products upfront, the more likely the sales pages for these products will rank when it matters. You should link all pages you made in advance to that one main page you’ll set up when the product is released and available to buy. Treat that page like cornerstone content.
4. Prioritise for Speed and Mobile
It’s a good idea to check and optimise your website for speed and mobile. These are recommendations you’ll get from an SEO blog or consultant, every day, all day. Mobile, site speed and user experience, in general, are becoming more important every year (or even day, for that matter). When preparing your website for the holiday season, this is a good time as any to re-check your mobile website and site speed and update or improve these, if possible. As a start, look at Google’s new Core Web Vitals and use these to improve your site.
If you’re all set, don’t forget to make a measurement plan so you can analyse your success. Write down all your plans and think about how to track all your actions. This is key if you want to know what to focus on next year.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, no time like the present to roll up your sleeves and start writing holiday gift pages and content on new products. And to begin planning your social media promotion and analytics. You can never start too early when your online business depends on the holiday season.
These practical tips can pave the way for a better shopping season for your company. But when the holiday season is over, you need to start working on a plan for the next year.
To find out how we can help you with your Website + Marketing, using our unique location marketing platform called Top4, get in touch today at www.top4marketing.com
Looking to build customer loyalty through social media? Don’t forget to add your business to Top4.com.au
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