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We recently talked to experts about multi-location pages for SEO. In this episode of the Unbottleneck Podcast, Steve Wiideman is joined by SEO and digital marketing expert, Holly Miller Anderson, to share an important perspective on marketing opportunities and website optimization around important seasonal business trends.
About Our Guest: Holly Miller Anderson
Holly Miller Anderson is an accomplished SEO Strategist and professional of Digital Marketing and Public Relations. Previously she was the SEO Product Manager for Macys.com & Bloomingdales.com and currently is SEO Manager for SearsPartsDirect.com overseeing SEO growth for the e-commerce site.
Sponsored by Ryte
Featured in this episode:
- Seasonality in Search
- Creating Your SEO Roadmap
- Avoid These Seasonal Business Mistakes
- Key Takeaway for Business Owners
Seasonality in Search
Just as we experience four seasons of weather throughout the year, businesses also experience seasons that can positively or negatively impact their objectives, especially eCommerce.
From a customer’s perspective, seasons are determined by holidays within a calendar year (January through December). However, from a business perspective, seasons are marked by trends within a fiscal year (typically February through January). It is crucial for businesses to understand what their seasonal trends are in order to meet the demand of their customers.
Seasons are not only limited to your popular holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Fourth of July. Seasons also includes special occasions such as graduations or weddings that influence buyer behavior. As a business you should be aware of the external events that impact how your business is doing throughout the year.
Creating Your SEO Roadmap
Creating an SEO roadmap is a great place to start planning for seasonal changes in your business. By using a roadmap, you can identify all the moving pieces necessary to ensure a successful execution.
Here is a list of important components that you should consider when creating your product roadmap:
Business Landscape – “What features do I want to have in place?”
You should already have a clear picture of your business’s most profitable seasons. Once you identify this, you should have a “big idea” for how that season will look in the current year.
Business Resources – “What do I have at my disposal?”
Take inventory of the resources that will support your business objectives such as external agencies and performance data. This will help you prioritize your workload.
Internal Resources – “Who is on my team?”
Analyze who is on your team and what their responsibilities will be. This is a great opportunity to ensure that your technical, content, off-page and local teams are all on the same page and establish a hard deadline for execution.
Pro-Tip: Conduct a mini audit of your website to take note of elements that can be improved right away before diving into more extensive projects.
Common Seasonal Mistakes Businesses Make
Many businesses have a tendency to overestimate and underestimate their seasonal trends. In order to get the most out of every business season, avoid these common mistakes:
Forgetting the Buyer Journey
As a business owner, you must remember to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Your company’s seasonality is not going to be on the same timeline as the customer’s. Therefore, you should market appropriately for both business and customer objectives by studying your own data to plan accordingly.
Pro-Tip: Google Trends and Google Search Console are great tools to research user search trends throughout the year.
Not Planning Ahead
You cannot plan for a release at the last minute. Don’t wait until you are actually in your peak season to make changes. Give yourself and your team enough time in advance to develop and execute a new launch.
Releasing Big Features at Once
Making big changes can be overwhelming not only to the web team, but to users. A best practice is to release new features one at a time to see how users respond and make appropriate changes as you go.
Pro-Tip: Use heat map data to see where users are spending the most time on your website and develop features based on those behaviors.
Key Takeaways for Business Owners
Here are some key takeaways from this episode that will help you anticipate your business’s peak seasons:
- Have a calendar in place to plan for seasonal changes
- Study your own business data and trends
- Use one single page URL for promotions (ex: /specials) instead of making a new one every year
- Be aware of all holidays, including cultural and religious
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