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.
Using the right keywords is essential in SEO. Because using the words your audience searches with will help your posts and pages rank. That’s why we always tell you to try to find the perfect keywords for optimizing your articles. So, after finding the perfect keyword, why shouldn’t you use it repeatedly? Why would you use synonyms and related keywords? It might seem contradictory, but correctly using synonyms and related keywords can improve your rankings.
Table of contents
It’s important to know the difference between synonyms and related keyphrases. Synonyms are words or phrases that mean the same thing or are very similar. Using them in SEO can help diversify your content and capture different variations of a keyword that people might use in searches. For example, “car” and “automobile” mean the same thing, so they are synonyms.
On the other hand, related keyphrases are terms that aren’t necessarily synonyms but are still connected to the main keyword in context. They help capture broader search intent by covering topics and ideas related to your primary keyword. For instance, if your main keyword is “puppy training,” related keyphrases might include “puppy behavior classes” or “puppy command basics.”
Incorporating synonyms and related keyphrases into your content can make it more relevant. This approach increases your chances of ranking for various search queries.
Variation is key
The main reason to use synonyms and related keywords in your text is to make it much easier to read. If you write a text about ‘candy’ and use the word ‘candy’ in every other sentence, your text will not flow naturally and become unreadable. Your readers will most likely stop reading and leave your page or post. You’ll lose your audience. That’s why you should aim for variation in your writing. For example, ‘sweets’ and ‘delicacy’ could be synonyms for ‘candy’. Related keywords could be ‘chocolate’ and ‘sugar,’ which aren’t synonyms for ‘candy’ but are related to it and can, therefore, still be relevant for your text. We’ll get into that later on in this post.
So, for your text to be attractive and engaging, it should be varied. This can be done in different ways. For instance, you can try to alternate long sentences with shorter ones. Longer sentences are often more difficult to process, and using shorter sentences makes your text easier to read. You can also try to alternate the sequence of words to avoid too much repetition in your sentences.
But the most important thing is to vary with the exact words you use. Especially if you’re trying to rank for a long-tail keyphrase consisting of several words, such as ‘candy store New York’. Using that exact keyphrase in many of your sentences will make your text awful to read. Using synonyms and related keywords, on the other hand, allows you to make a text much more attractive while still being able to focus on your chosen keyphrase.
What about keyword density?
Of course, it’s important to regularly use your focus keyword and be aware of your keyword density. But you shouldn’t overdo it. In the old days, SEOs tended to stuff their texts with their keyword as much as possible. That way, Google would understand the text and rank it accordingly. But Google has come a long way since then. It can read and understand texts perfectly well and is getting smarter daily.
We’ll give you an example. If you type in ‘best candy store New York’ on Google, the results will show pages about ‘candy stores’ and ‘candy shops’. Google understands that ‘store’ and ‘shop’ are synonyms and treats them as such.
Snippets from the search result page for the search ‘best candy store New York’
This doesn’t take away from the fact that you should still use your focus keyword a few times throughout your post. After all, the focus keyword is still the word or phrase your audience was searching for. These are the words your audience uses and will expect to find in your text. That exact match remains important. But, to avoid using your keyword too many times – also called keyword stuffing – you can use synonyms and related keywords. That way, you can rank on these keywords while keeping your text attractive and readable.
Yoast SEO can help you find related keyphrases based on your focus keyword, saving you time and hassle. All you need to do is click the button to ‘Get related keyphrases’; you’ll find it right underneath your focus keyword in the Yoast sidebar. You’ll see a list of related keywords and search trend data when you click that button.
This is how the related keyphrases feature looks in Yoast SEO
As a Yoast SEO Premium or Yoast SEO for Shopify users, you can add up to five related keyphrases to your SEO analysis. This lets you optimize your text for these additional terms similarly to your focus keyphrase. As always, you’ll see our familiar feedback bullets to guide you. If you’re a Yoast SEO Free user, you can explore related keyphrases using the tool, but you won’t be able to add these to your SEO analysis.
Yoast SEO can help you balance the use of your keyword, synonyms, and related keywords by recognizing word forms in different languages. If you want to know more, you can read about the related keywords feature in Yoast SEO for WordPress and the related keywords featured in Yoast SEO for Shopify.
The usage of synonyms versus the use of focus keywords is no exact science. The most important criterion is the way readers will experience your text. So, read and re-read it. Is it engaging and easy to read? Or are you getting annoyed by the constant use of a certain term? Be critical of your writing and ask others for feedback on your text.
As mentioned earlier, you can add your related keywords to the analysis in Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify. By adding these, the plugin can check whether you’re using them in your text. Your focus keyword remains the most important keyword, though, and that’s why the plugin is less strict in its analysis of your related keyphrases.
You can add keyphrases that are related to your focus keyphrase in Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify
You’ll also be able to add synonyms of your focus and related keywords when you use our Premium SEO analysis or Yoast SEO for Shopify. These analyses include checks to ensure you’ve used these synonyms in your text and your meta description, introduction, subheadings, or image alt text. Moreover, our keyphrase distribution check will reward you for alternately using your keyphrase and its synonyms throughout your text.
You can add multiple synonyms for your focus keyphrase in Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify
As we said earlier, Google has come a long way since the early days of SEO. It can understand texts, consider related concepts and synonyms, and recognize related entities. All this allows it to serve its users the best results. And part of being the best result is ensuring your texts are easy to read. Google wants to serve readable texts.
So make sure you deliver! Think of synonyms for your keyword or keyphrase and use them to your advantage. Take a moment to come up with a few alternatives for your keyword. But also think of topics that are strongly related to your keyword. You’ll notice that writing a naturally flowing text becomes much easier when you don’t have to use your focus keyword in every other sentence. Using synonyms and related keyphrases helps Google understand the context of your text, which increases your chances of ranking!
Conclusion
Focus keywords remain essential. These are the words your audience is searching for. People searching for ‘candy’ will probably not click on a result with ‘delicacy’ in the text. If you search for ‘candy’, you’ll expect to see the exact word in the search results. So, matching the keywords of your audience remains important.
Using synonyms and related concepts helps you write a text on topic and full of the proper entities. Repeating the same keyword over and over again hurts the readability of your text, especially if you’re optimizing for a long-tail keyword. Furthermore, using synonyms and related keywords may create ranking opportunities you’d otherwise have missed. If you need help with that, Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify offer extra features to ensure your content is readable and rankable.
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
The world of SEO keeps evolving and changing, which is why it’s important to keep developing your own skills. An excellent way to do this is via hands-on experimentation. In this post, I’ll share three valuable lessons I’ve learned from my previous ventures.
Where it all started
A bit of background information: I started experimenting with SEO in 1999 without realizing it, when I created a South Park fan website. This was done via my early foray into the fundamentals of HTML and having fun with the site through different experiments. I discovered that by manipulating meta keywords, I could influence search rankings. Nowadays, that tactic wouldn’t fly, but it’s still incredible that I learned about SEO this way rather than the more predictable entry through my first professional jobs!
It didn’t stop there, though. I kept learning by starting my own businesses and creating my own websites and plugins, which gave me invaluable insight into customer behavior, product development, and marketing. Plus, I gained a deeper understanding of website structures and functionalities, which we all know is invaluable for technical SEO.
Tip 1: Embrace experimentation
It’s unsurprising, then, that my first piece of advice is: embrace experimentation. That’s how I learned most of what I know. Simply start by experimenting on your own personal website or create a new site to work with. If you use tools like LocalWP, you can freely experiment without impacting live websites.
And don’t shy away from getting your hands dirty with code! Writing code might seem daunting at first, but I promise you it pays off. I taught myself coding in PHP around 2002 and figured it out quite quickly, approaching code like a puzzle I needed to solve. If I could figure it out on my own during my teenage years (when the technology was in a much earlier stage), then you can too.
Explore new technologies and platforms
We all know WordPress is great. I think so too. It’s a truly unique and amazing platform to get started with, because it allows you to extend and experiment with plugins, as well as being able to create custom websites to your heart’s desire.
In recent years, more CMSs (content management systems) have launched as well as really upping their game to the wider market. Whilst a lot can be good for simpler needs, my preference always naturally returns to WordPress as my experiments and scaling attempts will always eventually hit a wall with other CMSs out there.
Create that website for someone else
After you’ve experimented and gained an understanding of websites and SEO, people you know may start to ask you to build one for them, or help out with one they have already. Whilst this may sometimes seem annoying at the time, it’s a great opportunity to experiment with someone live on the web so you can create a use case for your work.
Working with different people and businesses will make sure you encounter different challenges and opportunities to develop new skills. This will ultimately enhance your SEO capabilities.
Tip 2: The importance of a customer-centric mindset
One venture I learned many lessons from is from when I owned a bar with my wife. Whilst this was far from SEO, it taught me many lessons, some of which I apply in my job today.
It’s the same with any business, online or physical. If you understand who your customer is, you can create content and products that resonate with them. This will make them much more likely to become your customers. With a physical business, it’s easier to engage directly with the customer, but in the digital world this can be more challenging. You can learn a lot by engaging with individual customers or end-users directly through a video call or meeting them in real life—try to do this for your clients or the company you work for.
An interesting story of brand loyalty: one day the bar received a one-star review on TripAdvisor. The reviewer said they were happy with their visit in general – with great service and wine – but there was a dog in the bar, which seemed unfair considering that the dog was 3 tables away from the customer and that it’s a dog-friendly bar (as most are in the suburbs). However, this does happen to businesses from time to time and we replied to the review. Back at the bar, some regular customers noticed the review and decided to add their own—all 5 stars. Three days later, the review was removed. This brought our average rating up as a result, which also improved our ranking within TripAdvisor.
This really brought home that not only can a disproportionately negative review have real consequences for a business and its owners, but also showed how brand loyalty counts for so much.
By nurturing and maintaining a relationship with your audience, people will talk about you online and offline.
Tip 3: Be mindful of niche trends
Remember NFTs? Non-Fungible Tokens are a form of digital asset all powered by the blockchain and were extremely popular during 2020-2022. You may have seen a couple of them, including Bored Ape Yacht Club—a generative NFT collection—or a single NFT by Beeple sold for $69.3m.
During its increased popularity, I co-founded an NFT marketing agency. One SEO tactic I used was to utilize my existing agency and create a landing page there to sell the service, using the site’s existing relevance and authority. As a result we began ranking quicker than any other agency was attempting to, whilst also using our newly built site to do the same. Building something from the ground up is a long process but is still worth it, as even the new agency’s site ranked independently and earned its own authority.
Avoid putting all your eggs in one trendy basket
Whilst the NFT marketing agency gave me a lot of invaluable experience and garnered new connections, the trend—and therefore the business—didn’t last.
This experience highlighted the limitations of niche trends for me. It was a great learning experience, but it taught me that trends are usually not a solid foundation for any long-term goals you might have. Whilst it’s great to go “all in” on a new venture, ensure that your current one is supported enough or balance both until one gets to a position you make yourself redundant in the other.
Get experimenting!
I hope this post helps nudge you to explore beyond business as usual. After all, the best way to enhance your SEO and other professional skills is by experimenting!
Alex Moss
Alex has over 15 years experience in every aspect of the SEO industry from in-house, freelancer, agency employee and agency owner at FireCask. With a background in technical SEO, Alex has been working in Search since its infancy. Alex also has years of knowledge of WordPress. Working with our favourite open source CMS since 2010, Alex has built everything from popular plugins to custom-made themes and frameworks.
Away from SEO and WordPress, Alex is the Co-Founder of Millie & Henry, focussing on products for the dog owner. In his spare time he enjoys spending his time with with his wife, son and dog as well as trying to be in Italy a much as possible.
In SEO, using top tools is key. Yoast and Semrush have joined forces to combine their technologies. This integration benefits WordPress and Shopify users by improving their SEO work. Yoast SEO offers easy-to-use SEO features, while Semrush brings solid data that can be used for keyword research. This article will explore the Related Keyphrase feature, which uses Semrush’s keyword data.
Table of contents
Why integrate Yoast SEO with Semrush?
SEO involves more than just content optimization; it requires understanding the search landscape and adopting strategies. The Yoast SEO and Semrush integration offers powerful tools for various SEO areas, like finding keywords, planning, implementation, and analysis.
Benefits for WordPress users
Benefits for WordPress users include enhanced keyword research. You can access Semrush’s vast database from the WordPress editor to find and apply effective related keywords. Get real-time SEO suggestions to refine your content as you write using current SEO data. This integration simplifies your work. You don’t have to jump between tools and platforms as much, so you can concentrate on writing content that ranks.
Advantages for Shopify store owners
Advantages for Shopify store owners include access to ecommerce keywords. These insights help drive targeted traffic to your store. Conduct SEO health checks to analyze and optimize product descriptions and meta tags, ensuring full SEO compliance. Integrating targeted keywords into your Shopify store’s content enhances visibility and boosts conversion potential.
Setting up the integration is simple for both WordPress and Shopify users. Connect your Semrush account to Yoast through the plugin or app interface. This lets you access keyword analytics and SEO advice right in your dashboard. If you haven’t installed Yoast SEO yet, start there. We offer a guide to help you with the setup.
Finding related keyphrases
Related keyphrases, or related keywords, are terms linked to your main keyword. They boost your content’s relevance, which helps search engines grasp your page’s topic and details. Adding related keyphrases makes your content more comprehensive and informative. This enhances its visibility in search results, as search engines favor pages that cover a topic thoroughly.
Using related keyphrases also avoids keyword stuffing, leading to more natural, reader-friendly text. This approach attracts more organic traffic and helps your content rank for a wider range of search queries.
Getting started with related keyphrases
Navigate to the post or page you wish to optimize in the content editor. To access the Semrush tool, locate the Focus keyphrase section and enter your main focus keyphrase. Then, click the Get related keyphrases button, and a pop-up will appear.
Enter your focus keyphrase and click the Get related keyphrase button to access the Semrush pop-up
Semrush presents related keyphrases in the pop-up, including search volume, search intent, difficulty, and trends. For more detailed insights or to explore further, use the Keyword Magic Tool in Semrush. Alternatively, use your preferred keyword research tools to gather additional insights.
Search volume and difficulty data help understand popularity
Semrush’s search volume data shows how often users search for a specific keyword or keyphrase each month. This metric highlights the keyword’s popularity and demand. High search volume suggests strong interest, while low volume indicates fewer searches. You can use search volume data to identify trends over time, spotting seasonal or emerging keywords. Analyzing these volumes helps you gauge your content’s potential reach and find high-demand keywords to target.
However, high search volumes often mean high competition. Balancing search volume with keyword difficulty is key. Keyword Difficulty measures how hard it is to rank in the top ten for a keyword, ranging from 0% to 100%. Lower percentages mean less competition, making it easier to rank, while higher percentages indicate tough competition requiring significant effort.
Yoast SEO shows intent, volume, trend and difficulty data for suggested keyphrases
Semrush and search intent
Semrush provides tools to integrate search intent into your keyword research. Understanding search intent allows you to tailor content to user needs, improving rankings and attracting relevant traffic.
Semrush offers a search intent metric for each keyword, helping you identify whether a keyword is navigational, informational, commercial, or transactional. This insight lets you align your content with user searches. For instance, commercial intent keywords might lead to content focused on comparisons or reviews, while transactional keywords benefit from clear calls-to-action.
You can explore keywords based on search intent using Yoast SEO’s Related Keyphrases tool. This helps you target the most relevant keywords for your content goals. You might focus on informational keywords for a blog aimed at new audiences. For an ecommerce site, combining commercial and transactional keywords can attract potential buyers to your product pages.
Yoast SEO also shows search intent and keyword difficulty data from Semrush
Integrating related keyphrases into your content
Select the most relevant and beneficial related keyphrases from the list provided by Semrush. Focus on search volume, difficulty, and how they relate to your main topic. You can add up to four additional related keyphrases to your content. Yoast SEO will factor in these related keyphrases when analyzing your content and offering suggestions for improvement.
Incorporate related keyphrases naturally
After selecting the best keywords, add them naturally to your content. Avoid keyword stuffing. Use related keyphrases in sections like subheadings, bullet points, and within the body text. Ensure they complement the primary keyphrase and enrich the content’s context.
Include related keyphrases in meta descriptions and image alt texts to expand your content’s relevance. Yoast SEO will give feedback on their integration and suggest improvements.
Analyze and optimize
Once you’ve integrated the related keyphrases, check the analysis from Yoast SEO. The plugin will offer tips for further optimization. Focus on readability and overall keyword usage. Adjust your content based on Yoast SEO’s suggestions to ensure it’s optimized for primary and related keyphrases.
Better keywords with Semrush and Yoast SEO
The Yoast SEO and Semrush integration is a great tool for marketers, content creators, and ecommerce professionals. This partnership helps improve your SEO on WordPress and Shopify by combining data-driven keyword research with practical SEO implementation.
Enhance your SEO by connecting Yoast SEO and Semrush today. Experience the benefits of integrated SEO tools right at your fingertips. Have fun exploring the integration!
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
SEO is a way to get more traffic to your website. By ranking high on Google, you attract more people to your site, which leads to more sales and returning visitors. You must optimize your content for the right words to get people to your site. However, you should consider search intent to increase your chances of ranking, convincing people to buy your stuff, subscribing to your newsletter, or even returning to your website. In this post, we’ll tell you what search intent is and how you can optimize your content for search intent.
Table of contents
What is search intent?
Search intent (or user intent, audience intent) is the term used to describe the purpose of an online search. It’s the reason why someone conducts a specific search. After all, everyone who does an online search hopes to find something. But is someone looking for an answer to a question they have? Are they looking to visit a specific website? Or are they searching online because they want to buy something? Many of these types of searches are part of the user journey online, but often they represent different stages.
There are a few distinct types of search intent. We’ll go into the four most commonly used ones, but we’ll start with an infographic describing the four types in short:
There are four main types of search intent
1. Navigational intent
The first type of search intent is called navigational intent. People with this intent want to visit a specific website. For example, people searching for [Facebook] online are usually on their way to the website. So, you want to make sure that your website can be found when someone searches for your company’s name online.
Google’s search results for the term [Yoast]
Remember that ranking high for a navigational term is mainly beneficial if your site is what people are looking for. Years ago, we had a Google Analytics plugin that ranked well for the term [Google Analytics]. But that didn’t drive any traffic to our site. People searching for [Google Analytics] specifically were looking for the Google Analytics website and were often not interested in our plugin.
2. Informational intent
On to informational intent. People looking for information do lots of searches on the internet. This could be information about the weather, educating children, SEO, you name it. People with informational intent have a specific question or want to know more about a topic.
Google’s search results for the term [omato sauce]
You should know that Google understands intent beyond simply showing results that give information about a specific term. It knows, for instance, that people looking for [tomato sauce] are most likely looking for recipes, not for the sauce’s culinary history. It understands that most people typing in [Mercury] are looking for the planet, not the element. Google even understands it’s handy to include videos and images for search terms, like [how to build a bird feeder].
3. Commercial investigation
Some people intend to buy in the (near) future and use the web to research. What washing machine would be best? Which WordPress SEO plugin is the most helpful? These people also have transactional intent but need more time and convincing. These types of search intents are usually called commercial investigating intents.
Google’s search results for the term [best washing machines 2024]
4. Transactional intent
The fourth type of search intent is transactional intent. Many people buy stuff online and browse the web to find the best purchase. People are searching with transactional intent when they intend to buy something at that moment. That means that they already know exactly what they want to buy and want to get to that product page immediately.
Google’s search results for the term [IKEA PS 2014]
Keyword intent
People’s words in their search queries give us insight into user intent. This also works the other way around. By formulating keywords with intent-specific words, you can increase your chances of being seen by people with matching search intent.
What do we mean by intent-specific words? Well, keywords with transactional intent will often contain words like:
buy
deal
discount
product names
To give another example, informational searches can (but don’t necessarily have to) contain words like:
information
how to
best way to
why
How to optimize your content for search intent
Why are we telling you this? Because you want to ensure that a landing page fits your audience’s search intent. If people are looking for information, you don’t want to show them a product page. At least, not immediately. You’ll scare them away. But if someone wants to buy your product and lands on one of your lengthier blog posts, you might lose them. In this case, you want to lead them to your shop and the right product page.
Optimizing your product pages for commercially driven keywords is a good idea. For instance, if you sell dog vitamins, you could optimize a product (category) page for the search term [buy dog vitamins]. Perhaps you also have an article about administering vitamins. You could optimize that article for the search term [how to give vitamins to my dog] and aim it at people with informational intent.
Research your audience’s search intent
Sometimes, it can be quite hard to determine the search intent of a query. And perhaps different users that use the same search term will have a (slightly) different user intent. Luckily, there is a direct source to look at to know which intent fits your keywords best: the search results pages. Find out how you can use the results pages to create intent-based content.
If you want to know more about your audience’s search intent, another way is to ask them. Create a short survey containing questions about what people are searching for, and make that survey pop up when people visit your website. That’ll give you valuable insights into your audience and their intent. Please don’t be too intrusive with these kinds of pop-ups, as this can hurt the user experience on your website.
Search intent in Yoast SEO with Semrush
Aiming your content with the right intent is important, but it becomes even more important for ecommerce content. Here’s how to apply this with a focus on ecommerce.
Start by identifying the intent behind your main keyword. In ecommerce, this often revolves around transactional or commercial investigation intents. If users are ready to buy (“transactional”), your content should guide them toward purchasing. If they’re still researching (“commercial investigation”), provide comparisons, reviews, or detailed product information.
Look for related keyphrases that match these intents. Use tools like the Semrush integration in Yoast SEO to find variations that potential customers might use. For a keyword like “buy running shoes online,” related phrases could include “discount running shoes,” “running shoes with free shipping,” or “best price running shoes.”
Examine search results for the keyphrases you’ve found to see what ecommerce sites are doing. Pay attention to product pages, reviews, and comparison guides that rank well. This helps you understand what customers expect and how you can differentiate your offerings.
Incorporate these keyphrases naturally into your product descriptions, category pages, and blog posts. Make sure the content answers potential buyer questions and highlights unique selling points. Include clear calls to action to drive purchases, especially for transactional intent.
If you focus well on search intent, you can create content that improves SEO and enhances the shopping experience. Ultimately, you want higher conversions and better customer satisfaction.
Yoast SEO shows search intent insights powered by Semrush
Conclusion on search intent for SEO
It’s crucial to ensure that your content fits the terms people are searching for and your audience’s search intent. Ensure your post or page is informational when people seek information. Be the first result when someone searches for your company name. Provide content that helps people make an informed decision while still investigating their options. But lead people to your sales pages if they want to buy one of your products.
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
People nowadays are uninterested in cold and business-like pieces of content.They want something authentic. They want conversations with people. That’s partly why Reddit is grabbing top spots in the search results because people know they’ll be reading something authentic. Hence why it’s smart to create more conversational content. But how do you do that? Read this blog to find out!
What is conversational content?
Plain and simple, it’s writing like you’re talking with someone. Not to someone. You’re not lecturing. You’re having a conversation with your audience. Though I’d suggest that you leave out the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ and multiple uses of ‘like’ or other filler words, because those can be a bit, uh, distracting or annoying in a text.
For language purists: That also means letting go of some of the more formal writing conventions, like never starting sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but’.
Why conversational content?
As mentioned in the intro, people don’t want to read cold and dry texts. You probably don’t want to read some textbook answer that goes: ‘Conversational content is the art of writing in the way one might talk to other humans’. You, and many others, want to feel like you’re reading something written by another person. And one way to achieve this feeling is to create conversational content.
Because when you write like you’re holding a conversation, chances are that your audience will want to talk back. Or in beautiful marketing terms: engagewith your content.
How to start?
You now know the what and the why. Let’s look at how to start writing conversational content. Easiest way? Write a new blog post. Pick a topic that you’re interested in and that fits with your company or content strategy, then write like you’re talking with your audience! I know, I know, it’s not as easy as that. So here are some tips.
I’m writing this post…
Let’s get a quick tip out of the way: write in the first person. So, use I-sentences, like I’ve been doing so far.
Speaking generally might come across as more professional, sure, but that’s not what you want. If you want to sound authentic, like a human, then you should let go of the generalized statements. No more “Our Product is Great and A Life Saver”. Instead, you can write: “I’ve used Our Product for my own small business, and this is how it’s helped me”.
… And you’re reading it
Don’t forget to address the other side of the conversation. You. The reader. Address them like you would if you were having a conversation with someone. Don’t say “people” as much. Try to use “you” instead.
For example, instead of writing “People want more connection”, write “You probably want more connection”. See? Way more personal when you’re getting addressed.
Ask questions
Do you like it when people ask you questions? Probably, right? As with any good conversation, it’s nice to ask questions. They make the other person feel heard and addressed. So use that in your content writing. Ask people questions, and you’ll see that they’ll feel more engaged already.
Don’t use difficult words
Unless! Ha, there’s always an unless. If you know your audience really well, and you’re sure they’ll understand this or that difficult word, then go ahead. Generally speaking, however, even experts like content that’s easy to understand.
So, no difficult words. You will only equivocate your readers! Worse, some might see it as a diatribe, and accuse you of being dilatory (see how annoying it is when you don’t know half the words? If you do know them, kudos to you!). The short of it: if people lose focus or interest in your content, or simply don’t understand, there’s no way they’re going to engage with it.
Keep it short, okay?
Think about it: if you talk with someone, are you using sentences that are three paragraphs long? Probably not. Which means that as you write, you should keep your sentences short too. Plus, this will make your content easier to read, which is great for readability!
Pssht, if you have the Yoast SEO plugin, it will check if your sentences are too long. If they are, the plugin highlights them for you. This makes it easier to rewrite them!
Emphasize your words
With italics! It sounds almost like a slogan. But yes, it can help with making your writing sound more natural. Why? Because you emphasize words when you speak too. Sometimes it can even change the meaning of your sentence.
For example (a very Dutch example, because if you live in the Netherlands, your bike will get stolen one day. It’s the circle of life): “I didn’t say he had stolen my bike,” means you really didn’t say that. But if you say, “I didn’t say he had stolen my bike,” you want to emphasize that it wasn’t him, but someone else.
Do not write ‘do not’
I’m a big fan of contractions. Grammar contractions, that is. They make a text sound so much more natural. Because let’s be honest, do you say “I do not want another coffee” or do you say “I don’t want another coffee?” Probably the second one, right?
Using don’t and I’m and you’re etc. will sound so much more natural to readers. Which means your content will sound more like a conversation too.
You’re a person, so write like one
Does that sound threatening? I do mean this in the nicest way possible! In order to write good conversational content, you have to ‘let go’ a little. The professional in you needs to take a step back and make space for your personality to shine through. Because if you can make your writing sound like you, it’ll sound so much more natural.
It all comes back to the “people don’t want impersonal and business-like content anymore”. They want to read content made by people. So let your own personality shine through. Make a little joke. Heck, use silly words like ‘delulu’ instead of delusional every once in a while (just make sure your text is still readable to everyone). Just be you.
Add examples and anecdotes
Another great way that will help you write like a person is to add examples. Personal examples, to be exact. It doesn’t have to be long. You don’t have to let us know every detail about your life, but sharing about your personal experiences can help make a piece of writing feel more personal.
Keep the conversation going
Okay, you’ve written a post or piece of conversational content. People are engaging, maybe even commenting! Don’t let the conversation end there. Reply to them. Use their point of view, their insights and questions, and perhaps create another piece of content. Build on the conversation. Keep it going!
What kind of content works for conversational content?
Finally, before you pour your heart and soul (and personality) into your content, let’s look at what kind of content works.
An easy one is opinionated pieces. Has something interesting happened in your area of expertise? Write content about it, and give your opinion. Add to the conversation with your voice.
But really, any piece of content can become conversational if you write it like that—if you use your own voice and personality, and make it yours. Look at this post! Technically, it’s a how-to. Those can be very dry. You’re just giving information, after all. But I’ve used the conversational content tips to make it, well, interesting. I hope I did a good job.
Let me know if I did 🙂 And good luck with writing!
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.
What could be the matter if your perfectly optimized post isn’t ranking? Is the problem that your site is not on Google, or is something else going wrong? What is keeping your content from reaching that coveted #1 position? In this post, we’ll discuss many possible reasons why your page is not ranking, even though it’s optimized.
We’ve divided the possible issues you might be having into four sections:
Pro tip
Quick question: how’s your internal linking? If your content is optimized but not ranking, or Google is ranking the wrong pages from your site, it could be because you need to improve your site structure or fix your orphaned content. We’ve made some really neat SEO workouts to help you check and remedy these kinds of issues — check them out and fix those issues now!
Indexing and crawl issues
The first few points on the list all deal with indexing and crawl issues. Put simply, you can’t rank if your page or site is not on Google in the first place. If you find these topics confusing, you might want to read up on how Google works and how to start with SEO.
1. Your site/page is not on Google
If you need help determining whether your site is on Google, you can use the site: search operator in Google. Type site:yoast.com, and you’ll see a list of pages for that domain. If you type in the full URL of a specific article, you should see only one search result return. If you see your pages, this means that Google knows about your site and has put — at least some of it — in its index. Once you discover that your page is in the index, but you think it is not performing well, you might want to dig deeper.
The site: search operator helps you find your site in Google’s index
How to fix it
Check your WordPress Reading Settings. For the Search Visibility option, if you’ve ticked the box ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’, that’s the most likely reason your site is not on Google. If that’s the case, uncheck that box and click to save your changes. If the problem is that only some specific pages aren’t showing up on Google, then you might want to review your Search Appearance settings in Yoast SEO. Go to the ‘Content Types’ tab and ensure your settings are correct.
2. Your site/page is still too new
If your site or page is new, it might simply be a matter of chilling out and checking back in a little while. There are many moving parts in getting your content crawled, indexed and ranked. Sometimes, it takes days or maybe even weeks for Google to finish its discovery process.
How to fix it
If you check and find your site is not on Google yet, you can install Yoast SEO and submit the generated XML sitemap to Google Search Console to help Google discover your website. You can also use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to determine how specific pages are doing. It tells you exactly how Google crawls and views your site.
3. Your content is noindexed
One of the most common reasons Google does not index your site or a specific page is that it has been noindexed inadvertently. Adding noindex meta robot tags to a page tells Googlebot that it can crawl the page but that the results can’t be added to the index.
How can you check if your page is noindexed? That’s easy; simply open the page and view the source code. You’ll find the code below somewhere at the top of the page. This tells search engine crawlers that the page’s content shouldn’t be added to the index, thus keeping it from ranking.
4. Your site/page is blocking Google with robots.txt
You might have told Google not to index your content, but it’s also possible you’ve told Google not to crawl your site at all! Blocking crawlers in a so-called robots.txt file is a surefire way never to get any traffic. Blocking robots is easier than you might think. For instance, WordPress has a Search Engine Visibility setting that does its best to keep crawlers out once set to Discourage search engines from indexing this site. Uncheck this to make your site available again.
See that this option isn’t inadvertently checked
WordPress uses the noindex approach described above to handle the indexing of sites via the Search Engine Visibility setting. It does have a warning that it’s up to search engines to honor the request.
Besides telling WordPress to block search engines, it might be that other technical issues generate crawl errors, preventing Google from crawling your site properly. Your site’s web server could be acting up and presenting server errors, or buggy bits of JavaScript in your code trip up the crawler. Make sure Google can crawl your site easily.
How to fix it
If your robots.txt file is blocking Google from crawling your website (or parts of it) and you want to change that, then you’ll need to edit the file. You can follow this guide to edit your robots.txt file.
5. You must enhance your index coverage
Ensuring that Google indexes your web pages is essential to succeed. Index coverage refers to the number of your site’s URLs included in Google’s search index. Even the most optimized content may not appear in search results without comprehensive index coverage.
To identify the issue, you must examine the Index Coverage report in Google Search Console. This tool categorizes your pages into various categories and explains why pages are not indexed. If you notice many pages falling under “Error” or “Excluded,” it’s time to investigate further. One of the most common errors is ‘Crawled – currently not indexed’ in Search Console.
How to fix it
Ensure your XML sitemap is current and accurately represents your site structure. Please submit it to Google Search Console to help Google find your pages. Review and resolve any crawl errors such as 404s, server errors, or redirect issues. These errors can prevent pages from being indexed. Pages with low-quality or duplicate content might be excluded from the index. Focus on creating unique, valuable content that provides genuine user engagement. Use the URL Inspection tool to request indexing for crucial pages not yet indexed. This tool also provides insights into how Google perceives your page.
Google Search Console helps you understand why pages are not indexed
Technical issues affecting ranking
Is your page/website indexed but not ranking? Then, technical problems need to be checked.
6. You’re not ranking because your site has technical issues
Your website needs to meet certain technical benchmarks if you’re going to rank on Google! Loading speed, or how quickly your pages load, is important. Security and hosting quality are important too, and that’s not all. You can read about all the essentials in our article: things everyone should know about technical SEO.
If your post doesn’t appear in the search engines, technical issues could prevent it from appearing in the search results completely. You could have conflicting plugins causing problems, and we’ve also seen some themes that prevent Google from indexing your site. And, while Yoast SEO takes care of many technical issues under the hood, it should be set correctly to do that properly.
How to fix it
The fix you need will depend on the technical issues your website is having, and we can’t cover everything here. You might want to check the following points:
Check your plugins and/or theme aren’t causing problems.
If your technical SEO looks good and your site is indexed, you must dig deeper to discover the problem. Keep reading!
7. You’re being penalized for breaking SEO rules
If Google catches you using shady SEO techniques that it doesn’t allow — e.g., sneaky tactics like buying links or stuffing keywords into hidden text — your page or site can be penalized. When you’re already putting in the effort to make a good website and quality content, it’s counterproductive to try. Even when everything else on your page is perfect, if you’re doing something that Google doesn’t allow, you will have problems ranking (or appearing in the Google search results).
Most of these things are common sense, so you probably don’t need to worry if you’re not trying to trick Google or spam people. However, a few things used to be common SEO practices that can now lead to issues — check out our article about SEO myths for more examples of bad SEO practices to avoid.
How to fix it
You can check whether Google has flagged your page for these problems in the Manual Actions tab in Google Search Console (GSC). If you’re still new to using GSC, you might want to check out our introductory article. If you find an issue under the Manual Actions tab, read this help article to learn more about what it means and how to fix it.
Linking issues that affect ranking
A good internal linking structure and quality backlinks are important if you want to rank high. Google crawls the web, following each link it finds, so if your links are lacking, it can cause problems with ranking.
8. Your site doesn’t have a proper internal linking structure
Another reason your content doesn’t appear in the search results is that a crucial part of your SEO strategy is not in order. Don’t underestimate the importance of site structure – the internal linking structure – for your SEO strategy. Having a clear site structure leads to a better understanding of your site by Google. If your internal linking structure is poor, chances to rank high are lower – even when your content is well-optimized and awesome.
How to fix it
Start adding those links! Make sure that your important posts and pages have the most internal links to them. But don’t randomly add links: make sure you add relevant, related links that add value for your users.
You can use the Yoast SEO orphaned content filter to find posts without incoming internal links. Yoast SEO Premium will help you even more by offering helpful linking suggestions as you write. In addition, if you use Yoast SEO Premium, you get various other AI features, like Yoast AI Optimize, that help you do the hard work. And if you really want to improve your site structure, check out our site structure training — which is also included in Premium!
Pro tip: Take care of your orphaned content and internal linking the easy way with our SEO workouts, available in Yoast SEO Premium.
If you just started with your website, your content won’t instantly rank. Not even if you have optimized everything perfectly and every bullet in Yoast SEO is green. To rank, you’ll need some links from other websites. After all, Google has to know your website exists.
How to fix it
Creating incredible content is a good way to get links to your pages. High-quality content attracts clicks from readers who might share the content far and wide via social media. All this helps to get those links. Of course, you can do more to get links in a natural, non-spammy way: here are fifteen ways of getting high-quality backlinks.
To get (more) backlinks, you can reach out to other websites. You’ll need to do some PR or link building. Ask them to mention your site or talk about your product and link to your site. You can also use social media to get the word out! Learn all about link-building strategies in our All-Around SEO training!
Content and keyword issues affecting ranking
If everything else is as it should be SEO-wise, then your page or site is not ranking might be related to your content or keywords.
10. Your page is great, but there’s too much competition
Usually, a page doesn’t rank because there’s simply too much competition. If you optimize your content for competitive keywords and keyphrases, such as [cat behavior], [robot vacuum cleaner], or [real estate agent], chances are high that you won’t rank for that term.
Check the results pages for your keyword to determine if this is the problem. Do high authority sites like Wikipedia or Amazon dominate the first page? Do you see many sites already firmly established themselves in this niche? Probably, your site doesn’t have the authority that these other sites have (yet). So you can optimize all you want, but unfortunately, that’s not enough to rank high in the search results if your niche is too competitive.
How to fix it
If you want to rank for highly competitive terms, try a long-tail keyword strategy. Write content that targets related long-tail keywords and phrases before tackling the competitive keywords. If these long-tail articles start ranking, you can also rank for more competitive terms. Such a strategy requires long-term efforts, but in the end, it will pay off.
Another reason your content isn’t ranking is that it doesn’t match the intent of people searching for your keyword. Search intent is important for search engines: do people want to buy something, go to a specific website, or seek information? Even if you’re targeting a more long-tail keyphrase, if your content doesn’t match the dominant intent of searchers, search engines won’t show it in the results because it won’t be what people are looking for.
Let’s look at a few examples. Say you’re a dog trainer who wants to rank for puppy training services, so you optimize for [training your puppy], with transactional intent in mind. But if you look at the search results, you’ll see that there are informational videos, and all the results explain how to train a puppy yourself. So, searchers have informational intent. This can work the other way around, too. If you’ve written a step-by-step guide for your blog on making garden decorations, aiming to rank for [flower garland garden decoration], you may have trouble ranking for that term if people just want to buy that, not make it themselves.
Remember that not every search term has one dominant type of intent. Also, it isn’t impossible to rank with content for differing intent. Still, it can be worthwhile to look into this if your optimized content doesn’t rank in the search engines.
How to fix it
Unfortunately, you don’t have the power to change the intent of search engine users. But you can adapt your content strategy. If your optimized content isn’t ranking, look at the search results (use private mode) and analyze what you see. Is one specific type of result dominant? Are there images or videos? Which related queries are shown? This is where your opportunities are. If you find primarily informational intent for a query, you can write content to get people to your site, establish your brand as a reliable source of information, and stay top of mind when people want to buy something. If you find a lot of images in the search results, you may need to focus more on image SEO. Consider what you see on the results pages when determining your SEO strategy.
12. Your content lacks uniqueness
Even well-written and optimized content might struggle to rank if it doesn’t stand out. Search engines prioritize content that offers a unique perspective or provides additional value compared to existing articles on the same topic.
Check the search results for your target keywords and examine the top-ranking pages. Does your content offer something different or more insightful? If your page presents similar information in a comparable format, you may find it difficult to climb the rankings. With the advent of generative AI, we’ll see a wave of mediocre sameness appear in the search results. If you publish the same stuff, search engines won’t bother with it.
Generative AI can help create content but needs help maintaining quality and relevance. While AI can quickly produce large volumes of content, we should prioritize quality over quantity. You should make sure that the material is original and valuable to your audience. AI-generated content might be repetitive or lack diverse perspectives. It’s essential to refine it with your unique insights or expert opinions.
Additionally, the content should always align with your audience’s needs and search intent, as AI may not fully capture human nuances. Always comply with search engine guidelines regarding AI-generated content to avoid potential penalties or indexing issues. You can enhance your content strategy while preserving its integrity by using AI as a supportive tool rather than a standalone solution.
How to fix it
Quit simply; add unique insights and views. Add your own voice and incorporate original research, case studies, or expert opinions to set your content apart. Keep your content fresh with the latest information, trends, or data to maintain relevance and uniqueness. Encourage comments and discussions to build a community around your content, making it more dynamic and engaging.
Is your optimized content still not ranking?
Multiple reasons could prevent a post from ranking. Have you optimized your post correctly with Yoast SEO? Then, the most common cause is likely to be that the competition in a niche is too fierce. Unfortunately, SEO is a long-term strategy. You need to work hard and be patient. In the meantime, you can tackle many other aspects of your SEO (site structure, link building). Try to focus on all website optimization aspects and be the best result. It will pay off eventually!
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
The summer has just ended. Should you already start preparing for Black Friday and the holiday season? Yes! They’re the biggest sales of the year, and ranking in Google is something you take time to do. It’s never too early to start getting your deals ready. So, if you have an online shop or an ecommerce store, let’s start working on your holiday season and Black Friday SEO immediately!
Don’t forget that Black Friday (November 29, 2024) and Cyber Monday (December 2, 2024) are kicking off this year’s holiday shopping season. You can set up a lot of content for all occasions. In this post, we’ll review some things you can do to prepare!
Table of contents
Today, people are used to shopping online. It’s easy and convenient. You don’t have to travel only to find something out of stock. Plus, online stores often offer payment plans. Shopping online is so popular that online sales in the USA during the holiday season hit a record of $221 billion last year! And the numbers will only continue to rise. That’s why it’s safe to assume that people will buy many (if not most) holiday gifts online this year.
Staying on top of trends to prepare for the holiday season is good. E-commerce is still growing, and consumers expect more every year. Here are some actionable tips for the upcoming Black Friday and holiday season to improve your SEO:
Discount deals and alternative payment options (Buy now, pay later) should be part of your ecommerce strategy
Brands should provide a consistent purchasing experience across digital/online and physical stores
To minimize returns, brands should make their product pages as comprehensive as possible
Holiday season marketing campaigns should be tailored to each platform to ensure maximum effectiveness
Online is where it’s at
Of course, in-store or curbside pick-up will still prove popular. However, most people research their ecommerce purchases online – sometimes weeks in advance! So don’t be surprised when the holiday shopping season starts well before Black Friday and continues for weeks.
Extending Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other holiday season online deals for a few days or weeks can be a good idea. This is especially true if you want to prevent huge crowds from gathering at your store on a specific day. That won’t be a good shopping experience for anyone involved, so spreading these deals over an extended time is probably better.
Start preparing in time
Dive into the data you amassed during previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, and see if you can come up with improvements for your holiday season SEO. Bear in mind that it takes a while for content to rank. So, to keep up with the competition, try to get your content in gear at least 45 days ahead. That’s often recommended. Of course, you can always start preparing earlier if that works better for you. Your schedule could look something like this:
45 Days in advance: Post your promotion to your website calendar and post a save-the-date post on social media and in your email newsletter).
7 Days in advance: Post upcoming events/promotions on social media and via email. Try to encourage other (small) businesses to share it with their followers.
1 Day in advance: Post an event reminder post on social media.
It’s a good rule to remember these steps and time frames. However, you can do much more than set up new pages and renew old ones. Let’s look at a few practical tips.
1. Do holiday season keyword research
Keyword research is important all year, but especially during the season when your online store starts having big sales. You have probably worked on this research previously, but now is the time to dive in again. There are always things to learn, like developments in your industry, changes in consumer behavior, or new trends and topics to discuss.
Start early with your research to give yourself enough time to produce high-quality, helpful content that helps reach those new audiences. While using generative AI tools to generate Black Friday SEO content for your ecommerce is enticing, please refrain from doing so. Generative AI can help you do your job but can’t replace your valuable insights and opinions.
2. Set up holiday season gift pages
First, we must consider what category or particular landing pages make sense for the upcoming holidays. You can always set up pages like ‘Best gifts for parents/millennials/teens’, ‘Newest deals for your 6/10/12-year-old’, and ‘Best friend/grandparents/coworker discounts’. You could also think of ‘Top 10 gifts for outdoor/skiing/parasailing enthusiasts’ and ‘Top 3 deals for stay-at-home parents’, etcetera.
To increase the chances of your gift pages ranking, boost their internal linking structure. You can also link the previous all-year holiday season pages, such as specific Christmas landing pages (‘Top 7/10/25 gifts for under the Christmas tree’) to boost these when the time has come. That could be around the 45-day mark, but we would be okay with stretching that to 60 days. You’ll need to give Google and other search engines enough time to follow your links and find your specific holiday season SEO landing pages with deals.
Social media like X and Pinterest — though this is technically a visual search engine — can play a massive role in the success of your (online) holiday season sale. Take Pinterest, for instance. Raise your hand if you or your spouse has a Pinterest Christmas wish list. Many people do. If you get your products on people’s wish lists, that can positively impact your sales.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to share your holiday season gift pages on Facebook and Instagram. In the previous section, we’ve mentioned the top 10 lists. We all know these still work pretty well on social media. Yoast SEO can help you optimize your social media posts before you share them.
Email marketing
Last but not least, remember your email marketing! For many companies, newsletters provide a steady stream of income. Be sure to plan a good campaign for your newsletters.
For example, we recommend setting up holiday gift guides and sharing these. You can create an excellent overview of many gifts that many people will enjoy. ELLE and Target have pages like that, and so do more companies.
4. Introduce new products
The holiday season is an excellent time to pitch new products. If you know of potential bestsellers for the upcoming holiday season, start writing content about these products now. You can compare it to tech sites writing about concept iPhones, features that Apple might add, etc.
The more you write about new products upfront, the more likely the sales pages for these products will rank when it matters. You should link all pages you made in advance to that one main page you’ll set up when the product is released and available to buy. Treat that page like cornerstone content.
5. Add structured data to your product pages
When adding or changing your product pages to fit the holiday season, don’t forget to optimize them. Check, for instance, whether you’ve added structured data to your product pages. Rich results that show ratings and prices can give you an edge over your competitors. Our WooCommerce SEO plugin, Local SEO plugin, or Yoast SEO for Shopify app can help you do this to improve your holiday season!
Example of a product appearing in the search results if you use structured data.
Don’t forget to optimize your product feeds for Black Friday SEO. This maximizes visibility and sales during this high-traffic online shopping period. Start by ensuring all product information, such as titles, descriptions, prices, and availability, is accurate and up-to-date. Check if the products that need them have relevant Black Friday keywords to enhance discoverability. Use high-quality, clear images to showcase your product.
Use the promotions feature in Google Merchant Center to prominently display special deals and discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This way, you’ll make your offers more attractive to potential buyers. Please update your feed regularly to reflect real-time inventory changes and fix errors to maintain product visibility.
7. Reuse content
There’s no shame in serving old wine in a new bottle. If you have a Black Friday or a Christmas gift guide for 2023, feel free to reuse it in 2024. Update the year and details like popular brands and products for that year. If the slug of your URL is /black-friday-guide-2023/, change it to /black-friday-guide-2024/ around August next year, and redirect the old URL to the new one. No need to create a new page. It would be a waste of nice inbound links not to reuse that old URL. Of course, this is even easier if you don’t include the year in the URL, so /black-friday-guide/ is also an excellent slug.
In the months before the holiday season, you could even simply repost popular posts from last year (a bit adjusted or updated if needed) on social media. Valentine’s Day might even become Secret Santa. Cyber Monday might match your child’s favorite gifts for Ramadan. These are probably small adjustments; perhaps just adding ‘this Ramadan’ to a meta description or title will do.
It’s a good idea to check and optimize your website for speed and mobile use. Trust us; you’ll get these recommendations from an SEO blog or consultant daily. And with good reason! Mobile, site speed, and user experience are essential to get people to spend money on your ecommerce business this Black Friday. When preparing your online store for the holiday sale season, this is as good a time as any to check your mobile website and site speed, and update or improve them if possible.
Investing in local SEO for Black Friday and Christmas shopping is essential for local businesses aiming to attract more customers. Begin by optimizing your Google Business Profile with accurate business information, including address, phone number, business hours, and any special Black Friday/Cyber Monday hours or promotions. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews. Use local keywords in your content, focusing on terms your community will likely search for, such as “Black Friday deals in [Your City].” Additionally, engage with your local community on social media by promoting special deals to drive more foot traffic to your store.
10. Create a measurement plan
All set? Remember to make a measurement plan to analyze your success. Write down all your plans, then think about how to track all your actions. This is key to knowing what to focus on next year. For detailed instructions on analyzing your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Cinco de Mayo shopping, read our post with five tips to measure your holiday sales success.
What should you do when the holiday season is over?
How do you handle the product pages of holiday gift sets after the holidays? Even if the gift set or product was a great success, and you want to offer it again next year, it’ll take a while for the page to be relevant again. What is the best way to deal with these pages in the meantime?
Our advice: Keep the pages up. However, you don’t necessarily want them visible to people browsing your site. So, have the page up without linking, then link to it again during the holiday season. This is better than deleting it and starting again.
Conclusion on holiday season SEO
In short, now’s the time to buckle down and start writing holiday gift pages and content for new products. Remember to plan your social media promotion and analytics. After all, you can never start too early when your online business depends on the holiday season. Be prepared; begin now with your SEO. Good luck with your holiday season sale!
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
Another way to market your product or service? Really? Yes, we’re really looking into something new today. But don’t worry. It’s not groundbreaking. If you look at how the internet and your audience’s interests have changed, you’ll understand why conversational content might be worth investing in.
Does this interest you?
That’s the big question you want to ask your audience. Because you want to write content that interests them, and yet… Something’s not going right. With Reddit moving up in the search results, instead of actual blog posts, there’s a trend happening that people can’t seem to make sense of.
Except it does make sense. People want to read what interests them, and lately, they haven’t been interested in the cold and business-like approach that most websites and blogs have adopted. And let’s be real with ourselves, what’s more appealing?
The latest shift has indicated that audiences engage more frequently with content that’s written in a semi-casual or even fully casual style, with syntax one might use while talking.
Or: I’ve noticed that my blogs get more engagement when I talk about personal preferences and experiences. Here’s what I did.
Yep. It’s the latter, isn’t it?
Why the shift towards conversational content?
Listen, we don’t want to blame AI again, but… It’s not helping. It makes every blog post sound the same; worse, it’s not even right half the time. That’s why we don’t want to read a fully-generated blog post either. And yes, we can tell it’s generated. A lot of people can nowadays.
Conclusion: people can tell when content is generated, and they don’t want it. They want authenticity. Which is why they go to… Reddit. Because there, humans give advice to and talk about their problems with other humans.
Example of Reddit appearing high in the search results
What about influencers?
Good question (I once read a blogger complain about the use of questions in headings, because it’s not an interview, they said, but it reads more like a conversation this way, doesn’t it?). Influencer marketing doesn’t work as well as it used to, mostly because people aren’t clueless. They can see through the beautiful photos/videos/words. They know the influencer is being paid to say positive things, making it less appealing and ineffective.
Don’t entirely give up on influencers
What does seem to work is working with micro or nano influencers. People with a small following usually have a better connection with their audience. Their brand deals are also less common, because they’re not well-known, so they’re not throwing commercial after commercial at their followers. Plus, the brands who sponsor/work with them might be smaller too, and more fitted with the micro/nano influencer’s own brand.
Example of a micro influencer
Though the reasons might be varied, they all boil down to the same thing: the content of micro and nano influencers is more authentic.
A shift in the audience’s needs
You’ve probably heard the phrase “Write for your users”. Yes, we’ve used it too, because the underlying message isn’t wrong. You should write content that interests your users. The problem is that people don’t want to read cold and factual content anymore. They want to have a conversation with you.
So what should you do?
Take a look at your own content. Try to see how you can make it more authentic, more genuine, and how you can add value to your audience. And no, we’re not talking about how your product adds value. We’re talking about your content. Your brand.
Brand marketing is where it’s at
Yes, it sounds like a no-brainer, but hear us out. Let’s say you’ve been seeing posts and content from a brand that really inspires you. It makes you laugh, it makes you think, it makes you feel connected to the brand. When you eventually visit their website and see their product, which aligns with their brand, you’ll probably feel more inclined to buy/subscribe.
Why? Because you’ve not been beaten to death with commercials or ads or buy ourfastest, bestest, newest solution that will change your entire life. You will look back at your life Before Our Product and think: Wow. How could I have ever lived without Our Product?
That kind of marketing becomes exhausting. Plus, it doesn’t mean anything. Everyone’s the fastest, and everyone’s product is the best. We don’t believe it anymore, and you probably don’t either.
Be genuine with your brand marketing
People are looking for authentic web experiences. They don’t want to walk into a sales pitch, even though that’s exactly what half (if not more) of the web is nowadays. Visiting a website is like opening your front door to someone selling vacuum cleaners. It’s exhausting.
You have to establish a real connection first. So foster your brand’s identity. Show concern for your users and their lives. Talk with them like a real person would. Have a dialogue with them. And please don’t ask people to open their wallets and fork over money without even saying hi, how are you? first.
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.
AI-powered search tools like SearchGPT have sparked both excitement and concern among SEOs. Recently, industry prognosticators have expressed fears about AI-driven tools undermining traditional traffic sources. They worry that widespread adoption of these tools will divert so much traffic away from previously profitable websites that the decline in visibility will “unalive” those sites completely.
Table of contents
It’s normal to feel nervous about new technologies, especially when they seem to change not only the core of how you understand search works, but also change searcher behavior in general. Thankfully, anxiety fades when facts are clear. Let’s break down why AI-powered search is not built on theft and how it fits into the broader SEO ecosystem.
Understanding how AI-powered search works
Before addressing the claims of content theft, we must first understand how tools like SearchGPT function. At its core, these AI tools are large language models (LLM) trained on vast amounts of publicly available text data. This training process involves learning patterns in language to generate human-like text responses. Unlike traditional data analysis or fact-learning, the “training” focuses on understanding and predicting language rather than memorizing specific facts. This, then, begs the question: “Does it really, truly answer questions, or does it just create accurate-sounding guesses?”
Data gathering and synthesis
When a user submits a query, SearchGPT (specifically, but this is probably true of similar tools) processes the input by analyzing and interpreting the request using its trained language patterns. This means the way the search for facts is constructed is more accurate than relying solely on the terms inputted by the user. Then, instead of merely searching for and retrieving existing content, it looks at all the content from multiple top sources. It synthesizes that information (meaning it reads and evaluates all the retrieved content) to construct a coherent and comprehensive response.
The “synthesizing” process involves:
identifying relevant data points
understanding the context of the query
evaluating the expertise and likelihood of accuracy
and integrating information in a way that aligns with the user’s intent
Generating original content
SearchGPT doesn’t copy and paste text from websites. Instead, it generates new content based on the patterns it has learned during training. This process is similar to how human writers use their knowledge and experience to create original articles. By leveraging sophisticated algorithms, SearchGPT (and other tools) ensures that the generated text is both unique and informative, providing valuable answers without replicating existing content verbatim.
Ensuring accuracy and relevance
To maintain high standards of accuracy and relevance, AI-powered search has processes in the background to evaluate the reliability of the information it synthesizes. It prioritizes data from authoritative sources, cross-references information to minimize errors, and continually adapts to new information to provide up-to-date answers. This dynamic capability ensures that users receive responses that are not only accurate but also reflect the latest knowledge and trends.
The dynamic nature of AI responses
This is where the general understanding of how AI creates search responses and content goes astray. When tools like ChatGPT or AI-powered search tools write new content or provide answers, they are not relying solely on data points and facts that they have been *previously* trained on; the data set is not “old.” The AI’s ability to search for and adopt new information allows it to refine its responses over time, ensuring that the answers remain relevant, valuable, and accurate. This continuous learning process means that AI-powered tools can adjust responses to better meet users’ needs as user behavior and information evolve, providing a more personalized and effective search experience.
To sum up, tools like SearchGPT function by gathering and synthesizing information from a wide array of sources (that they find on the web) to generate original, accurate, and relevant responses to user queries. This process ensures that while the AI provides quick and concise answers, it does so by leveraging a deep understanding of language and context rather than stealing or copying content.
The role of attribution and source linking
The biggest concern among SEOs is the traffic loss if AI-powered search provides direct answers without driving clicks to the source website. This fear is completely understandable but overlooks an important aspect: the role of attribution.
Many AI-powered search engines, including those integrating models like SearchGPT, prioritize providing users with accurate, high-quality information. In doing so, they include links back to the original sources. This attribution ensures that websites receive credit and traffic for their content. Rather than stealing clicks, AI serves as a conduit, directing engaged users to the source of the information for more in-depth exploration.
However, this also means that the core concern, that some sites might lose traffic because they are not chosen as the cited source for the information, is a reasonable concern. The way to combat this loss isn’t to fight against adopting new technology (because that is probably futile at this point). The best way to fight is to ensure the cited source is YOUR source. This will become the new focus of SEO.
AI as a complement, not a competitor
The notion that AI-powered search will “kill” websites is rooted in a misunderstanding of how these tools are intended to function. AI doesn’t replace the need for high-quality, authoritative content; it amplifies it. Search engines and AI tools rely on the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT) of websites to deliver relevant and credible information to users.
Websites that invest in EEAT will continue to thrive, as AI tools will naturally prioritize their content in response to user queries. In this sense, AI becomes a partner in the SEO journey, helping to surface the best content and ensure it reaches the right audience.
Websites that are “killed” by AI-powered search won’t be innocent victims of a new technology run amok; rather, they’re more likely to have been removed from the knowledge pool by digital Darwinism — “survival of the fittest“ and all that.
The future of SEO in an AI-driven world
As with any technological advancement, AI-powered search tools will require SEOs to adapt and evolve their strategies. However, this evolution doesn’t mean the end of traditional SEO practices. Instead, it highlights the importance of optimizing for both AI and human users — which is not all that different from the old guidance to “optimize for both robots and human users.” See? What’s old is new again!
By creating valuable, authoritative (read: unique!) content that meets users’ needs, websites can continue to grow their visibility and influence in an AI-driven world. SEO professionals who embrace these changes and integrate AI into their strategies will be better positioned to succeed.
Dispelling the myth of theft
The idea that AI-powered search is built on theft is misleading and overlooks the potential benefits these tools bring. Rather than fearing AI, SEOs should leverage it to enhance their strategies, drive more meaningful engagement, and ensure their content remains at the forefront of search results.
AI isn’t here to steal; it’s here to drive evolution. It’s not the biggest or loudest that thrive on the web, but those who adapt. Just as in nature, survival belongs to the fittest—those who innovate, evolve, and embrace the future.
Carolyn Shelby is an expert in SEO and AI, specializing in enterprise and technical SEO and optimizing web architectures. She views SEO and AI as powerful tools to narrate a brand’s journey, aligning content with core values to engage and convert audiences. Her approach is both data-driven and distinctly human, using straightforward, innovative methods to achieve real results.