SEO Summer Holidays

Sometimes in the modern world of ultra-connectivity where email, micro-blogging and social media fill our days with instant responses and a seemingly infinite conveyor belt of information, it’s easy to fall into the mind-set that the internet is a bustling hive of deals and opportunities on a 24/7 basis. For an SEO consultant or link builder this is perfect – our jobs require us to work with agility and be aware to (sometimes very brief) windows of opportunity as and when they occur. So when this constant tap starts to sputter or even turn off, it can be a source of frustration. Luckily, it doesn’t happen often; Christmas is probably the most notable time of year for it, but the summer holidays represent the longest period of downtime in otherwise lively and active sectors.

So it’s August and half your team are away on their holidays; things naturally slow down a little as a response. This can make pushing through design and development tasks something of a chore and it’s not just your internal resource that might be suffering – try doing some email or social outreach when the owners of the sites and accounts you’re targeting are cruising in the Caribbean. You might be putting out something wonderful, but you’re not going to land much in the way of a response (unless you count out of office auto-responses, in which case: score!) if your audience is in absentia.

Let’s try not to look at it as an opportunity to moan, as tempting of a proposition as that might be. Most of the people I know in SEO have a practically endless to-do/wish list. These are lower priority tasks that they’ve never quite gotten round to, or tasks with less immediate impact, measurable objectives or boss-pleasing outcomes. Sometimes they’re just long, thankless or dull. Whatever they are, they’re probably in no short supply and a good few of them require no outside input at all. So, while the sun’s shining, here are a few SEO tasks that you keep yourself busy with while everyone else is off on their jollies. They might help you fulfil the industry stereotype of the solo consultant, hunched over in the darkened bedroom, but you’ll feel better for finally getting them out of the way.

Meta Descriptions
Ecommerce sites seem particularly prone to letting these slip and slide down the priority list. Now that Google no longer considers them a direct ranking factor and is getting pretty good at pulling in relevant copy from elsewhere on the page in question, it’s easy to overlook this on-page factor. It’s also violating one of the cornerstones of good SEO, which is to make the absolute best of what you already have. Your rankings are hard-earned (or at least they should be) and organic real estate on the first page of a competitive term is getting smaller and harder to come by, so not maximising your click through rate seems like madness. At the very least, pick out your pages that are ranking (or converting) well and give them a snappy, alluring meta description.

Watch Analytics like a Hawk
With so many potential customers off on holiday there’s a good chance your site(s) will be in a niche that suffers from reduced traffic during the sunny months. Take this opportunity to do some closer analysis of your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools data and see where there’s room for improvement on your site. Some key tips would be to examine bounce rate for particular keywords, find out which of your pages are attracting the most traffic (or links/shares), and where visitors tend to dwell on your site. Making extensive notes from this kind of analysis will allow you to hone your onsite content and strategy and prepare for the busier months ahead.

Create Seasonally-Appropriate Content
The search volume for your key terms might’ve reduced, but chances are there’s something in your niche that gets more interest when the weather is nice (or nicer, at least). Make sure you’re not missing out on this precious traffic by creating on-site assets to capture and utilise this traffic. Ideally, this would be something that would either act as an evergreen asset, which visitors could return to year after year or something that you could update annually to keep it current and accurate.

Read & Comment on Blogs
Comments are still a great way to show thought leadership and create brand awareness when used correctly, but due to years of misuse by unscrupulous SEOs and their lack of any real direct impact on rankings, they’ve taken a tumble in many eyes. Summer is the perfect season to take some time to get involved in those relevant communities you earmarked months ago and start spreading the word – not only are you ploughing potentially new, unexplored territory (where new customers might lurk) but you’re also finding out who else is active and posting new content or commenting during the holiday months. Somebody blogging or commenting mid-August is probably having the same issue as you – a lower number of opportunities, why not use this to your advantage and see whether there’s something cool that you could partner up for.

So the next time you’re sat refreshing your inbox, waiting for those bloggers or that magazine to get back to you, arguing with your co-workers about whether the air conditioning is on too high or not; maybe go back to that wish list, actually finish something from it and give your clients something nice to look at while they’re good and jetlagged.