You may be thinking, it’s only October — why would I begin preparing my business for the holiday season now? But for many small businesses, holiday season preparation begins several months before the holiday season — planning sales and promotions, creating marketing plans and designing marketing materials, and even enhancing their website’s search engine optimization with the holiday season in mind. As web designers, search engine optimization is a core piece of our process; we keep search engine optimization in mind every step of the way, to better ensure our clients’ businesses are seamlessly discovered. That’s why, today, we’re going to share how you can optimize your website for search engines in preparation for the holiday season.

Boosting SEO for the Holiday Season

Welcome to Episode 184 of The Brand It, Build It Podcast: Boosting SEO for the Holiday Season. For many small businesses, the holiday season is a season of sales, promotions, marketing, and more. With many customers and clients who wait for and plan for holiday sales, it’s essential for your small business to begin planning and preparing for a successful holiday season sooner rather than later. Today, we want to share a handful of ways you can optimize your website for search engines in preparation for the holiday season.

1. First, plan your holiday sale. Whether you plan to offer a percentage off or a dollar amount off of your original prices, it’s important to confidently and firmly plan your holiday sale. Finding clarity surrounding your desired sale will help you to communicate clearly about your holiday sale, compose your website’s copywriting with clarity, and create easy-to-understand marketing materials, too.
2. Determine keywords or keyphrases your customers or clients are looking for. What keywords or keyphrases would prospective customers or prospective clients search for to come upon your business and your offerings? A few examples are: Holiday family photoshoots in Chicago, online holiday workshops in 2023, or winter 2023 tablescape ideas. Determine the keywords or keyphrases prospective customers or clients would search for to come upon your unique content.
3. Infuse keywords and keyphrases within your content. Use your chosen keywords and keyphrases within your website’s copywriting and within any SEO resources you use on behalf of your website. If applicable, use your keywords and keyphrases within sales pages, product descriptions, blog posts, and wherever relevant.
4. Review your website for user-friendliness. Strong search engine optimization is about more than including keywords within your website. An easy-to-navigate, engaging, user-friendly website also makes a meaningful difference for search engine optimization, because user-friendliness keeps visitors engaged with your website, enhances their experience, and increases the likelihood of conversions — of your prospective customers making a purchase or prospective clients booking a service.
5. Optimize for mobile devices. Just like creating a user-friendly experience makes a meaningful difference for search engine optimization, so does ensuring your website has been optimized for mobile devices. Consider whether your website offers the same great experience between both desktop and mobile.
6. Create a sound marketing plan. Search engine optimization is made up of a variety of factors, a few of which we’ve discussed so far. Another factor involves the number of high-quality visitors your website receives. As a result, marketing your business and sharing your website via social media and your newsletter also help to enhance your search engine optimization. Create a plan you can stick to — a certain number and type of social media posts per day or per week, and a certain number of newsletters per week. When you create a strong marketing plan, you can bring visitors to your website more consistently — building brand awareness and engaging your audience with purpose.
7. Monitor your SEO. SEO is a dynamic process. Monitor your website’s performance using analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Wincher.

Holiday-ready search engine optimization is about attracting and delighting prospective customers and clients. By optimizing your website’s content and structure, creating a user-friendly experience, optimizing for mobile devices, creating a sound marketing plan, and monitoring and refining your SEO, you can rank higher in search results and welcome more organic traffic. Thanks for tuning in!

About Brand It, Build It Podcast, Hosted by Kelly Zugay

Hosted by Kelly Zugay, co-founder of With Grace and Gold, The Brand It, Build It Podcast is a leading small business marketing podcast for small business owners, creatives, and founders. Weekly, brief, actionable episodes will equip you to build a successful, sustainable small business. Since 2014, With Grace and Gold has provided award-winning custom brand and Showit web design and completely customizable Showit website templates for small businesses worldwide.