The Perfect Local Holiday Checklist for your Website

Local SEO is definitely a must for your website. If you want to make your local search marketing more efficient for a business, then you need to make sure that you are able to please two groups at the same time. The first one you need to please is the owner of the business and the second group you need to please is the group of consumers. It is important to have a checklist for the local holiday SEO strategies you need to implement in order to come out as a winner during the busy holiday season. It will be a great way to start the year on a winning note.

Here are the things you need to include in your checklist to ensure that your business is properly optimized for local SEO for the holidays:

1. Make sure your local business listings are accurateIf you are not paying enough attention to your local business listing, your listings may not be accurate. If this happens, users who could be your potential clients could end up in other stores other than yours. If there are weird names showing up instead of your business name, or wrong addresses and phone numbers, your potential customers may not be able to find you. You might even lead them to your competitors! Since the holidays are almost here already, it might be too late to ask someone to manage your local business listing. However, manual fixes are still possible, and it might be the best option for your business at this point. Hunt down all your inaccurate listings and make sure they are properly managed in time for the holidays. It’s better to keep them that way from this point onwards too.
2. Close the Duplicates of your ListingsThis is a point that is connected to the first point that you need to check on your checklist. If you have not made sure that your duplicate listings have been deleted earlier this year, now is the time to do it. However, it can take weeks before you can completely get rid of duplicate pages or listings. It might even take months when it comes to some platforms. Be as quick as possible in deleting them and make sure that they are completely gone before you start the new year.
3. Add Google Business Profile Special HoursHolidays mostly demand extra hours for businesses. When you extend your hours during the holidays, there could be a huge difference on your revenue. Fortunately, it’s so easy to add your extended hours to your Google Business Profile listing. Google already has a list of holidays which are supported with special hours. You can watch tutorials about this, and it’s easy to nail. It’s pretty simple. You can add this holiday information using many different methods, but accuracy should be on top of your priority list. Your customers would be frustrated when they visit your business with the intention of buying something during the holidays, only to find it closed. This kind of scenario can result in bad reviews and that can have a negative impact on your conversion. Make it a point to have the same information on all your listings if you have several.
4. Update Your WebsiteFor sure you have plans for the holidays for your business and you would want to add special offers, events and featured items on your website for sure. You could even be running a sale – people would want to know that the moment your site loads up on their end. Not only that, but when you take time to add extended hours to your local business listings, you should do so too for your website. Make sure your landing pages and your contact page contain the accurate information regarding your opening hours.
5. Prepare for ComplaintsPeople definitely enjoy shopping during the holidays but there are also others who feel stressed whenever the holidays roll in. There will be too much to do with so little time, and the rush in shopping areas can feel confusing, so it can get stressful for sure. People who are stressed can easily be grumpy especially when the customer service is not up to their standards. Don’t let their stress convert to negative reviews. Train your staff when it comes to complaint resolution and make sure that your complaint hotline is always available online and also in your physical shop.
6. Prepare your Google postsGoogle has provided an easy way to highlight your deals and news items. It provides you with many options for outreach too. So make it a point to prepare exciting and engaging posts beforehand so that you can use Google Posts features smoothly during the holidays.
7. Make Your Other Social Media Accounts ReadyFor sure your other customers also rely on many different social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Snapshot. You can prepare your posts early, but during the holidays, it’s more important to prepare your messaging strategies. Many will send questions and inquiries, and instead of struggling to create individual replies at the last minute, it’s better to anticipate the questions so that you can send replies easily and efficiently.
8. Implement Analytical TrackingHave you already added UTM codes to your links that you share on your social media accounts? Are your Google Analytics in place? There are many things you can implement to keep analytical tracking up to date for your business and it will make a huge difference to your business. When the crowd is gone and the holidays are over, you can have enough data that you can use to plan for your next strategies and business plans.It might seem as if it’s too late to manage your business for the holidays, but fortunately, it’s not. If you stay organized and follow the items on this check list, it can make a world of difference for your business. The key here is to keep your customers interested, engaged and informed with matters regarding your business. You can help them have the best holidays when you provide all these customer service and accurate information. Your customers will love you for it will result in positive regard for your business, which can impact your business even several years later.