Mistake #6: Lack Of High-Quality Content
If you’re a brand with thousands or millions of pages or working on a small team, you have a lot on your plate and may rush to create holiday content.
Rushing content just to get it out there may result in low-quality content that does not demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
Additionally, if you do not have high-quality content that is people first, you run the risk of getting hit by a core algorithm update.
The Solution
Create comprehensive gift guides that are unique and offer value to end users. For example, you can break down gift guides for men, women, kids, grandparents, etc.
Develop unique product descriptions that are different from those of your competitors.
Oftentimes, when a brand sells the same product as competitors, the product description is identical. Search what questions people ask about that product and include it in your descriptions or your page.
Update existing content with fresh information, surveys, information, and links or mentions to high-authoritative sites. Always create people-first content that is helpful and useful as opposed to creating content that is not natural.
Prioritize and plan. You may not get to everything, but if you can cover off on the biggest money makers, you will be in decent shape if you move the needle and drive high-quality traffic that converts.
Conduct keyword research and competitor analysis to help inform content strategy.
Speak to the current year and relevant trends in your holiday SEO content, like “2024 Best Holiday Gifts.”
Mistake #7: Technical SEO Oversight
We all know mistakes can happen, especially during holidays, when you get a lot of traffic.
The Solution
Have an always-on technical approach. Monitor and optimize site speed.
If you see that your top product page loads slowly, try to fix it right away to drive more sales and traffic.
Implement product and breadcrumb schema on your holiday products to give Google more information about your content.
Ensure proper handling of out-of-stock items so customers know what to expect and when the items will be back in stock.
If you have 404 error pages, fix them, make sure the URLs are 200, and load the content people came to your site for.
Mistake #8: Poor Internal Linking Strategy
Internal linking is essential during this season and can reinforce important pages, especially holiday-specific pages and promotions.
The Solution
Create a holiday hub page and update navigation to feature seasonal categories that do not change.
Mark it up using breadcrumb schema, so Google will understand your site navigation.
Have strong CTAs to drive more traffic and sales of your products, especially if you’re using discounts, e.g., Unlock 30% off just for you!
You may also link between holiday-related content. For example, red baseball hats can have an internal link to pink baseball hats because they are close enough in color.
Mistake #9: Ignoring Historical Data
Not utilizing last year’s data to inform your current holiday SEO strategy could lead to missed opportunities.
The Solution
Analyze last year’s top-performing pages using Google Analytics 4 or other analytics tools. This will help you prioritize your SEO efforts.
Review historical keyword trends. Make sure you have the content and assets to be relevant for those terms this year.
Identify successful promotional strategies used last year that you can incorporate this year to drive better engagement and more sales.
Use analytics data to predict inventory demands and have a strategy for out-of-stock items or a surge in sales.
Mistake #10: Inadequate Performance Monitoring
Some websites do not have proper tracking set up for the holiday season.
We all know that GA4 is cumbersome, so work with your analytics team to make sure GA4 is set up correctly, tracking events and attributing correctly to organic research.
The Solution
Conduct an analytics audit and data review with your team. Track performance metrics, monitor competitors’ activities, test your content, and have a plan in place for traffic spokes.
Mistake #11: Poor Mobile Optimization
With the majority of U.S. consumers using their mobile phones to shop on Amazon and other big box retailers, having a poorly optimized mobile site can hurt rankings and conversions.
The Solution
Make sure your site is optimized, provides a good mobile experience, loads quickly, and has a quick and easy checkout process.
Wrapping Up
With the holidays approaching, early planning is critical to SEO success.
Optimize for mobile and local, and make sure your site has a strong technical foundation.
Build out high-quality, people-first content that is helpful, and use historical data to predict trends from the previous year.
SEO is not about rankings; it’s about providing users with useful content and a seamless user experience. Adopting these strategies will help convert seasonal traffic into sales while building long-term SEO value for your site.
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