How To Optimize Your Website For Specific Holidays Or Occasions To Drive Seasonal Traffic

During this time of year, shoppers are seeking unique gifts that are perfect for the holiday season.

It's not just Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas that drive shopping habits, but also Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and Ōmisoka. And let's not forget about Orthodox Christmas and Lunar New Year once the new year begins, followed by Valentine's Day, Easter, and Eid al-Fitr to celebrate the end of Ramadan. There are so many joyful celebrations to look forward to!

Seasonal traffic is a great way to bring in new customers or add benefits for existing ones. A few simple steps can help ensure your website appears prominently in search results when users are looking for products related to specific festive seasons.

Here’s how to optimize your website for specific holidays or occasions to drive seasonal traffic.

Create Seasonal SEO Strategies

Whether you want to take advantage of the spending spree known as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or you’re looking ahead to other holidays, tailor your content to appeal to seasonal shoppers.

Generate blog posts, video content, and social media posts around gift ideas or holiday customs. Build gift-giving guides, create sales or deals specific to the holiday season, and include keywords in your content that are relevant to the different targeted celebrations. You don’t have to start from scratch, either—you can repurpose existing content, including relevant holiday keywords, sales and deal information to make the most of your efforts and maximize value.

Ensure A Quality User Experience

You need to be ready when your website gets that spike in traffic. A bad user experience lowers your conversion rate and drives customers away.

Here are a few tweaks to get customers to stay on your site until they make a purchase:

• Make sure pages load quickly—the number one way is to compress and optimize images.

• Optimize your site for mobile browsing. 

• Introduce holiday sales events by incorporating them into your existing theme and content, or create new holiday content. 

• Make it easy to click and buy—implement one-click buying, or at the very least, make the buying process as simple and intuitive as possible.

Update Product Descriptions

Add some emotional, holiday-related words to your product descriptions—this will help buyers find your site and entice them to make a purchase. Think of it this way: you should create an image for shoppers that lets them picture how much joy your product or service will provide to their gift recipient, or to themselves.

Create Custom Holiday Collections

You can also organize holiday items into one section, collection or landing page. If you’re targeting Christmas shoppers, for instance, you can group all Christmas items on a single webpage. Think about specific holiday bundles you can offer, or seasonal favourites that have sold well in the past. Showcasing holiday products will make it easy for customers to find and buy them. 

We Can Help in Any Season

Need some more help? Searchlight Digital can make sure your website is found at any time of year—including holiday seasons. We provide comprehensive search engine marketing services, including search engine optimization, copywriting, content strategy, blog writing, and consulting—all delivered with transparency and integrity. Are you ready to take your business to the next level?

Contact us today to book your free 30 minute consultation!