Every business has seasons.
For a landscaper, spring might be when the phone starts ringing. A retailer may depend heavily on Christmas shopping. Wedding professionals know that engagement season can bring a flood of inquiries. Here in Niagara, tourism, patios, festivals and even the weather can change what people are searching for from one month to the next.
Your customers change what they search for throughout the year.
Your SEO can prepare for that.
Seasonal SEO is about figuring out what your customers will be searching for before they start searching for it, then making sure your business has useful content ready when those searches increase.
And that last part matters.
If you want your business found for Christmas-related searches, December is a little late to start thinking about Christmas SEO.
What are seasonal keywords?
Seasonal keywords are search terms that become more popular during particular times of the year.
Some are obvious:
- Christmas gifts
- Valentine’s Day flowers
- Mother’s Day brunch
- fall family photography
- spring landscaping
- snow removal
- back-to-school supplies
Others depend on the business.
An accountant may see searches increase around tax deadlines. A wedding photographer may notice different search patterns around engagement and wedding seasons. A contractor might see demand change with the weather.
Even businesses that operate year-round usually have some seasonal changes in customer behaviour.
The trick is figuring out what yours are.
Seasonal SEO starts earlier than you think
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make with seasonal marketing is waiting until the season arrives.
Search engines need time to discover, crawl and understand new or substantially updated content. Your customers may also start researching well before they’re ready to buy.
Think about Christmas shopping.
Some people start in December. Others begin searching for gift ideas in October.
The same thing happens with weddings, summer activities, home renovations, tax preparation and plenty of other purchases.
Work backwards from the time you expect people to buy.
If you know a busy period is coming, start preparing your website content ahead of it.
Look at what happened last year
You don’t always have to guess because your own website can give you clues.
Look at Google Search Console and your website analytics. Compare different months and look for pages, searches and services that became more popular during certain parts of the year.
You might discover that people start looking for a service earlier than you expected.
You can also look at Google Trends to see when interest in broader topics tends to rise.
Write down the patterns you find.
You’ve just started building your SEO content calendar.
Think locally too
Seasonal search behaviour isn’t always about a holiday.
Location matters.
Here in Niagara, seasons affect tourism, wineries, patios, festivals, home services, landscaping, weddings and plenty of other businesses.
Someone might search for:
- things to do in Niagara in the fall
- Niagara Christmas markets
- patio restaurants in Niagara
- spring lawn care in St. Catharines
- Niagara wedding venues
- snow removal in St. Catharines
Think about what happens in your community throughout the year and how it affects your customers.
Local events can create opportunities too.
If an event brings thousands of people into your area and your business has something genuinely useful to offer those visitors, useful local content may help them discover you.
Give seasonal searches somewhere useful to land
Finding a seasonal keyword doesn’t mean squeezing it awkwardly into an unrelated page. Make sure to give the search somewhere useful to go.
Depending on the topic, that could be:
- a blog article
- a service page
- an FAQ
- an event page
- a seasonal landing page
- a product category
- an updated section of an existing page
Choose the format that best answers what the person is looking for.
A garden centre might publish an article about preparing a Niagara garden for winter. A photographer could create information about booking fall family photos. A restaurant might update its website with Thanksgiving dining information.
The page should help the visitor accomplish something.
Don’t create a new page every year unless you need one
Sometimes an existing seasonal page can be updated and improved instead of starting from scratch.
That can be particularly useful for evergreen topics.
A strong guide to preparing your website for holiday shopping could stay at the same URL while examples, dates, links and recommendations are updated as needed.
That also gives you something established to link to from other articles and pages on your website.
For events where the year itself matters, a new page may make more sense.
Think about what will be most useful to the person searching.
Connect your seasonal content to the rest of your website
Don’t leave your seasonal article sitting by itself in the blog.
Link it to relevant services, products and other helpful articles.
If you publish a spring clean up checklist, for example, it might naturally link to your home maintenance or lawn services. An article about holiday decorating could link to other decor resources.
Internal links also give someone somewhere useful to go after they’ve finished reading.
And while you’re updating older seasonal content, look for newer articles that should link back to it.
Your website has probably grown since you first published the article. Let those pages meet each other.
Use the idea outside your website
Once you’ve done the research, don’t use it once and forget about it.
A seasonal blog article can give you ideas for:
- social media posts
- Google Business Profile updates
- email newsletters
- short videos
- FAQs
- checklists
You already did the research. Now it’s time to get some extra mileage out of it.
Your 15-minute seasonal SEO check
Want something useful you can do right now?
Think about the next busy season for your business.
Then spend 15 minutes answering these questions:
- What will my customers need?
- When will they start looking for it?
- What might they type into Google?
- Do I already have a page that answers that search?
- If I do, when was the last time I updated it?
Write down five possible searches and use it as your starting point.
Plan for the search before it happens
Seasonal SEO doesn’t require rebuilding your website four times a year.
It means paying attention to when customer needs change and preparing useful content early enough to meet them.
Your website can be working on next season while you’re still busy with this one.
And if you’re not sure what people are searching for, which older content is worth updating, or where the opportunities are hiding, that’s exactly the kind of thing I look at when working on SEO for small businesses.
