Budgeting SEO & SEM for the holidays

A prominent, international clothing company contacted us this week in search of a U.S. Internet marketing firm to guide them through SEO of a pending redesign and PPC through the holidays. I can't state the organization's name but suffice to say that an annual website budget of 7-figures is well within their reach.

We are honored to be considered for such a prestigious client and their request for proposal brings up a few good points worthy of a blog entry.

How do you budget SEO and SEM for the holidays?

• SEO - Get all of your SEO work done by September or you're behind the curve. This client will release their new website in early November, too late for Google to fully realize the site before Christmas. So, what do we suggest?
  
  Gamble a bit, ignore Google short term, and go after MSN & Yahoo. Hit the site hard at release time and "over optimize" for MSN and Yahoo. Use slightly more keywords than Google would normally like long term without going near Black Hat SEO. Yahoo is prone to fall for a little spam they will pick the site up fast.
  
  MSN will pick the site up in this short time frame and could realize full potential in time for Thanksgiving. Remember, the busiest online shopping days fall near the 15th of December so you have plenty of time to reach that market share.
  
  There is a chance that Google will boost the site into high SERP placement in the short term and then drop it after a week before gaining again long-term. Watch Google and see what they do. If Google picks the site up and holds it longer than a week, you must back out some optimization for risk of being spammy in their eyes. You never know, it may stick right off the bat.
  
  This is a short-sighted approach and you must remember to budget for a second pass to properly optimize the site after the dust clears in January. Sometimes you can push the date of a release back a bit to time the peaks for the 2nd week in December but it's tough. It's a bit like playing chicken but it's fun to watch the search engines deal with a brand-new, 2,000 page site with a 7/10 PageRank.
  


• SEM / PPC - When it comes to online shopping before the holidays you need to budget adequately for the promotional holiday periods. Three peaks should appear on your radar:
  
  1.The Monday after Thanksgiving through the following Monday - Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) is not the biggest online shopping day of the year as has been stated. However, Monday's are typically the heaviest traffic days of the week, and this is a big traffic day to start the season. Keep your budget high to the following Monday, which has been the biggest online shopping day of the year in previous years. This is your big week, target big-ticket items and address top Christmas gifts in your ad.
  
  2. The Monday nearest December 15th - Monday through Friday of this week is a mad rush of sales to the last-minute shoppers. Change your ads to address the looming last-minute date to safely ship. If you can, offer discounts on shipping to get these people to buy. If you can't offer discounts on shipping, consider free in-store pickup.
  
  3. The week after Christmas - The week after Christmas is when we all shop for ourselves. You will see a shift to the "Ship to:" address being the same as the "Bill to:" address. Rotate your terms and ads to target your line of accessories. Talk about your sales - make sure they feel like they can shop your site without going broke.
  
  
  Divide your expected PPC budget into these three segments and adjust your bids down so that you are still in the running at the 15th of December. If you are on a limited budget, target Mondays and Tuesdays for all it's worth.
  
  Finally, remember to turn off ads for the items that are out of stock. Keep a close watch on your PPC budget and it will pay for itself in folds.
  

Differing Opinions of SEO

I received a comment on a past blog post today and it really struck me as great feedback. Essentially the comment stated that they like our blog because their opinion(s) of SEO often differ from my opinion(s) here at First Scribe.

Perfect!

SEO is an evolving skill set where you must continue to learn or the competing market will pass you by. There will always be more competition, more finicky visitors and refinements to search algorithms. We don't work for the search engines so we need to look for subtle SEO symptoms and then track the symptom to the source.

I try to dedicate 20% of my time to competitive research but it usually amounts to less than 10%. I will start by saying this - If you find an SEO symptom/trend, you must test it yourself or there's no point in wasting your time. NOBODY is going to tell completely spell out their philosophy. You must read between the lines and try it for yourself.

Here are the sources of my research, in order of preference:

1. SEO forums - The forums tend to be chock full of new SEO staffers who freak out and ask questions every time their rankings slide. These cries for help have turned me on to algorithm changes earlier than any other source.
2. Competitors - I generally don't look at my competitor's websites because SEO firms rarely dedicate their full efforts to their own website. Go to their latest portfolio entries and look for strategy.
3. Blogs - Find an active blog written by someone you feel is credible. You don't need to agree with them, in fact it's better if you disagree but you need to trust that they aren't intentionally disseminating false information.
4. My own websites - The last place I look (for research purposes) is at my own websites. If I'm looking at them for research purposes, I specifically look at the sites with volatile SERP results.