Searchlight

There is still time to capture search traffic, even though the holiday season is half over. Here are some great tips that will give you a quick impact to encourage more shoppers to visit your site.

• Add a few keyword-rich links to your home page: In P.J. Fusco's article "Holiday Shopping: Wrap it Up," she had talked about how you shouldn't "trash the current navigation structure, rather embellish it with a few additional links containing well-targeted, keyword-rich anchor text. Doing so helps create one- or two-click shortcuts that efficiently channel search-referred visitors to all your great gifts and goodies." Did you remember to add one or two highly visible links on your site, directing traffic to your holiday specials?
• Revise your meta descriptions for the holidays: Are you promoting a holiday sale or specific items on your site? If so, don't forget to polish your meta descriptions so that searchers will recognize the keywords they're looking for. Last-minute holiday shoppers will be attracted to descriptions that speak to them, so remember to mention seasonal search phrases to encourage them to click through to your site. After you do this, make sure to make a list of the pages you affected so you can change them back after your New Year's Day sale.
• Be social: In my post "Last-minute tips for retailers for the holiday shopping season," one of the tips I had mentioned related to social media. The great news is that it is not too late to get out there, create viral content, and build your network of friends. Whether it's on YouTube, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Digg, etc., it can be as easy as giving a killer list of gift suggestions on UnSpun or Sk*rt. For example, the Great Gifts for Teenagers list was featured on the UnSpun home page recently. Note that with UnSpun, Amazon.com "employs" (probably through Mechanical Turk) an army of folks to spam the heck out of your list with Amazon products; it tends to happen a few days after you create the new list.

Well, there you have it. Just a few tips and friendly reminders that you can still ensure your holiday season is an SEO success.