With the holidays approaching, your business will likely need to indulge in one (or more) marketing strategies to reach your potential in the last quarter of the year. This isn’t new information; companies are always finding ways to get an edge on their competition and to maximize revenue, especially during the holiday season.
The issue many businesses face, however, is knowing when they need to post holiday-related content.
SEO and the Holiday Season
Success from an online marketing standpoint during the months of October, November, and December likely hinges on your ability to rank for holiday-related content. So when should you start pushing content to potential customers to not only hold their attention but also rank on Google’s platform?
Jason Moore, one of the SEO experts at Compulse Integrated Marketing, explains:
“If you want to focus on holiday content, you need to start putting content out there when people start talking about it,” says Moore. “Think about it: you don’t typically buy a Halloween costume on Halloween, but you also don’t want to start posting Halloween content in July. You need to find a middle ground, so think: when do people start talking about the holiday? One month before? Two? You don’t want to be too early when posting holiday-related content, but you don’t want to be too late, either. A good rule of thumb is to start pushing content when people start talking about it.”
Moore suggests filling your calendar with some potential blog and social posting ideas well in advance so you aren’t scrambling when the time to push content strikes. The holiday season is, for some companies, the busiest time of the year, so you’ll want to focus on satisfying customers during that time, not drawing them in.
”You always want to have [holiday-related content] on your calendar so you have an idea of when you’re going to start writing about it,” says Moore. “For instance, if you’re a toy company, you don’t start advertising Christmas sales on Black Friday even though it seems well in advance — a little over a month before the actual holiday. Instead, you want to focus on targeting sales days, like Black Friday, which means you want to start teasing content for the Christmas season as early as October so you can reach the right customers at the right time.”
The Importance of Knowing When to Post New Content
As Moore says, timing is everything. You can’t expect customers to purchase your product or service if they don’t know about your deals until the day before they’re running. Similarly, you can’t expect to reach new customers if you don’t give Google a chance to rank you for your efforts. So how do you know exactly when you should post? Moore explains:
“In truth, it all depends on the kind of company you are running. A toy company operates much differently than, say, a coffee company selling a specific fall or winter-related brew. Know your business, your competition, your audience, and when they’re going to start searching for your content. If you understand those specifics, you should have a good understanding of when you need to start putting out content for specific holidays and events.”
Moore also advises companies to not just have ideas for the content you’ll push ready to write in advance, but to actually write it in the months leading to the big date.
“It’s a good idea to write holiday-related content well in advance so that it is ready to publish when people start talking about it. You don’t want to be late to the party; rather, you want to have the content ready to publish when the moment arises. Companies are always trying to get a leg up on one another, so you can never be entirely sure when the first Christmas-related content will surface. If people start talking about Christmas in October this year, be prepared and ready to push content ASAP to get on their radar. Knowing when to write your content is just as important as knowing how to. If it’s good, Google is going to catch it pretty quickly.”
For information on how Compulse Integrated Marketing’s copywriting and SEO team can help you get the right content to the right people at the right time, please call us at 844-821-2154, or visit us online at www.compulse.com.