Seasonal SEO Content Tips That Work With Search Trends

Did you know that search queries experience fluctuations in volume throughout the year? Maybe you hadn’t thought about it before, but it makes perfect sense now that it's pointed out.?

Either way, now you know the search trends, you need to start using them to your advantage. How do you do this? You create relevant seasonal SEO content strategies that help you optimise your website all year round.?

Infoserve has collected a few of our key tips just for you.?

What are seasonal search trends?

Seasonal search trends refer to the natural fluctuations in search query volume throughout the year.?

Seasonal search trends refer to more than just the spike in commercial search trends surrounding Christmas; they occur for various reasons.?

There are typically considered to be two types of seasonal search trends:?

1. Time:?

Time-based search trends change depending on the time of year. For example, certain keywords receive more searches in summer or winter, and others will spike during certain months.?

Imagine you are selling winter clothing, for example. People are more likely to search for ‘down jackets’, and ‘thermal socks’ from October to February than in the middle of July.?

2. Event:?

The second type of search trend surrounds events and set dates that take place throughout the year. You’ll find that many search queries will eb and flow around a number of annual events including:?

• Christmas?
• Easter
• Valentine’s Day?
• Bonfire Night?
• Mother’s/Father’s Day
• Ramadan?
• Diwali?

For example, ‘Diwali food recipes’ as a keyword has an average of 590 searches per month, but when you look deeper into the monthly trends, it has between 50-200 searches every month except October, when monthly searches increase to 2,280, and November, when monthly searches increase to 3,610.

The importance of search trends

Seasonal SEO helps you increase traffic to your website, to ultimately convert more customers. Just like on social media, working with trends boosts the engagement you are likely to get.?

Let’s use Christmas to explain this.?

If you’re planning an advertising campaign for Christmas, you wouldn’t fling a reel together on the 20th of December and hope it brings in sales. For one, you will have completely missed the final posting date in the run-up to the 25th. For another, your customers will be limited to people who are searching for really last-minute gifts - so last minute that they’re willing to risk them arriving late.?

Companies start planning for Christmas months in advance. They start targeting campaigns in September. This isn’t just because it’s the ‘done thing’. It’s because they’re looking at seasonal trends, buying habits and customer behaviour to determine when the best time is to show their ads.?

Working with seasonal SEO data is just another way of analysing customer behaviour, but applying it all year round.?

1. Check the search trends

To work with the search trends, you need to know the search trends, and luckily there are so many tools out there that will not only tell you how often a term is searched for but will break this information down monthly.?

This means you don’t have to play guessing games with the search results. Because you can find out exactly when your keywords are peaking throughout the year.?

Then, you can aim your content around this data.?

Make a list of the keywords that you want to rank for, and find out their monthly search patterns. For example, keywords with the word ‘gift’ in them tend to experience a spike in search traffic throughout November and December.?

Of course, it’s important to remember that content can take an average of 6 months to start trending, so don’t leave it too late.?

2. Don’t be late

On that note, our second tip is to always think, plan, and publish SEO content ahead of time.?

Now, we do understand that you may be reluctant to publish Christmas content, for example, in the middle of July, but if you are going to start pushing seasonal SEO content in the winter, be prepared to start seeing results the following year.?

Remember, SEO is all about playing the long game. It is very different to publishing company news or standard blogs that discuss your latest products or deals. For the strongest strategy, we would recommend creating both types of content year-round.?

Promote your current products, but also create blogs that will remain relevant in future years so that you can benefit from ongoing results with little maintenance.?

But, always plan to see the highest reward for your efforts.

3. Consider trends when analysing data?

This trips a lot of people up, unfortunately. Even we, as marketers, will sometimes forget that a drop in traffic is often just a result of search trends fluctuating.?

Always keep this in mind so you don’t panic when you’re not seeing your desired result month to month. If search trends for your chosen keyword spike in February and drop in June, then the content’s traffic will also spike in February and drop in June.?

It doesn’t always mean that the content isn’t working.?

However, if the content spikes in February and your content is in position 1 on Google, but you don’t see any traffic in February, this may be an indication that you should focus your efforts on other key search terms.?

It’s all relative. As long as you keep this in mind, you’ll be on your way to working with search trends rather than against them.

4. Other seasonal content tips

Alongside these key tips, there are other things you can do to optimise seasonal SEO content. We recommend:?

• Repurposing existing seasonal content?
• Staying relevant to the messaging of your business?
• Analyse the way your competitors respond to seasonal trends

Not sure where to start?

If you’re still struggling to create a plan for your seasonal content, then Infoserve can help. Our content experts and SEO team create bespoke web and blog content that helps you get found online and our web design experts are on hand to help you design and build a unique, functional and responsive website.