It’s the festive season! Or it’s nearly Valentine’s Day, or the start of summer, or… You get the drift. People love to celebrate, which is why seasonal content tends to do well during those periods. So, should you put effort into creating content for the holidays? We think so! But you should be smart about it. Here are five tips to help you create good-quality seasonal content.
Why should you create seasonal content?
A big benefit of creating seasonal content is that you’ll stay top of mind. After all, your customers are probably looking for content to give them ideas for gifts, services, or events. By participating in the trend, you’ll show your audience that your business is relevant.
Of course, by having seasonal content, you’ll also be able to boost your brand’s visibility and traffic. Especially if you have content optimized for seasonal keywords! In short: most people get swept up by the holiday season, so it’s good to join the hype.
Tip 1: Create evergreen seasonal content
Good news for busy people! You don’t need to create a new piece of seasonal content every year. It’s way better to create one excellent Christmas post, for example, that you optimize every year. Preferably, you optimize it a month or two before the event or holiday takes place.
This will save you time, and increases the likelihood of your content actually ranking (since that usually takes a while). So, avoid adding years to your content. Don’t write a piece about: Best recipes for Hanukkah 2024. Just delete the year from the title, and you’re good to go.
If you do want to include the year in your title, don’t include it in your URL. That way, you can update the post and title each year without having to constantly create new posts and redirect the old ones.
Our Black Friday post has a year in the title, but not in the URL
What if you already have multiple content pieces about the same holiday?
If your posts rank well for different keywords and they get a decent amount of organic traffic, keep them. But if there is overlap in the keywords they’re ranking for and they get okayish traffic, it’s better to merge them into one big post. Just make sure the post’s content still makes sense.
Our tip would be to use the URL of the post that is performing the best. For the other posts, make sure you redirect them to the optimized post so people won’t hit a 404.
Tip 2: Do keyword research
Whether you want to write a new post or optimize an existing one, it’s good to do research. First, start with keyword research, so you know what your audience is searching for during specific events or holidays.
Tip: you can always look for variations of your core keywords! For example, you can add “holiday” or “guide” or “summer/winter” to them.
Just don’t create content for content’s sake. Only write content if you’re sure that your audience is looking for this information. At the end of the day, you want your audience to feel that your site has added value.
Tip 3: Do competitor research
Once you’ve picked out a main keyword, it’s good to search for that keyword in Google, for example. Analyze the top results. Are they blog posts or category pages? If they’re blog posts, what kind of articles are they? For example, if all the top posts are how-to guides then you probably have the best chance of ranking if your article is a how-to guide as well. Just make sure to write something different from what’s already out there.
Tip 4: Plan well ahead of time
It’s good to remember that people often search for gift ideas or tips for activities or recipes weeks in advance. This means you’ll need to have your seasonal content ready before the actual holiday! That’s why it might be a good idea to have a content calendar for your posts, so you won’t forget.
Plus, it’s good to publish new content early so it has time to rank. After all, once the event is there, you want your content to be findable by your audience. That’s why it’s also a good idea to make sure your content meets Google’s helpful content and E-E-A-T guidelines.
Tip 5: Keep your seasonal content updated
Even though you’ve created evergreen content, make sure to update it at least once a year—preferably a couple of weeks before the event or holiday itself. Let’s say you have a new tip, or one of your products is no longer being produced. By updating your content, you’ll ensure that your content is always relevant and helpful. Which your audience and Google will both like!
Don’t forget to republish your content as new!
Once you’ve updated your content, don’t forget to change the publish date. This way, people (and search engines) will know it’s been updated. Of course, if you have a feature on your site that shows both the publish and updated date, then this isn’t necessary.
So why should you republish or update your content? Again, it shows that your content is relevant and current. Because let’s be honest, how would you feel if you read a blog post with Tips for a perfect summer vacation and the date said 2018? You’d think it was outdated, right?
Tip: Our free Duplicate Post plugin allows you to easily rewrite and republish your posts! With the plugin, you can edit your posts without taking them offline.
You can access the Rewrite & Republish feature via the WordPress toolbar or from the post overview
Seasonal content: the gift that keeps on giving
If you’ve got a solid post that you can update every year, you’ll ensure that you’ll give your audience helpful content. Plus, you’ll gain more traffic during seasonal events. Just make sure to update or write your content weeks in advance, so it has time to rank. All that’s left then, is to promote your content, for example on your social media channels or via email marketing. Good luck!
Cindy is a content manager at Yoast. She writes and optimizes blog posts, and enjoys writing content that will help people create better content for their site and users.
Writing blog posts requires skill. To keep readers interested, you should think about the structure of your content and keep it enjoyable. Because if people like and understand your post, they’re much more likely going to share it with others – and that will increase your rankings. So, if you want to improve your writing skills and your rankings, start with these tips on how to write an SEO-friendly blog post!
It might sound like writing for SEO and writing to attract and engage your audience are two conflicting goals. But that’s actually not true. Sure, if you want to write an SEO-friendly post, you should feature the words you want to be found in a prominent place. But over-using keywords severely damages the readability of your text. In fact, a high keyphrase density can even be a signal to Google that you might be stuffing keywords in your text, which can negatively affect your rankings.
This post provides tips on writing blog posts that are SEO-friendly and readable. These two goals should always go hand in hand. Because we believe that writing in understandable language gets you more visitors and keeps them on your site!
Master SEO copywriting and other vital SEO skills by getting Yoast SEO academy Premium. This gives you access to all our courses and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!
Before you start: do keyword research
Before you start writing, you have to do keyword research. If you want to dominate the search results, you’ll have to figure out which words your audience actually searches for. These are the topics you should write about and the keywords you should use in your text.
When you’ve done your keyword research and have a list of focus keywords to write about, it’s time to get on with writing. Here are 10 tips to help you end up with an awesome blog post!
Writing tips for SEO-friendly blog posts
Above all, your blog post has to be a good piece of writing. When starting a new post, many bloggers just start writing. While this may work for some people, others need more guidance. Personally, I always follow these ‘rules’ when I write a new blog.
1. Think before you write!
Before you start, think carefully about the message of your piece. It helps to answer the following questions:
What do you want to tell your readers, or which central question do you want to answer?
What’s the purpose of your article?
What do you want your readers to do at the end of the page?
It’s also good to think about the search intent someone may have. An easy way to get an insight into this is by looking at the search results for the search term you want to rank with.
2. Devise a structure for your post
To write a readable and SEO-friendly blog post, you need to create a clear structure. This means that every post should have:
some sort of introduction (in which you introduce your topic).
a body (in which the main message is written).
a conclusion (in which you summarize the main ideas or draw a conclusion).
In a few sentences, write down what you want to say in all three sections. You’ve now created a summary of your post. This will help you create a structured and readable blog post. Now the real writing can begin.
3. Use paragraphs and headings
Everybody uses paragraphs, but not everybody uses them well. For example, it might be tempting to start each new sentence on a new line because it looks nice. But you shouldn’t do that! You also shouldn’t make your paragraphs too lengthy, as each paragraph should have its own idea or subject. So, ask yourself what the main idea of each paragraph is. You should be able to summarize that main idea in one sentence. If that’s not possible and you need more sentences to explain the main idea, you simply need to use more paragraphs.
Proper headings also help your readers understand what a specific part of your text is about. If you want people to find their way through your articles, use subheadings to lead them. Subheadings help readers scan your page, and clarify the structure of your articles. They’re not just important for readability, but for SEO as well. That’s why we also advise to use your keyword in some of your subheadings. Don’t use your keyword in every heading! It will make your text read clunky and unnatural. Plus, it will put people off from reading further.
4. Use transition words
Transition words help people scan through your text and understand the relationship between sentences and paragraphs. For example, let’s say there are three reasons for people to buy your product. You should use signal words like: ‘first of all’; ‘secondly’ and ‘finally’. Also, words like ‘however’, ‘similarly’ and ‘for example’ give a clear signal to your readers. Readers will instantly get that a conclusion will follow after words like ‘to sum up’ or ‘in short’. Transition words are therefore very important to add structure to your text.
5. Use related keywords
Stuffing your article with your focus keyword makes it less attractive to read, and it can hurt your rankings. Google is getting smarter, after all. It wants you to write content that users will love. It doesn’t want you to use your focus keyword in every other sentence, because Google now has other ways to analyze what your text is about. For example, one of the ways Google understands the topic of your text is by recognizing synonyms and other keywords that are related to your focus keyphrase. That’s why you should use synonyms and related keywords throughout your copy.
Synonyms are relatively easy to think of, but finding the right related keywords is a bit more challenging. That’s why the Yoast SEO plugin comes with a feature that helps you find related keyphrases right away. Based on your focus keyword, our plugin can generate a number of related keyphrases with the click of a button! Along with how many times that keyword is searched for and what the search trend looks like. This feature is powered by SEMrush and can be used in both our free and Premium plugins. So use this related keyphrase feature!
6. Optimize the length of your article
Make sure your blog posts have a minimum of 300 words but keep the length of your article balanced. Google likes long articles. However, if your article is too long, you might scare users away. So, what should you do? Our advice is to write short to medium-length articles. When you know you’re a skilled writer, you can also try your hand at longer articles. Check out this article if you’re not quite sure how long a blog post should be.
If you’ve already written content on the same topic as your current post, don’t forget to link to and from these posts. We call this internal linking. Both your readers and Google will thank you for it, because it helps them manage your content and understand relationships between different content on your site. So, take some time to link to and from your previous content. Our internal linking tool can help you by suggesting relevant pages and posts on your site that you can link to.
To summarize, internal linking is useful because:
Your link structure is also important for your rankings in Google.
Linking to other content about a subject is great for your readers, as they may be interested in reading these related posts too. It helps them navigate your site!
It will make your new blog post (and the existing posts) stronger, because you show your authority on the subject.
8. Let other people read your post
Before publishing your post, make sure to let someone else read it first. Ask them whether they understand the main concept of your post, and invite them to correct any typos and grammatical errors. They can help you by providing an objective view of the readability and attractiveness of your text. If you have someone in your team who happens to be an expert on the topic you’re writing about, make sure to run your post past them. That way, they can check whether you’re covering everything you need to and give suggestions to make your post even better.
9. Add content regularly
Regularly adding new blog posts to your website tells Google that your website is alive. This is important! Because if your site isn’t active, Google will crawl it less often and this might negatively affect your rankings. But don’t just post for the sake of posting. Make sure that everything you post is high-quality content: informative, well-written articles that entertain readers and fit their search intent.
If you have difficulty posting on a regular basis, it might be a great idea to create an editorial calendar for your blog. This allows you to structure the process in a way that fits you and your team. It’s also a good idea to update your old blog posts once in a while to avoid them getting stale.
10. Use our Yoast SEO plugin
The analysis tool in our Yoast SEO plugin helps you write readable and SEO-friendly blog posts. Start by choosing the most important search term you want people to find this particular page for. This will be your focus keyphrase. After you fill this in, our plugin runs all kinds of checks to see whether your post is optimized or still needs improving. Such as:
Our plugin checks your post to see whether you’ve used the keyphrase in the right places, like your copy, SEO title, meta description, alt text and URL. Yoast SEO Premium also recognizes different word forms of your keyphrase.
It calculates how often you use your keyphrase throughout your text: not enough or too often? When you have Premium it also checks if you’ve distributed your keyphrase evenly throughout your post.
It checks if you’ve used potentially non-inclusive words or phrases, so you can make your content relatable for everyone.
It also checks if other pages on your website use the same focus keyword, to prevent you from competing with yourself.
If you write a relatively SEO-friendly blog post (based on the aspects discussed above) the plugin will indicate this with a green light. Posts and pages with green lights will help you improve the ranking of the pages on your website.
An example
It’s good to remember that not every light has to be green for your overall SEO score to be good. For example, these are the results of this blog post. As you can see, it does have an overall green light for the focus keyphrase “SEO-friendly blog post”:
Analysis results as shown in the Yoast SEO sidebar
Kind of a cool way to get feedback on your content, right? When you use the Yoast SEO plugin you’ll find this feedback in the Yoast SEO sidebar next to your post and in the Yoast meta box under your post (while editing). If you’re interested in learning more about all the aspects this analysis tool looks at, read our article on how to use the Yoast SEO content analysis tool.
Conclusion
The days when a few SEO tricks were enough to get your website to rank well in Google are long gone. Nowadays, quality content is king. And good content also leads to more links, shares, tweets and returning visitors to your website. Of course, there are always other things you can do to maximize the SEO friendliness of your post, but the most important thing is to just write very, very good posts! Still not sure if your blog post is ready to publish? Take a look at this checklist for your blog post to make sure you’re good to go!
Cindy is a content manager at Yoast. She writes and optimizes blog posts, and enjoys writing content that will help people create better content for their site and users.
