#SEOTips for the upcoming festive season

#SEOTips: Festive season (Diwali and Christmas) this year is not going to be the same as previous years, we all know that. And hence, the time is now to start solidifying your #digitalmarketing prep. Here are some SEO Tips collated from the experts that can come handy for the special year #2020

Fix your technical web-vitals to achieve richer user-centric experience i.e., better page loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. Core #webvitals are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). The time interval between the start of a page-load to when the largest image or text block in a user’s viewport is fully rendered.
• First Input Delay (FID). The amount of time it takes for a page to be ready for user interactivity (clicks, scrolls, or keyboard input)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). When we fail to define the dimensions for our hero images, for example, text on our pages first appears only to be displaced, causing a disruptive content layout “shift” for our users

Content is and will remain the King

Pandemic has brought more people being online right now which means higher search volume. Take a broader yet deeper look at your master content plan based on the traffic stats (pre-pandemic and post-pandemic data) from your Google Analytics. Which page, which category, which keywords and then decide on the topics, or content briefs. Focus on keyword grouping/clustering to figure if there is any intent change per page or category. Create niche blogs attending to the semantics of the user intent. Quick-tip - create informative yet creatively designed infographics on selected content briefs and use your email database to get backlinks (not embedded but contextual backlinks) from other influencers.

#MobileSEO – Make your site responsive (not dynamic and definitely not a separate domain). Google has already announced that by March 2021 all sites should be indexed mobile-first. A few things to be considered are:

• offer the same awesome content on both the mobile and desktop site,
• invest in structured data
• offer the correct metadata
• check your hreflang set up
• make sure that your servers can handle the increased crawl rate
• make sure that you serve images and video in the proper format

Most digital marketers would know that 86% of all clicks on search go to natural search. Only about 14% of clicks contribute to paid search. But still, organic search i.e., SEO, only gets 11% of the marketing budget? The reason is simple, paid search traffic is not just about quick results but highly measurable when compared to organic.

Guess what, Organic Wins 94% of Time when compared to Paid Search (eConsultancy). Only a smart marketer, knows how to build SEO, which not only can bring more volume but also is inbound (less pushy) in nature, as a most critical tool in #PerformanceMarketing portfolio.

QUICKTIP: Start tracking your #ShareofVoice - SoV in Organic Search. Two steps approach:

• Make a list of (a) competitor domains (direct competition not the blogs and other websites) and (b) the list of main keywords you want to consider traffic from a conversion perspective (exclude brand keywords)
• Check the rank of your competitors against those keywords. The click-through rate (CTR) that corresponds to that rank will be your share of voice for that keyword.

#eCommerce sites: Start now:

• #Omnichannel marketers are killing it online. #QuickTip - get local - build Google My Business and Local Social Profiles.
• Leading us into the battle with daily podcasts, Tyson Stockton suggested - Scenario planning for pandemic hit holiday/festive buying patterns is critical - getting cross-functional teams talking (inventory management, order management, vendor management…). Getting your plan out early, knowing and identifying where the dependencies are, getting it on their roadmap early is going to be a really critical aspect of being successful".
• Check out these stats:

1. Nielsen Intelligence Unit - PREDICTING THE COVID-19 BEHAVIORAL RESET
2. The U.S. Commerce Department reported new retail sales data

Sources:

• Search Engine Journal - Guide to core web-vitals
• Yoast.com - https://yoast.com/mobile-seo-ultimate-guide/
• Podcast by Tyson Stockton on SearchMetrics.com
• Nielsen Intelligence - Key consumer behavior shifts driving future consumption patterns