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Why Seasonal SEO is an Essential Strategy for Digital Marketers

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is often regarded as something of a dark art. It’s a product of the digital age and involves closely monitoring search algorithms and analysing customer behaviour to adapt content and platforms.

Part of what makes SEO so difficult to master is that the conditions that affect it are constantly changing. Whether it’s Google updates or tech developments, SEO can be impacted by a wide range of different factors. The time of year can also play a significant role. Let’s take a look at seasonal SEO and discuss why it’s such an essential strategy for digital marketers.

What is Seasonal SEO?

Consumer interests and preferences change across the year. This is nothing new in the world of marketing; businesses have long adapted practices to suit particular trends. However, marketing today involves a far more technical and analytical approach. Putting up billboards and running TV ads is no longer sufficient, businesses today must utilise digital platforms and implement SEO strategies to reach modern consumers.

Effective SEO practices are all about learning what customers are looking for and ensuring you target these requests and queries in the content you produce. In doing so, your business will perform better in search engine results, and you’ll attract more traffic. However, given that customers look for different things depending on the time of year, your SEO strategy will have to adapt to meet shifting demands.

This is what we mean by seasonal SEO – it’s the process of tweaking your SEO and adopting different approaches depending on the time of year and in response to seasonal events. Seasonal SEO can be broken down into two forms: time-based and event-based.

Time-based SEO is used to target broad trends that occur over seasons or particular months. Winter, for example, will demand a different SEO approach than summer, as customer intent changes and different products and services take priority in the eyes of consumers.

On the other hand, event-based SEO concerns specific events that occur throughout the year. Things like Christmas and Valentine’s Day are perfect examples. Event-based SEO can encompass major sporting events, such as the World Cup or the Super Bowl.

What Benefits Can Seasonal SEO Offer?

So, now that we know what seasonal SEO is, let’s take a look at the benefits this practice can offer modern businesses:

Take Advantage of Rising Search Volumes

Whether it’s Christmas or the summer holidays, search volumes for particular keywords and phrases will increase depending on the time of year. This is what seasonal SEO is all about – you should be optimising your content to target and take full advantage of these increasing search volumes and direct additional traffic towards your platform.

Boost Your Content’s Relevance

Google pays particular attention to relevance when ranking search engine results. Does your content actually give users what they’re looking for? The fact that consumer preferences and search intent shift across the year means that implementing seasonal SEO practices is absolutely essential to ensure your content remains relevant and is being prioritised by search engines.

Effective Seasonal Promotions

Seasonal promotions have long been a tool used by marketers. However, today’s digital age demands a more nuanced approach when it comes to marketing season-specific products and services.  Seasonal SEO can help you boost the visibility of these promotions and campaigns, increase conversion and boost your marketing ROI.

Stand Out from the Crowd

Seasonal SEO can help you set yourself apart from the competition. By targeting season-specific trends and keywords, you’ll give your business a timely boost at valuable points throughout the year. The improved search engine results and increased traffic that can come as a result of seasonal SEO can be the key to standing out from the crowd.

Implementing a Seasonal SEO Strategy

SEO is a technical process that requires knowledge and experience to get right. Seasonal SEO is no different. Read on to check out our top tips for implementing a successful seasonal SEO strategy:

Research, Research, Research

Any effective seasonal SEO strategy is rooted in research. First and foremost, you need to understand how consumer preferences are affected by seasonality and the types of search trends you can expect to see come and go throughout the year.

Next, you’ll need to research and identify target keywords and phrases. Use tools like Google Trends to look for trending keywords across certain times of the year and take steps to target these in the content you produce.

Take a look at your platform, too. Analyse how traffic and conversions perform over certain periods of time to identify where you could improve results through seasonal SEO.

Create Activity Calendars

After the research stage, you should have a list of keywords and phrases to target in your seasonal SEO campaigns. However, it’s not a case of simply throwing all of these into the mix at once. To maximise results, you need to approach things methodically. Creating calendars of activity is the best way to do so.

Slowly ramp up activity in the lead-up to the busy periods you identified during the research stage and fully focus your SEO efforts during the most active periods to ensure you are taking full advantage of the benefits seasonal SEO can offer.

Adapt Old Content

Seasonal SEO doesn’t necessarily mean having to create huge swathes of new content. While creating new content appropriate for the season is undoubtedly important, you can also look to adapt existing content.

Review and analyse the content currently on your website and look for opportunities to make tweaks and optimise for season-specific trends. This can save you time and breathe life into stagnant content that might not be offering your platform much in the way of traffic or conversions.

Think Visually

Working keywords into your content is an essential part of any seasonal SEO strategy, but you should also consider the visual appearance of your website. If you’re directing users towards your platform during Christmas, for example, you will want the visuals on your website to reflect the season, not just the written content. This will create a more seamless experience for users and can increase the chances of them converting.

Final Thoughts

SEO should form a fundamental cornerstone of your marketing efforts. When implemented correctly, SEO can give your business the boost it needs to stand out from the competition. With seasonal SEO, you can take advantage of emerging search trends, drive traffic and conversions and increase your marketing ROI.

At Digital Footprints, we understand how important seasonal SEO is. We use state-of-the-art software tools for keyword research and analysis, and we use this research to draw up targeted plans for content that converts. If you’d like to learn more about how we can improve your brand’s SEO, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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