For retailers and service industries the Christmas and New Year period are by far the busiest time of year. Having invested significant resources in Christmas branding and sales promotions, it’s straight into the New Year and January sales. Shopping trends are showing an increased shift towards online shopping, as the weather worsens and tightened budgets require bargain hunting tools only available on the web. As consumers move online, retailers direct their marketing focus and budget towards their online campaigns. This trend traditionally inflates the average cost per click by 30% (Google Adwords) but economic conditions and poor weather may push competition and click prices even higher. Despite the increase in costs, there is still value in online advertising and one of the core components of any online marketing campaign is identifying where there is value and then optimising for it. However, optimising for Christmas should start before online advertising optimisation; web design and content need to be addressed first.
Christmas: Web Design
Christmas shopping is one of the British nation’s favourite pastimes. It’s an important part of the festive experience, helping people relax and get into the festive feeling. Online shoppers expect a similar experience and a few Christmassy images or a banner can be all it takes. The extent to which you’ll want to use a Christmas themed web design will depend on the products and services you offer. For instance, an ecommerce website selling Christmas gifts would need significant design changes, whereas a top right banner wishing visitors merry Christmas would be suitable for most businesses.
SEO: Optimising for Christmas
Christmas themed content optimisation is more specific to online retailers – not every business has a reason to optimise for Christmas – but there are few that won’t benefit from wishing visitors a Merry Christmas.
There are various opportunities for Christmas search engine optimisation on retail websites. High Street retailers such as W.H. Smith, Tesco and Marks & Spencers capitalise on new SEO opportunities by launching a Christmas section. Search behaviour undergoes various changes on the run up to Christmas, keywords such as “gifts for him,” “xmas gifts under £20,” “stocking fillers” and “gifts for teenage girls” see significant growth. By implementing new navigation options to show “gifts for him” for example, ecommerce websites can be optimised for Christmas and improve the user experience. Improving the on site visibility of popular Christmas gifts is also a great way to search engine optimise them and increase conversions.
Christmas Landing Pages
Having appropriately themed your web design with a Christmas theme and optimised content you’ll be well on the way to having optimised landing pages for Google Adwords or other PPC advertisers. The core function of PPC landing pages is to convert traffic into customers. Further Christmas landing page optimisation should be focused on getting the call to action right. With clicks costing an average of 30% more on the run up to Christmas it’s even more important work hard to achieve a positive return on investment. The optimised content should include information about special Christmas offers and deals.
Christmas Advertising with Adwords
An increase in the cost per click and competition makes it difficult to advertise in the optimum positions without sacrificing value for money. The best way to overcome this is to work towards improving click through ratio. Lower positions and a higher click through ratio is a great way to maintain traffic volume and improve value for money.
Echoing the content on the Christmas PPC landing pages use information about promotions and deals to increase click through ratio (as well as discouraging irrelevant traffic). Also make use of the words such as Christmas (or if you’re struggling in the character count xmas) , Christmas Gifts, Gifts for Him and Gifts for Her. Users looking for Christmas gifts will consider your adverts more relevant because of the use of festive keywords.
It’s important to remember that keywords used in your adverts should be reflected on your PPC landing page to improve the adverts quality ranking and further improve the campaigns value for money.
Christmas is a very competitive time of year, not just for retailers but companies in the service sector too. Optimising for Christmas by improving web design, search engine optimisation, conversion architecture and careful PPC managment can help you get a competitive edge. If you need to optimise for Christmas, act now or miss a great opportunity!
