Are you looking for ways to maximize sales during the upcoming holiday season? Have you been brainstorming strategies to drive more traffic to your brick-and-mortar store? Wouldn’t it be great if you could also find other opportunities to drive sales and earn more revenue?
If you own a local business in 2021, you’ve likely nodded your head in agreement with one or more of these questions.
The good news is that a few simple modifications to your local SEO strategy can help you skyrocket store traffic and sales. You simply need to ensure that your target customers find your business and products/services right when they indulge in their holiday shopping spree.
As a local business owner, gearing up for the holiday season will be time-consuming and challenging. You could consider working with an experienced SEO company like SMT Digital Solutions to manage local SEO on your behalf. Also, it helps to know how you can modify your strategy to attract more traffic and sales.
In this blog, we’ll discuss a few effective local SEO strategies for the holiday season. Let’s get started.
1. Perform an SEO Audit
You can’t wait for the holidays to arrive before you look for gaps in your local SEO strategy. While there might be a handful of last-minute shoppers, most consumers prefer to complete their holiday shopping well in advance.
That emphasizes the need to conduct a thorough SEO audit while you still have time. It’ll help you identify any issues with technical SEO and on-page optimization. Evaluate key web pages based on different parameters, such as:
- Keyword rankings
- Bounce rate
- Organic traffic
- Core Web Vitals
It’ll give you an idea of the current performance of your local SEO efforts. You’ll also identify any website performance issues that could drive visitors away. It’s a good time to check your website architecture and navigation as well.
An extensive SEO audit also goes a long way to help you identify new content opportunities. Similarly, it helps you renew your keyword research strategy. Instead of blindly targeting the seasonal keywords you targeted last year, you can choose ones that’ll be relevant in 2021.
2. Add E-commerce Functionalities to Your Website
The ultimate objective of all your marketing campaigns is to bring more people to your storefront. But considering the way consumers’ purchase behavior and habits have changed due to the pandemic, they’re more likely to fulfill their holiday shopping needs online.
You can use that to your advantage by allowing customers to purchase from your website. Even if you don’t have the logistics set up to deliver orders, you can use the “buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS)” and “buy online, pick up curbside” models to drive sales.
That involves adding an online store to your website. Make sure you highlight any promotions and offers you’re running for the holidays. Also, optimize the product pages using long-tail holiday-specific keywords, such as “Downtown Chicago Christmas Trees” or “Madison Christmas Window Decals”.
3. Bring Products/Services to the Spotlight
Whether you’re targeting more in-store or online sales for your local business, your website must shine the limelight on your products/services. Use keyword-rich meta descriptions and meta titles to optimize product pages.
Don’t forget to include high-quality images of your products as well. While you’re at it, review the product/service descriptions, and add any relevant seasonal keywords you wish to target. Make sure the pages load quickly and provide customers with all the information they need to make a purchase.
4. Prepare Your Website for the Traffic Surge
When your local SEO strategy for the holidays starts delivering results, your website will likely receive more traffic than usual. You might also have to deal with sudden traffic spikes. The last thing you want to do is to overwhelm your website with more traffic than it can handle.
It could shut down your website, thus leading to lost traffic and sales. It’ll also affect your brand image, and lead potential customers to a competitor’s website.
The best way of avoiding such a scenario is to check with your web hosting service. Make sure the current plan has enough bandwidth and storage to accommodate the extra traffic. If you’re concerned about slowing down your website, you could consider upgrading to a higher plan.
The Right Time to Start Was Yesterday
When it comes to holiday marketing campaigns, the sooner you start the better. Local SEO isn’t an exception. Start planning in advance to ensure that you have enough time to test and tweak your strategy before the holiday shopping rush. Focus on the latest seasonal keywords, and consider adding an e-commerce function to your website.