Seasonal SEO Tips for Small Businesses

Feb 25

Many technical elements determine organic success. SEOs talk about backlinks and canonical tags all the time, and those things matter. Adjusting your keyword targets to put your audience first is equally important. That makes seasonal SEO a valuable strategy for businesses heavily impacted by seasonal trends.

What is Seasonal SEO?

Seasonal SEO accounts for seasonal changes in consumer habits and other external events that impact business. In most cases, businesses know what - and when - demand changes, such as:

Holiday season shopping
Summer tourism
Event-based tourism (National Cherry Festival, Bayshore Marathon, etc.)
Winter tourism
Fall color tours

Understanding seasonal business trends informs your broader marketing strategy, but real success comes when you leverage proprietary data to make smart decisions in three key areas.

How to Leverage Seasonal SEO in Northern Michigan

Northern Michigan retailers, restaurants, coffee shops and many other businesses live and die by tourism season. We all know it’s coming, and while you may have some rinse-and-repeat marketing efforts running to capitalize, companies that go deeper will gain a competitive edge and improve efficiency.

1. Understand your audience.

Depending on your business, seasonal SEO may start several months before you actually meet your customer. Decide whether you’re a planned-for business or an impulse business.

Planned-for Businesses

Local bike shops like Brick Wheels start seeing increased organic landing page sessions on their bike rentals page as early as February, two or three months before sitewide organic traffic starts to pop. At least, this element of their business is a planned expense that customers research well in advance.

The Focus: Seasonal SEO is more precise and staged. The value of winning a top-three position for long-tail keyword variations (“family bike paths in Traverse City”) captures traffic from prospective customers planning their trip. Optimizing for those keywords should start before more short-tail, keyword-based terms like “bike rentals in Traverse City.” Use a dedicated report to track your domain’s position for seasonal keyword variations so you know when to make changes to content.

Impulse Business

Coffee shops and retail stores in Downtown Traverse City may be destinations for some customers, but many are impulse stops. These businesses often benefit more from brand recognition, which can be enough to get customers to duck inside rather than walk on by.

The Focus: Impulse businesses that sponsor local events are in a prime position to introduce their brand to tourists and visitors. Sovis Media helps companies vet sponsorship and non-profit opportunities that align with their values while contributing to brand awareness and perception.

2. ‘Tis the (Holiday) Season

SEOs can adjust content to use holiday keywords and win organic traffic. This is an excellent opportunity to create dedicated pages on your site that celebrate holiday traditions, like Traverse City’s Men’s Night, Ladies’ Night, and the Cherry-T Ball Drop. Targeting these terms accomplishes two objectives:

Impressions - Gaining a top ten position for these holiday keywords puts your domain next to the actual event; if 10,000 people see the #1 result, they’ll see your brand name in spots #2 or #3, increasing the chance of conversion for planned-for and impulse businesses.
Clicks - Users searching for the event-based terms may be looking for additional things to do, which could result in more site clicks!

Holiday season SEO keywords should also target traditions and topics. Use rigorous keyword research to strengthen holiday products - coffee is an excellent example:

holiday blend coffee - 260 Google searches per month
holiday coffee blends - 70
holiday coffee gift basket - 30

**Search volume for “coffee blend” (red) vs. “holiday coffee blend” (blue). Queries for the holiday keyword quadruples by Halloween (from 3 to 13).**

3. Timing Is Everything

It usually takes two to four months to gain rank and position for target keywords, sometimes longer. To win keywords for the tourist season, start right after the holidays. To win holiday keywords, start during the tourist season. And remember, SEO is never done; optimize existing content to keep organic traffic strong.

How to Find Seasonal Keywords

Premium tools like Semrush offer seasonal keyword trends at a glance, but plenty of free options exist. You’ll need access to your Google Search Console account to get started. (If you’re not on Google Search Console, we’ll get you set up for free.)

1. Log in to GSC.

2. Go to “Search Results” under “Performance”.

3. Adjust the date range to “Previous 16 months”. This is as far back as you can go.

4. Look for any gradual increases in impressions and clicks. Remember those dates!

Next, adjust the dates to the month or period your domain saw increased

impressions or clicks. Take a few of those terms and slap them into Google Trends.

Here, enter those terms and see when search interest increases. You’ll see a chart that shows volume by week, which gives a great idea of when customers start their research,

Some seasonal keywords won’t require too much additional keyword research. Just like in the coffee example, create content that matches holiday or seasonal interests, such as:

spring bike tuneups
summer sidewalk sale
winter running events
holiday shopping events

Don’t forget to add in a geo modifier to capture local searches, too.

What If My Search Traffic Drops During the Holiday Season?

SEOs working with B2B often see organic search drop precipitously during the holidays. It’s not you; B2B companies often avoid starting new projects or agreements in December because those efforts lose momentum during the holidays. With so many people out of office, starting fresh in January is often better. Depending on the industry, businesses avoid ordering in late Q4 to prevent inventory buildup that causes balance sheets to look a bit heavy.

Check the competition if you notice a dip in traffic during the holidays or other competitive seasons. Are they:

Using paid to win relevant keywords?
Creating or optimizing content, such as dedicated pages to support promotions or products?
Benefitting from new referral sources like the local DDA or chamber?

If you can’t get to the bottom of it, don’t wait - tag us in.

Seasons Change (And So Do Your Customers)

Creating new content to capture changes in user search habits is a subtle but impactful way to get more out of peak season. Don’t settle for the spike; use email marketing and other tactics to ensure new customers become returning customers during the off-season. Looking for more ways to make your business seasonally resilient? We can help. Contact Sovis Media today to get started.

Cody Sovis