Holiday Season
From October to January, the season is dense with holidays. There are more than 30 different holidays during this time and it seems like the internet keeps inventing more every year! The popular ones most people think of are Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but there are others, such as Hanuka, Kwanzaa, Veteran’s Day, and more. There’s no shortage of holidays this time of year. So, why does that matter? There’s a lot of holiday traffic on the internet. Christmas is especially big for this; since gift giving is a major part of the celebration, people are out looking for the perfect gifts and the best deals to go with them. Since the internet has become the most convenient way to shop, people will be online a lot. That’s a big opportunity to get traffic to your website, especially if you’re running a business. But how do you bring it in?
1. A Festive Redesign
A temporary, festive redesign of your website is always a good way to draw engagement and even improve your rankings. It attracts the attention of Google’s bots and the activity pushes you more towards the front page in searches. But to make the most of a redesign, it’s got to fit in with the kind of traffic you’re trying to get. That’s why the holiday season is the best time to do a site redesign if you’ve been meaning to. Add a festive touch to your site to welcome holiday shoppers. Add holiday-themed images to your homepage, emphasize holiday themed items in your store, and switch the colors in your promotions or call-outs to appropriate holiday themes (like, orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, etc). Color changes are usually easy to implement and give an instant first impression to your visitors. It tells them that you’re keeping up with the seasons, which also reinforces the idea that your business is actively involved with events. It won’t just draw them in, it will make them more willing to come back to see what else you’ve got goin’ on! You can also use this redesign opportunity to fix up any problems on your site. Correct the organization of your menu to make navigation easier for your visitors. Remove any unnecessary plugins slowing the page load time. You can even optimize site speed by adding a CDN to save server memory from heavier holiday traffic.
2. Holiday Promotions
Everybody loves discounts. People work hard for their money and always want to feel like they’re getting the most out of it. That’s why discounts are such an effective way to draw customers. Nice, round numbers like “10% off” are strong attention-getters. They don’t cut into your profits very much, so you can have a lot of them for customers to surf through. Higher discounts – say 25% – are good for spicing things up, but be careful not to use too many. A big discount now and then is really exciting, but too many gives the impression that you’re trying to get rid of things, or that what you may be offering isn’t actually of much value at all.
3. Limited Time Offers
There’s an interesting quirk of human psychology dubbed FOMO, or the “Fear of Missing Out”. This is a worry that we are being excluded from experiences others are having. This causes a desire to stay connected with what others are doing. This is why limited time offers are very effective. They create scarcity that really draws customers’ attention. Use this sparingly so it isn’t regarded as a sales gimmick. Many people use this tactic too much to try to squeeze a sale or conversion from a visitor. This is poor behavior for a website and should be used as sparingly and responsibly as possible.
Bonus! Mind Your Keywords
The reason why all this works comes down to keyword relevance. People are searching for holiday related things, so updates to your website need to be holiday related. You want it to coincide with the holiday season so that the content on your website matches up with the holidays people are searching for. This means you have to keep it timely. If your site still has a Halloween theme up well into November, you will start to lose traffic because people stopped searching for it already. So, don’t wait too long to update your keywords to the next holiday! A lot of people do their Christmas shopping early so, to take full advantage of the holiday traffic, you need to have your Christmas update ready before the end of November. And don’t be lazy like people who leave their Christmas lights up all year long. If it’s the middle of summer and your Christmas theme is still up, it makes you look like you don’t care. That’s not the impression you want to make. Another good way to make sure you’re taking advantage of keywords is to have holiday blog posts. These things can hit all of these tips at once. They update your site with new content, making Google see you as more relevant. You can use them to announce your discounts and limited time offers. Because they’re talking about your holiday themed updates, they will also have all the keywords. It makes for a highly effective combination that can boost your holiday traffic by… well, a lot!
Now Is the Best Time
The holiday season is just beginning, so now is exactly the time to start if you want to get the most out of it. Halloween has already past, but Thanksgiving is coming up. A quick blog to talk about your feelings on Thanksgiving will be a good way to draw some traffic before the Christmas rush. However, Christmas still remains the biggest holiday for sales. Since you need to have your Christmas update ready to go not long after Thanksgiving ends, you need to start planning that update now. If you’ve got any special Christmas merchandise to sell, start planning for how you’re going to announce it. Get yourself a couple of Christmas themed blogs ready to post over the next month. Put some thought into what discounts you intend to offer. It’s important to do this now so you aren’t struggling to get it all out when the time comes. The last thing you want is for your holiday updates to appear rushed! So, get out there and get your holiday (traffic) on.