Checking your SEO Christmas list
As the busiest time of year for many e-commerce companies, Christmas SEO really does need some extra thought and attention, if you are to make the most of the online spending spree that seems to grip the Western world. Writing a wish list and “posting” it up the chimney to Santa is not the only possible solution, so here are a few other suggestions!
Bring Christmas best sellers to the forefront
Ideally, the planning for your e-commerce Christmas SEO campaign should start much earlier in the year, with a review of what have historically been Christmas best sellers in previous years and what you anticipate will sell best in any new products you may have. These are the items that you want to push to the forefront on your website and there are various ways of doing this.
- Use a server-side 301 to redirect pages from items that you no longer stock to your best-selling products – there is always a chance that they will catch the customer’s eye. A professional SEO company such as Indigoextra can help you with this, so that you aren’t caught out at the last minute. These increased links to your best sellers will also help encourage traffic.
- Check through the pages for those popular items, to make sure that the content is accurate and adequately descriptive. Remember that you need a text description, not just images of the item for it to be recognised by the search engines. You would be surprised at how many e-commerce sites sometimes overlook this basic fact!
- Review the internal links from other pages on your website, to see if you can redirect some of them to your high sellers. It is probably best to do this in October, as some people like to get their Christmas shopping done early, to beat the mad rush later in the year!
- Make sure that you have your suppliers lined up with the products you want in the quantities you need. It is no good having hundreds of hits on particular pages if you run out of the items by the beginning of December.
- If Christmas is a particularly busy time of year for your e-commerce business, then it could be worthwhile building more quality links to your site over September to December, to raise your SEO profile in time for the Christmas season.
Last minute tips
As well as SEO for your website, here's some other practical tips:
- If demand has outrun supply for some items, but you know you will be getting in more stock, tell this to the customers on the relevant page, together with the date you are likely to be able to send out the items. Be truthful about this, as there is nothing more frustrating than expecting a gift to be delivered, when it just fails to turn up.
- If you WON’T be able to have the replacement stock, then re-direct the page to other popular lines, with a note that explains why you are doing so. Don’t leave the potential customer in the dark, with just a brief message such as “item no longer available”.
- You may have items that haven’t sold as well as anticipated. As soon as you realise this, consider either reducing the price or increasing the links to these items from other pages on the website.
- Consider introducing a “January Sales” page, with discounted prices or special “two for one” type of offers, as appropriate.
Enjoy your Christmas sales and have a happy New Year!
