Peak shopping periods like Black Friday, Halloween, Christmas, and other holidays attract millions of shoppers online.
They also present prime opportunities for ecommerce and retail brands to drive incremental revenue and traffic for the holiday season.
According to the NRF, the 2024 holiday forecast is consistent with its forecast that annual sales for 2024 will be between 2.5% and 3.5% over 2023. Some noteworthy mentions:
One differentiating characteristic from last year’s holiday shopping season is that the shopping period between Thanksgiving and Christmas will be six days shorter, totaling 26 days. Additional contributing factors this year could include the economic impact of Hurricanes Helene and Milton; even though the 2024 U.S. presidential election will take place during the winter holiday season, it is impossible to measure its impact on current or future spending.
Screenshot from NRF.com, October 2024
According to Statista, in the U.S., a lot of holiday consumers intend to buy products for 2024 for the holiday celebration, with 97% for Halloween, 92% for Thanksgiving, and 96% for Christmas.
Screenshot from Statista, October 2024
Since sales are expected to be up year over year, what are the best ways to optimize your site for the holidays? When should you start, and what should you do? Let’s explore.
SEO Tips For Optimizing Your Ecommerce Website
Plan Ahead
One of the most important aspects of optimizing your site for the holidays is planning.
If you build landing pages now for Christmas and expect them to rank for competitive terms, it won’t happen.
Always build out your content calendar in advance (i.e., two to three months or more ahead of time).
Make sure you do your keyword research and start planning which content you need to create, get approvals for, deploy, etc.
Use Evergreen URLs
Create reusable URLs for promotions that you can use year after year. You can mention the date or year in the page title or copy and then change it each year, but don’t use it in the URL.
I can’t tell you that, in my 20 years of doing SEO, I saw a lot of big brands make the mistake of either taking down their landing pages or adding the year to their landing page URL for seasonal products.
The good news is that most big box retailers are doing this correctly now.
For example, Target has a dedicated landing page for its Thanksgiving TV deal at https://www.target.com/s/samsung+tv+deals+thanksgiving.
Now, if it were to put in a year, it would have to redirect the page every year, but it is following a good SEO strategy. This allows the pages to age, secure links, build authority, and be used for internal links.
Screenshot from Target.com, October 2024
Prepare For AI Overviews
We live in a world where AI has changed user behavior, and people ask questions about your brand and our product.
Screenshot from search for [plasma TV], Google, October 2024Make sure your site is optimized for AI Overviews and follows best practices:
Follow Google’s Search Essentials Guide.
Support and expand on the information in AI Overviews.
Target long-tail information queries.
Make sure the content is relevant and answers questions.
Format the content structure.
Keep content fresh and updated.
Blend SEO And PPC Strategy
Unfortunately, SEO keeps getting pushed down further and further down the page.
You must work with your paid search team to build a blended strategy for ranking competitive keywords and owning the entire SERP.
For example, a search for [what is the best TV to buy for thanksgiving] has transactional intent. The SERPs show sponsored listings first, followed by videos and People Also Ask (PAA).
Having both a paid ad and ranking organically is key to capturing more clicks and potential sales.
Paid search can also create holiday-themed ad campaigns targeting your trophy keywords and drive more sales.
Build out content that uses the PAA strategy. This feature in the Google SERPs provides end users with additional questions related to their search query and quick answers.
Don’t Forget About Reddit
Reddit has been showing up in the SERPS for questions regarding holiday queries.
This represents an opportunity to get in front of your target audience, so make sure to follow Reddit’s best practices, which include:
Identify relevant subreddits related to your products (e.g., r/Gift ideas).
Avoid self-promotion and engage with the community.
Share relevant content, optimize, and monitor performance.
Post, network, build relationships, and participate in discussions.
Screenshot from search for [holiday gift ideas], Google, October 2024
Optimize Speed And Performance
Make sure your site is optimized for mobile devices, loads as quickly as possible – preferably under 3 seconds – and passes Core Web Vitals.
It’s important from a user experience perspective, especially because most shopping will be done using a mobile device. Avoid big holiday hero images, interstitials, etc.
Offer Holiday Gift Guides And Promotions
Display promotions on your homepage to drive incremental clicks and sales.
If you had holiday pages from last year, you might want to refresh the content so that you can update it in time for the holiday season with new and popular products, seasonal messaging, and images.
Use Holiday-Specific Keywords In Product Descriptions
Product descriptions are especially important and can improve your ecommerce site’s visibility during the holiday shopping season.
Using relevant holiday keywords can help your products appear in holiday-related research and make them more appealing to shoppers looking for relevant products.