That means it's also time to get e-commerce sites ready for the Christmas rush - change your colour scheme if it's seasonal (even if you just switch to a snow-capped logo on your festive pages), think about special offers and discounts, and keyword your product descriptions for Christmas.
It's not just because I'm a copywriter that I think that last point is rather important - in the run-up to Christmas, there are unique SEO opportunities that you just don't get at other times of year, and you're gonna need the right keywords on your e-commerce site if you're going to capitalise on those.
Consider the below graph of Google Trends data for 2010:
There are two interesting features here - firstly, it's pretty clear that September is when searches for Christmas gifts/presents really start to pick up, before climbing rapidly in October and November.The second thing to notice - and important for your SEO strategy - is that 'Christmas gifts' gets roughly half as many searches again, when compared with the more traditional 'Christmas presents'.
Riding the Christmas buy-cycle
The graph above is of just one year, but check the Google Trends data for yourself and you'll see the pattern repeats in the run-up to Christmas each time the festive season comes around.
So, where are we up to on this year's Christmas buy-cycle? Data for 2011 so far is below:
It's pretty clear that we're already up and running - search queries for 'Christmas gifts' are at ten times their full-year average, while 'Christmas presents' is scoring half as many queries so far.Look to the horizon
Remember, e-commerce is subject to some unusual influences, compared with real-world retail:
Firstly, people like to research products online ahead of time. So while you're basking in the inevitable early-autumn heat wave that always catches everyone off guard (despite happening every single year), it's not ludicrous to already be keywording for Christmas-related traffic.Is your e-commerce site ready for Christmas? Give some thought to your strategy and how it can be applied to your web presence ahead of any real-world retail outlets you might have, and make sure those search users are funnelled down your virtual chimney this festive season.
Secondly, e-commerce is, in principle, instantaneous. People know that, when it comes to the right time to place their order, they'll almost certainly be able to find a particular product online - which is why the peak is so high and so defined. There's little reason to order early - the current searches are more likely to be from would-be shoppers doing their groundwork by seeing what's out there.
Thirdly, the instantaneous nature of e-commerce is undermined once those products make it into the real world and need to be shipped. The lag this introduces is responsible for the rapid tail-off that occurs during December itself. Again, this makes the October-November peak period the essential time for e-commerce operators to maximise their exposure in consumers' search results.
