With the holiday approaching fast, it’s time to go through holiday SEO pitfalls and learn how to avoid and fix them.
Salesforce predicts a 2% year-over-year global sales growth for November and December, totaling $1.19 trillion, with U.S. sales expected to reach $277 billion – also up 2% from last year.
With people holding on to their wallets and watching every penny, you must fight for every dollar.
Make sure you have a solid holiday SEO strategy to win, especially since there are five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas compared to 2023.
Plus, Google is getting more competitive and pushing organic results further down the page.
Mistake #1: Late Planning And Implementation
Some businesses wait until November or December to start building their holiday SEO strategy, which does not leave a lot of time to get new content indexed and ranked.
The Solution
Start holiday SEO planning three to four months in advance.
If you’re planning your holiday content in November and expect to rank in December for “Christmas Holiday gifts” with a brand new page, it is not going to happen. You should build out a page way in advance.
Create a content calendar focusing on your top products, guides, and helpful content. Look at last year’s sales and analytics data to show you what products sold the most and bought in the most revenue.
This will also help your company decide what items you should keep in stock based on previous order history.
Implement technical SEO updates like making sure your pages load as quickly as possible and your shopping cart process is smooth, quick, and easy to add new products or delete old or out-of-stock items.
Use historical data and SEO tools like Exploding Topics and Google Trends to predict trending topics and make sure you have helpful and useful content that is original, unique, and engaging.
Mistake #2: Lack Of An Integrated Strategy
Some businesses rely on organic search as the only channel to bring traffic.
Unfortunately, organic search is getting pushed down the fold due to AI overviews, paid search, and other factors.
In order to be successful, you must have an integrated strategy that works with paid search, social, and video.
Also, start thinking of SEO as “search engine everywhere” to maximize your website’s visibility across all digital marketing channels. This can drive more organic traffic, better visibility, and a consistent brand message, boosting sales and leads across all platforms and customer touchpoints.
The Solution
Get support from relevant stakeholders and decision-makers by showing them data on organic, paid, and how other channels work together to drive performance.
Share data and content plans. If you’re building content and new landing pages, let SEO optimize it, share learnings to incorporate into paid search ad copy, and vice versa. Also, the content should be shared on social channels to drive organic and social performance.
Plus, implement an omnichannel approach to show the value of an integrated strategy.
Mistake #3: Poor URL Structure For Seasonal Content
Some businesses create new URLs every year for holiday content, which is not a recommended practice because you will have to set up redirects, secure backlinks, and gain authority.
The Solution
Use evergreen URLs (e.g., /holiday-gift-guide instead of /holiday-gift-guide-2024), and do not change the URL strategy. Keep it consistent all the time.
Update existing content and landing pages rather than creating new URLs.
Implement 301 redirects from old holiday URLs to new URLs to transfer some equity to the new URLs.
Maintain consistent internal linking structure to reinforce important pages and help search engines understand your site structure.
Mistake #4: Poor Category And Filter Optimization
Do not allow Google and other search engines to index duplicate content from multiple filter combinations and category pages.
The Solution
Use canonical tags to inform Google that this is the specified version of the page or implement robots.txt directives for filtered pages for the search engines to ignore.
Update and optimize your titles and metadata with unique and original content.
Create unique content for the main category pages. Think outside the box and offer content that provides value to end users and meets their intent.
For example, if you have a category page about Christmas gifts for 5-year-olds, make sure you have a video, imagery, and questions that people are asking, and you’re optimized for shopping results since that is a transactional keyword.
For instance, REI does a great job at making sure the filter content has a canonical tag on it.
Screenshot from REI Shop, November 2024
Mistake #5: Not Optimizing For Local
Local searches are particularly important, especially during the holidays, as 42% of Google searches have local intent.
Google places a strong emphasis on local relevance in its search results to provide users with the most helpful information based on their location.
If your local search is not optimized, you’re missing an opportunity to get in front of your local audience during the holiday season when local queries begin to spike.
The Solution
Optimize your local listings and make sure your local assets are filled out with detailed business information, high-quality photos, regular updates, and actively respond to customer reviews.
Update holiday business hours to make sure that customers know when you’re open and when you’re not.
Create location-specific landing pages to give your site a chance to rank for location-based searches (e.g., [Surprise dolls near Fargo North Dakota]).
Optimize local holiday keywords and maintain consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across search engines and directories.
Encourage holiday-specific reviews by asking customers if they like your product or the experience they had shopping at your online store.