What Does Your Holiday SEM Campaign Look Like?

[Elisabeth]

Q4 is always a booming period for online retailers, and this year's Holiday Shopping season is looming around the corner.

For those focused on organic SEO, I suspect you're crossing your fingers and praying to the organic gods not to make a major ALGO shift right before the season begins... Florida anyone?

Any of you still working feverishly to improve some rankings in hopes of a few last minute changes?

I also know of at least one major ecommerce site that has a "No Changes after Oct 1 or 15" rule, so they don't upset the SEO team.

Spending usually ramps up for holiday PPC campaigns, but how many of you have reworked creative to specifically target holiday gifts & related items?

what about PR (media relations) efforts & other tactics?

What's on your agenda for holiday sales promotions?

[Chris Boggs]

Good topic Elisabeth...I know that we are continuously pushing for higher rankings, but at this time of the year it pays to really focus on higher-converting terms, both paid and organic. Adding nice holiday content can also help for fresh crawls and adding more of those juicy keyword phrases. In short, we are certainly very busy and it's not too late to still make effective changes, in my opinion.

Also, two forgotten words: Google Base.

[Chris Boggs]

jeez no other ideas to share, anyone?

[Elisabeth]

Originally Posted by Chris Boggs

jeez no other ideas to share, anyone?

Lol. probably would have helped if I shared some psuedo-specifics

I've been working a bit on a food related ecom site, along with another expert in the industry, who also happens to be a member here..

we've focused efforts in a few areas:

• increased PPC efforts, got more aggressive with ROAS.
• started working with major shopping sites/comparision engines, definitely have seen improvement on that front.
• Added more content around 3 specialized product areas.
• Reworking all SEO elements on product pages. (little behind on that, so we are slightly concerned about it not having an instant effect, but I think we get spidered frequently enough it should make a positive change)
• working on link popularity, targeting a few verticals.
• boosting media relations efforts.
• Google base, ya, we use it.. can't say i'm really seeing results from it.

[evilgreenmonkey]

The company I work for doesn't exactly do Christmas Specials. I'll be doing some pre-season link baiting though for those who like to give themselves a gift at Christmas.

hmmm, if I were in the porn industry that would sound quite dodgy

[dsarathy]

Of all the quarters, Q4, the final quarter is definitely a booming quarter. We get to see lot of sales activities happening in this quarter. There are few basic things, which all the online marketers are to remember.

a) Holiday promotional Ads can be worked out and implemented. And these promotional messages can be highlighted in the landing pages to reach the end users with the right message.

b) The entire shopping experience of the users would be revolving around a common mood. Tap on those keywords (seasonal), which captures the mood of the end users. Find out the list of keywords with which the users had visited your site during last holiday period. This gives an idea of what type of keywords, to focus during this period.

c) Added to the increase in the number of users visiting your site and the above two points naturally warrants for an increase in the Budget of the SEM. Try to cut down all other expenses and maximize the SEM based on your previous experiences.
d) Since this Quarter is going to be highly competitive, one has to be very cautious and careful in keyword bidding and SEM budget. Wrong judgement can burn your fingers. Bottom line is bid for your true values.

e) All said and done, the above is only for the holiday season. So ensure that all the above changes are reverted back by the end of the season, else would end up in unnecessary wastage of money.

Advanced Seasonal Greetings!! Happy Online Selling :~)

D Sarathy.
RankQuest

[como]

How the searcher's interface language comes into play
The searcher's interface language is taken into account during this process. For instance, the set of accented characters that are treated as equivalent to non-accented characters varies based on the searcher's interface language, as language-level rules for accenting differ.

Also, documents in the chosen interface language tend to be considered more relevant. If a searcher's interface language is English, our algorithms assume that the queries are in English and that the searcher prefers English language documents returned.

This means that the search results for the same query can vary depending on the language interface of the searcher. They can also vary depending on the location of the searcher (which is based on IP address) and if the searcher chooses to see results only from the specified language. If the searcher has personalized search enabled, that will also influence the search results.

[sherwood]

Food-related site, eh? I'd find out what Rachel Ray is cooking on her next 10 episodes, and see if there's any overlap with your SKU's

[Elisabeth]

Originally Posted by sherwood

Food-related site, eh? I'd find out what Rachel Ray is cooking on her next 10 episodes, and see if there's any overlap with your SKU's

funny that you should use that particular example

you may want to set your TIVO.

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by sherwood

Food-related site, eh? I'd find out what Rachel Ray is cooking on her next 10 episodes, and see if there's any overlap with your SKU's

very nice one, sherwood. Trying to capitalize on other media is certainly a great plan, especially strategized in that manner.

Originally Posted by Elisabeth

Reworking all SEO elements on product pages...having an instant effect

Are you using Yahoo! Search Submit? You may be able to get right in at least on those SERPs.

I regards to your using G base, I am curious, are you at least seeing the "OneBox" showing up for the terms you have targeted?

[Wavy Davy]

......last year one of my "side businesses" went absolutely crazy using one simple keyword that I dredged up from somewhere and the ROI was phenomenal.

Just one word on Google and Yahoo ppc made me a lot.

For obvious reasons I won't be revealing that word

I have a free party store which I set up years ago 99 I think and it ticks over OK then last Christmas boom!

Although I use Wordtracker I found the word quite by chance and noticed an upswing in 10 cent clicks in November

It's wonderful doing SEO and having a sideline "niche" that makes dosh..

<snip>

Anyone else have a sideline they make $$$ on? We'd be fools not to


David

[dsarathy]

Hi David,

Originally Posted by Wavy Davy

For obvious reasons I won't be revealing that word

Just out of curiosity, let me try my luck ;~)

Is the word Christmas ? Offer ? Seasonal ?

D Sarathy.
RankQuest