It's early, we still have 136 days until Christmas but it is never too early to get your website ready for traffic. The idea is to target what web searchers are going to be looking for this 2011 Christmas season. Just having a search engine optimized website is not enough, it is important to have a landing page with significant call-to-action buttons for the product they are looking for.
Step 1: Plan out the purpose of your website marketing
Purpose is everything when it comes to converting a customer into a sale, if the purpose is not clear to a web visitor then chances of closing the deal go down significantly. A good idea is to have atleast 3 call-to-actions on the landing page, this will help cater to different visitors.
Call-to-action examples: Newsletter Sign-up, Coupon Printing, Buy Now, or View Details.
Step 2: Use well written website content to convert the customer
Think like a customer; what helps you purchase an item online? Brand recognition? Good Information? Great Product? A good way to write content is by following these 3 guidelines:
- Educate - Tell them about the product or service with 1-3 sentences of general info.
- Present - Explain what makes your product / service different or neccessary.
- Answer - Answer questions that a potential customer may have about the product / service.
When writing content for web, it's good practice to break paragraphs into 2-3 sentences which will give the visitor a more enjoyable reading experience. Suggest to have about 150 - 300 words of supporting content about the product / service.
Step 3: Good imagery to associate your product with the customer
Ever see the GAP advertising with smiling teens and young adults wearing their product? That's done with specific strategy to associate their clothing with youthful and fun. So how does your product associate with the customer? Be sure to pay attention to the demeanor of the individuals in each picture as well.
Step 4: Social is key to building links & referals to the product
Start running campaigns and educating customers about plan of Christmas sale launch date. Anticipation is a great way to get customers ready to buy. A good technique is to start off with monthly updates reguarding the sale, then 30 days before the launch do weekly updates or run a special Facebook page just for the Christmas sale.
Step 5: SEO & Link building strategy to promote the landing page
Now is the time to build a campaign for Christmas using SEO techniques to provide 1st page results by November. A great way to setup the campaign is using keyword specific content that will cater to web searcher's needs. How can you keyword? Listed below are a few areas that need to have the target keyword written:
- Title Tag - This is what searchers use to determine if a link is relevant or not to their query.
- Meta Description - This should be catered to users, compel them to click on the page listing with well written description between 120-160 characters.
- Header Tags - Just like a book, the 1st paragraph of content determines if the rest is relevant or not. Make sure to use H1 tag properly to name the page. H2 tags to break up each section of paragraphs and H3 to add subtitles to the paragraphs within an H2.
- Internal Linking - The rule to follow is "if it's good for the user, it's good for the search engine". Link to informational sections that will promote the text that you are writing.
- Body - Finally, the content itself. Make sure to have around 150-250 characters of supporting text to reinforce the target keyword.
Holidays can be a make or break it season for many companies
We provided the information, it's time to implement. Start thinking out a good website marketing plan, implement it, & prepare for the traffic. Why is it time to prepare now? Simple, SEO takes time and can be stressful in a competitive market. Preparing before the holidays will ensure a solid boost in traffic when the right time comes.