Choosing Seasonal Keywords for an Easy SEO Boost

The holiday season is upon us, and that’s a gift of its own for food bloggers. After all, each holiday has its own assortment of delicious goodies associated with it, morsels that make mouths water and memories light up like aluminum Christmas trees.

There’s a dedicated teacher out there somewhere looking for an allergen-free Halloween snack to bring to his class as a special treat.

There’s a harried wife who needs to prove to her husband that a turducken absolutely cannot be undertaken as a last minute hoorah.

There’s a son who wants to experience one more time his mother’s crispy latkes and braised brisket.

All of these people have one thing in common. Google.

During the holidays, people are hunting down specific sorts of recipes, and if you choose the right combination of seasonal keywords, you can take advantage of common trends to give your website an SEO boost.

Know your audience

This should be the first step in any strategy that you employ on your food blog. While we’d all like to be America’s beloved sweetheart, there’s a good chance that you appeal to a more specific demographic than the world at large. That’s not a bad thing so long as you know who is in that demographic.

Do all of America’s Nanas turn to you when their zucchini bread is too mushy? Or is your demographic busy moms? Perhaps you resonate with a more high-brow, foodie crowd?

Knowing the specific goals and challenges for your unique audience gives you a window into their search habits, making the next step simpler.

Find the right keywords for your audience

Several tools have been created to help identify popular keywords at any given time and location, including Google’s Keyword Tool, UberSuggest, and KeywordToolio.

KeywordToolio’s simplicity makes it a reliable, easy-to-use resource for any blogger. If I search keyword suggestions for “Thanksgiving dinner turkey,” I’ll immediately come away with hundreds of ideas for more specific topics, including:

• Thanksgiving dinner turkey leftovers
• Thanksgiving dinner turkey alternatives
• Thanksgiving dinner without a turkey
• Thanksgiving dinner menu without turkey

Are you noticing a trend here? It seems that the turkey’s days are numbered. At least as part of the main course.

Speaking of trends, Google Trends provides a veritable cornucopia of data that you can incorporate into your seasonal keyword plan to boost SEO.

Stay at the forefront of trends by using previous years’ data

Using Google Trends, it’s possible to research keyword trends over several years or over the course of individual years, over various regions, and even among various topics and search options. As an example, Google Trends will give you an idea of when Thanksgiving began to trend in 2014.

Remember, the earlier you are in adopting the trend, the likelier you are to be picked up as a top contender, so looking at popular keywords from previous years can help you stay at the forefront of trending topics.

Google Trends even provides you with a cool map that lights up the different regions as the term began to trend there.

Identify additional topics and queries

You’ll be able to find additional related queries and topics using Google Trends.

Pay attention to trending words like “easy” and “best.” You learn a lot about what your prospects want by the four letter words they choose. Clearly, we all want to make a gourmet Thanksgiving meal without a lot of fuss. Not a tall order at all for a pro like you.

You can drill down further to gain more detailed information regarding trending topics and queries. Here we see that people are specifically looking for the best, easiest Thanksgiving recipes for turkey and stuffing (and if all else fails, we’ll take an open restaurant).

Cook up your content using those special keyword ingredients

Now that you’ve got your keywords on hand, take time to mix them up into powerful content to serve up to your readers. Recipes, advice, and entertaining tales can all be spiced up with your selected keywords, but as with all spices, don’t over-do it. Keyword stuffing makes blog posts sound awkward, and the practice is frowned upon by Google’s search algorithms.

Dish it out everywhere!

Be sure to distribute your seasonal content once you’ve published it. Share it across your social media platforms to gain the widest audience. Now that Google’s algorithms have begun to incorporate social media shares as an indicator of quality content, social media is an absolute must for bloggers.

‘Tis the season to boost your SEO!

There’s no time like the present to start boosting your blog’s SEO. The upcoming holiday season will provide ample opportunities to show your audience that you’re paying attention to their needs. If you need a little extra help, get in touch with Once Coupled because we’re paying attention to your needs.