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Get your Christmas SEO Strategy right from the beginning. Start your strategy in Q2.
Ecommerce brands embarking on a new SEO strategy typically experience 1 of 3 primary situations that drive them to consider how to implement a new strategy:
- The existing SEO strategy is under/mis informed, with a lack of correct intel either from internal or external SEO stakeholders
- An existing SEO agency partner is not account managing the partnership effectively, causing a significant intelligence and insights gap
- The activities conducted by the SEO agency are not focused in the right areas of SEO, or to the right quality needed to drive results
After accepting that the existing SEO strategy and setup is not working, marketers need to set about identifying a new strategy, and usually a new SEO agency as a partner.
This process can take 6 to 12 weeks depending on the process, however, once a new SEO agency partner is onboarded, how do ecommerce marketers then stay on track to deliver maximum SEO performance for the rest of the year? The answer is the right SEO agency partner.
If drafted in at the right time, (within January to May) then the SEO agency will be able to support the internal marketing function with an expert pair of eyes, that can evaluate the current activity and then protect the interests of the channel company wide through a transition and onboarding period over several months.
Evaluating existing performance will determine where your brands current SEO strengths lie, but also where opportunity lies too. Considering what the next seasonal target should be, the SEO partner can evaluate any existing SEO activity, guiding it so that it aligns with any new strategy that will soon be initiated.
In order to increase SEO market share for any key trading period, SEO preparation and activity must start 4 months ahead.
1. Opportunity Analysis
An effective SEO strategy starts with an analysis of the season / trading periods demand, and your brands product range. Marrying consumer demand with your product range, and brand values, will result in a strategic SEO plan that all stakeholders can relate and buy into, which is critical to success.
2. Website Updates
Using the intelligence gathered from the first step, a series of website updates will need to be carried out, across your Product Listing Pages (PLPs) and Product Detail Pages (PDPs) that guide customers on how to make the right choice for their need. This will require input from content teams, editorial teams, marketing and integration. Typical SEO activities will include on page optimisation, content gap analysis, and internal linking strategies.
3. Time for Google to Update
Depending on the size of your site, it could take up to 4 weeks for Google to crawl and index newly optimised or published content. Typically for larger brands, crawlers will be more frequently visiting the site and impact can be experienced within 2 weeks. At this stage however, the business needs to factor in the time to impact the SERP results, as SEO stakeholders carefully monitor to plan any further adhoc activity to further boost outcomes for key trading periods (if initial works have not been enough to move the needle).
4. Customer Demand Begins
If the first 3 steps have been followed at the right time, then the SEO performance of your key categories for the trading period should be well positioned for organic traffic, right at the time that peak trading starts. As demand starts to increase for your products, editorial will be key in providing users with advice and guides on what’s trending, but also to provide fresh signals to search engines regarding the relevancy of your brand and range.
Following these 4 steps at the right time will ensure your brands SEO strategy drives the highest performance possible from your annual SEO investment. Getting started in Q2 with a partner is an optimum time for any brand to be able to achieve this.
If SEO opportunities are not efficiently prioritised, brands risk spending valuable time and resource chasing opportunities that cannot be realised due to technical constraint or (more likely), companywide stakeholder buy in within a suitable enough timeframe to impact SEO performance.
Having the right SEO partner that can manage all facets of the SEO strategy, including getting your team onside is crucial in the early phase. Get the right partner, and the rest falls into place.
About Amo Sokhi, Account Director @ POLARIS
Amo is an SEO consultant with over 20 years experience in managing SEO strategy for brands worldwide. Consulting for ecommerce brands on how to tactically approach SEO business wide, Amo guides brands on how to adopt SEO in a way where the subject matter is understood in plain English for all to grasp. Amo’s strengths lie in SEO strategy, account management, and consumer targeting.
