How to mesh the need for “evergreen content” with seasonal marketing
As business owners, bloggers and content-sharers, we are taught that our content should be “evergreen” which means that the information is as good tomorrow as it is today. This means that we may need to avoid dates in our titles, instead focus only on a specific keywords, yet we have to also acknowledge certain seasons (holidays, cycles, momentus events) so that we seem like real people and not automated bots while still appealing to search engines and people. Whew! Not an easy task sometimes!
I have personally messed this up before by using URLs that have years in them such as BOSSEvent2011. It is better to use LiveAnnualMarketingEvent.com or something along those lines.
But, there is a way to do it! When you have a special seasonal promotion that you plan to do each year, whether this is to do with a holiday, or part of your product cycle and marketing efforts, one way to do this is to not delete the holiday specific URLs. Instead, keep it there, but edit and update the content on the page each year.
You can make the URL “evergreen” by not mentioning a date or year in the URL, but rather a topic and keywords that will be just as good next year as this year. Such as “Tax Day Special Offer” or “Christmas Crafts for Homeschoolers” or “Turkey Day Two for One” or “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” or “Labor Day Content Special”, etc… Then each year update the content but keep the URL the same. The content can be dated, as long as you update it each year. Also, you should always keep the old content online, so the page continues to rank, then update it each year to make your calls to action relevant for each year.
By doing this, you are taking advantage of the idea of evergreen content, and the ranking process that is accomplished by search engines, but also recognizing the various seasons of life, both human life and product life. The good thing about this technique is that all your work getting incoming links to that specific URL will never be wasted and in fact will grow each year. Thus, you should get more visitors and more traffic as the URL ranks higher and higher due to the length of time it is up and live as well as the number of links to that URL going up each year.
You can also use a product that is great year-round and put it in a ‘holiday’ or ‘promotional’ bundle. Below is an example I ran across online today.
Just remember to use evergreen urls and if you have date specific offers, make those neutral, put up a wait list or let prospects know to stay tuned to your content for ‘the next’ promotion after it concludes. Don’t make them guess if it’s over or when the next one is.
A ‘next’ step is super helpful. This is why I like to collect emails ‘This promotion has concluded, but for more related blog post with current strategies, check HERE — or even ‘submit your email here for a video on The 7 Benefits of Seasonal Marketing and to be notified of our next release.’
==> And remember – we just ‘happen’ to be in the Christmas season right now – these strategies apply year-round to calendar holidays, product cycles and events that YOU personally create!
For more ideas, tips & strategies – check out my Seasonal Marketing System for Online Business Promotions Here <== This is 50% off for a limited time.
