Last-Minute Tips for Christmas Optimization Success

So it’s Christmastime again, and you’re not quite sure how to get Christmas shoppers to your site from the search engines. Or perhaps you’re just wondering if it’s even worth your time optimizing for.

Actually, it’s really easy to get your site in front of millions Christmas shoppers within just a few minutes, even if you’re not offering any Christmas specials this year.

For some of you it may be too late to search engine optimize your website for Christmas, but it’s definitely not too late to create a page for New Years and other Holidays in the future.

Copy your best-selling product or service page and name it {product or service}-christmas-{current year}.extenstion(html, php, etc.)Change the title tag to include “Christmas” and “{current year}”. Ex.: Hot Apple iPad 2 Deal Christmas 2011Modify the Meta-Description to include the word “Christmas” and “{current year}”Update the page heading to at least include the word “Christmas”Add an XMAS related stock photo or colors to the pageUpdate the page text to include “Christmas”, “{current year}” and other relevant seasonal keywordsWrite a related blog post and link it to your new page using at least the product or service name and “Christmas” in the anchor text.Share the new page on your favorite social media sites

I realize this post is probably a bit late for many of you to fully take advantage of Christmas, but it’s really fairly effortless to immediately start receiving X-Mas traffic to your site from the search engines. You can follow these simple steps to optimize your site for New Years as well as many other holidays in the future too.

If you’re able to offer special pricing or terms specific to your holiday page, you’re definitely going to increase your conversions. But if not, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t be able to take advantage of all the seasonal deal shoppers too.

If you have the time and want to make a lot more sales, simply repeat this process for each of your best products and services.

When you have more time or run a site that depends on seasonal shoppers, here’s some tips for skyrocketing those holiday pages in the SERPs so that you can maximize you holiday search traffic.

Follow the steps mentioned above, plus:

Redirect last years holiday pages to this years to get any previously earned link-juice flowing to the right pages. i.e., 301 redirect your iPad 1 Christmas 2010 holiday page to your iPad 2 page for this year.Write a guest post on a related site linking it to your new holiday pageLocate and advertise with a related site that allows DoFollow banner ads and link the banner back to your new holiday pageLink to your holiday pages from multiple other locations on your site using seasonal and other keyword variations in the anchor textUpdate any forum signatures to point to your new holiday specials pageShare it on Google+If it’s a really good deal then Digg itWrite a Squidoo lens or use your other favorite article sharing website to promote and link back to itWrite a press release about the special offer and link back to it. There are several free press release websites. Bookmark itUpdate your company’s Google Places business page to include your holiday offersCreate a sponsored online classified ad

And so on…

The key points to remember are updating your title and description meta tags, use keyword variants in the anchor text of any backlinks, writing relevant page headings, and creating sufficient unique page text.

By starting with your top-selling product or service and writing a quick blog post you could literally be raking in the sales this holiday in under an hour!

It can really be as simple as that.

Have some organic search optimization tips to share for the holidays?

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