The strategic use of seasonal keywords is a key factor in determining the success of your Google Ads. With the online marketplace constantly changing throughout the year, it’s important to grasp the significance of these keywords and utilize them effectively to maximize the impact of your advertising campaigns.
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What Are Seasonal Keywords?
Seasonal keywords are time-specific terms that align your offerings with consumer interests throughout the year. They capture seasonal trends and enhance ads’ visibility during peak times. Using seasonal keywords will attract the right audience, position your brand as responsive, and boost sales. Effectively utilizing seasonal keywords aligns your marketing with consumer lifestyles, driving more traffic and leads. Leveraging seasonal keywords can help you maximize your marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition.
Easily find seasonal keywords for your PPC campaigns with AI
Seasonal Keywords vs Evergreen Keywords
How Seasonal and Evergreen Keywords Are Different
Seasonal and evergreen keywords are distinct types of keywords utilized in search engine optimization (SEO) and advertising. They differ in their search volume and relevance over time. Seasonal keywords experience high search volume during specific times of the year, such as holidays or seasons. For instance, “back to school supplies” is a seasonal keyword with high search volume in the summer, but the search volume decreases significantly after the back-to-school season ends.
Evergreen keywords maintain a consistent search volume throughout the year. They are typically broad and general keywords relevant to a wide range of topics. For example, “how to cook” is an evergreen keyword with a steady search volume over time.
Here are the key differences between seasonal and evergreen keywords:
Feature | Seasonal Keywords | Evergreen Keywords |
Search volume | High during specific times of the year | Consistent throughout the year |
Relevance | Time-dependent | Long-term |
Examples | “back to school supplies,” “holiday gift guides” | “how to cook,” “best travel destinations” |
When to Use Seasonal and Evergreen Keywords
Use seasonal keywords:
- to target specific marketing campaigns or promotions that are time-sensitive
- to increase brand visibility during peak seasons
- to capture the interest of consumers actively searching for products or services related to the season.
Use evergreen keywords:
- to build a strong foundation for your website’s search engine rankings
- to attract organic traffic from a wider range of search queries
- to create content that is always relevant and useful to your target audience.
Both seasonal and evergreen keywords are crucial for SEO and PPC advertising, serving different purposes, and should be used strategically.
50 Examples of Seasonal Keywords
Seasonal keywords differ based on the industry and time of year. Here are examples of seasonal keywords for various seasons, events, and industries:
- Spring
- Gardening tools
- Spring fashion trends
- Outdoor activities
- Spring cleaning services
- Allergy remedies
- Summer
- Swimwear sales
- Vacation packages
- Barbecue recipes
- Air conditioning services
- Outdoor sports equipment
- Fall/Autumn
- Back-to-school supplies
- Halloween costumes
- Fall fashion
- Thanksgiving recipes
- Home heating solutions
- Winter
- Holiday decorations
- Winter clothing
- Ski equipment
- Travel deals for winter vacations
- Cold and flu remedies
- Valentine’s Day
- Romantic getaways
- Valentine’s Day gifts
- Flower delivery services
- Chocolates and sweets
- Valentine’s Day diamond jewelry
- Back-to-School
- School supplies
- Backpacks and lunchboxes
- School uniforms
- Educational apps
- Dorm room essentials
- Black Friday/Cyber Monday
- Black Friday deals
- Cyber Monday sales
- Discounted electronics
- Online shopping discounts
- Limited-time offers
- Easter
- Easter egg hunts
- Easter decorations
- Easter brunch recipes
- Easter gifts
- Spring fashion for Easter celebrations
- Wedding Season
- Wedding dresses
- Wedding venues
- Wedding photography services
- Honeymoon packages
- Bridal party attire
- Summer Music Festivals
- Festival tickets
- Festival fashion
- Camping gear
- Portable chargers
- Outdoor accessories
When identifying seasonal keywords, it’s important to
- consider the specific events, holidays, and activities that are relevant to your target audience
- use keyword research tools to identify trending terms and phrases related to these seasonal topics,
- and keep in mind the geographic location of your audience, as seasons can vary depending on the region.
See our blog post for more tips on Google Shopping ads optimization for Black Friday.
How to Track Keyword Seasonality
Tracking keyword seasonality is crucial for optimizing your content strategy and ensuring that you target the right keywords at the right times. Here are some effective tips for tracking keyword seasonality:
- Utilize Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic’s performance and identify patterns related to specific keywords during different seasons. Look at the organic search traffic and user behavior over time.
- Analyze your Google Search Console data to track the performance of specific keywords. Look for trends in impressions, clicks, and average positions. Identify keywords that show seasonality and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
- Invest in keyword tracking tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, or Serpstat. These tools often provide historical data on keyword performance and can help you identify seasonal trends.
- Utilize Google Alerts or other monitoring tools, like Trends, to receive notifications when there are changes or spikes in search volume for specific keywords. This can help you stay informed about emerging seasonal trends.
- Connect your keyword performance with sales and conversion data. If your website has an e-commerce component, monitor the sales and conversion rates associated with specific keywords during different seasons.
- Create custom reports in your analytics tools to focus specifically on seasonal keyword performance. Customize your reports to highlight the data that is most relevant to your business goals.
- Compare the performance of keywords year over year. This can reveal recurring patterns and highlight seasonal trends that may not be apparent when looking at shorter timeframes.
- If your business operates in multiple regions, segment your keyword data by location. This helps you identify seasonal variations that may be specific to certain geographic areas.
- Keep an eye on social media trends and discussions related to your industry. Social media can be a leading indicator of emerging seasonal interests and can complement your keyword-tracking efforts.
- Implement UTM parameters or other tracking mechanisms like server-side tracking for seasonal campaigns. This allows you to attribute traffic and conversions to specific seasonal initiatives and understand their impact on keyword performance.
- Regularly review and update your keyword strategy based on the latest data. This ensures that your content remains relevant and effective.
- Use tools that provide heatmaps and user behavior analysis to understand how visitors interact with your site during different seasons. This can offer insights into which keywords are driving engagement and conversions.
By combining these tips and regularly reviewing your keyword data, you can effectively track keyword seasonality and adjust your SEO strategy to capitalize on changing trends throughout the year.
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How to Optimize Google Ads for Seasonal Keywords
5 Strategies to Consider When Optimizing for Keyword Seasonality
Consumer behaviors shift with the seasons, and businesses need to adjust their strategies to stay relevant. In this section, we will explore five strategic approaches to optimize your digital campaigns for seasonality. These strategies will help your marketing efforts align with the seasonal demands of your audience.
- Capitalizing on Peak Seasons: Many industries experience surges in demand during specific seasons. For instance, retailers may see an increase in searches and purchases during the holiday season, while travel-related searches might peak during vacation periods. Adapting your keywords to align with these trends ensures that your ads are visible when potential customers are actively searching for relevant products or services.
- Crafting Targeted Ad Copy: Seasonal keywords offer a unique opportunity to customize your ad copy to the current needs and preferences of your target audience. By incorporating timely and relevant language, you can enhance the appeal of your ads, making them more compelling to users. This not only boosts click-through rates but also improves the overall user experience, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
- Adjusting Bid Strategies: To maximize the impact of seasonal keywords, it’s crucial to monitor and adjust your bid strategies accordingly. During peak seasons, competition for certain keywords may increase, leading to higher bid prices. Being flexible with your bidding strategy allows you to maintain visibility without overspending. Utilize Google Ads features like bid adjustments to optimize your campaign performance based on seasonal trends.
- Adapting to Consumer Behavior Changes: Consumer behavior often changes with the seasons, influencing their preferences and purchasing decisions. Closely monitor search trends and analyze historical data, to gain insights into evolving consumer behavior. This information can then be used to refine keyword targeting, ensuring that ads remain relevant and appealing to the changing needs of the target audience.
- Utilizing Negative Keywords: In addition to targeting relevant seasonal keywords, it’s equally crucial to identify and exclude irrelevant terms through negative keywords. This prevents your ads from appearing in searches that are unlikely to result in conversions, optimizing your budget and improving overall campaign performance.
How to Optimize Your Website and Ads During Seasonal Events
To make the most of the surge in traffic, it’s crucial to optimize your ad inventory and line items. This guide provides essential strategies to boost viewability, create more competition for your inventory, and maximize your revenue potential.
- Enhancing Viewability: Improve ad viewability by implementing best practices such as lazy loading and placing ads above the fold. This ensures that advertisers pay for ads that are more likely to be seen by users.
- Optimizing Inventory Competition: Avoid excessively restrictive “General categories” blocks and ensure proper setup to prevent lowered competition. Consider blocking specific “Advertiser URLs” instead to maintain a healthy level of competition.
- Implementing Multi-Size Pricing: Maximize CPMs by allowing different ad sizes to compete in the same ad slot. This multi-size pricing strategy enhances competitiveness and revenue potential.
- Leveraging Dynamic Allocation: Utilize dynamic allocation through Ad Exchange and AdSense line items to make your inventory available to the Open Auction. This strategic move can maximize revenue without compromising the delivery of guaranteed line items.
- Setting Ad Content Rules: Follow best practices and define ad content rules under Protections to specify the inventory available in the Open Auction. This ensures control over the types of ads displayed.
- Implementing Target CPM in Unified Pricing Rules: Set target CPM in unified pricing rules instead of price floors to establish an average CPM for your inventory. This approach can potentially lead to increased revenue over time.
- Minimizing the Use of Passbacks: Limit the use of passbacks to avoid reducing CPMs, lowering viewability, and adding latency. This ensures a streamlined ad-serving process.
- Enhancing Website Impressions: Implement an engaging homepage, clear site navigation, and site search functionalities to enhance user retention.
- Expanding Presence on Social Media: Partner with other content creators and expand your presence on social media to attract new users, especially during the holiday season. Social media engagement can significantly impact website traffic and ad impressions.
- Testing Page Speed: Test and optimize page speed, especially on mobile devices, as users tend to browse through smartphones and tablets. Utilize tools like Google PageSpeed Insights Chrome extension to ensure quick access to content and an enhanced user experience.
How to Structure a Seasonal Campaign in Google Ads
To benefit from seasonal trends, you can create a targeted seasonal campaign for holidays or sales events in Google Ads. Let’s consider a jewelry shop aiming for Christmas season sales. Here’s what a Christmas seasonal campaign can look like in this case.
- Campaign Name: JewelJoy: Sparkling Holidays
- Campaign Type: Shopping Campaign with a focus on “Sales” and “Brand Awareness.” This will allow for product listings and showcase the brand during the holiday season.
- Networks: Both the “Google Search Network” and the “Google Display Network” to reach potential customers actively searching for gifts and those browsing relevant websites.
- Devices: The most optimal approach is to target all types of devices initially, then customize ads based on performance. Prioritize mobile devices during peak shopping hours.
- Locations and Languages: Target specific geographic locations where the jewelry shop operates, considering demographics and customer preferences. Choose the primary language spoken by the target audience.
- Bidding and Budget:
- Bid Strategy: Initially, use “Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (eCPC)” to allow Google Ads to adjust bids for clicks that seem more likely to lead to sales. Monitor performance and consider manual bidding if needed.
- Bid Limit: Set a competitive bid limit, considering the value of jewelry items and the competition in the market.
- Budget: Allocate a higher budget during peak shopping days or weeks. Monitor performance and adjust the budget as needed.
- Ad Assets:
- Utilize high-quality images showcasing the jewelry.
- Include location extensions to provide easy access to the physical store.
- Add links to specific holiday-themed landing pages on the website.
- Display contact information, encouraging potential customers to inquire.
- Additional Settings:
- Schedule: Start the campaign a few weeks before Christmas and end it a few days after to capture early and last-minute shoppers.
- Ad Scheduling: Increase bids during evenings and weekends when shopping activity is typically higher.
- Ad Delivery: Opt for the default option initially and adjust based on performance.
- Advanced Location Options: Use radius targeting around the physical store location to capture local customers.
- Campaign URL Options: Create custom URLs for tracking campaign performance.
This structure aims to create a comprehensive and targeted Christmas campaign for the jewelry shop, ensuring visibility on relevant networks, devices, and locations during the holiday season. Regular monitoring and adjustments based on campaign performance will be crucial for optimizing results.
How AI Can Help with Running Ads Optimized for Seasonality
Seasonal campaigns pose a distinct challenge but also offer a great chance for success. As consumer habits and preferences change throughout the year, conventional marketing approaches often find it difficult to keep up. That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) steps in, transforming seasonal marketing strategies and providing unmatched returns on investment.
Unveiling Insights from Data Depths
AI’s ability to analyze vast datasets provides businesses with invaluable insights into seasonal trends, customer behaviors, and effective keywords. This comprehensive data analysis can empower you to gain a deeper understanding of consumer preferences and identify opportunities to tailor your campaigns accordingly.
Predictive Power: Anticipating Seasonal Peaks
AI algorithms excel at forecasting seasonal patterns based on historical data. Predictive analytics with AI allows you to anticipate peak periods and optimize your campaigns in advance, ensuring optimal visibility and engagement during periods of heightened demand.
Dynamic Ad Creation: Tailored Content for Each Season
AI-powered tools automate the creation of dynamic ad creatives, be it ad copy or video ads, tailored to specific seasons, enabling you to deliver personalized and relevant messaging that resonates with your audience. This approach ensures that ad campaigns are always relevant and engaging, regardless of the season.
Real-Time Optimization: Bidding Strategies that Adapt
AI algorithms can dynamically adjust bidding strategies in real time, ensuring optimal ad placement during peak seasons while avoiding overspending during slower periods. This real-time optimization ensures that you maximize your ad spend and receive maximum visibility during periods of high demand.
Keyword Optimization: Seasonal Variations and Refined Targeting
AI tools analyze keyword performance, identifying seasonal variations and suggesting adjustments to optimize ad relevance and targeting. This ensures that you are targeting the right keywords at the right time, maximizing the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Audience Segmentation: Reaching the Right Audience at the Right Season
AI enhances audience segmentation, enabling you to target specific demographics more effectively during different seasons. This helps you to focus your marketing efforts on the most receptive audience segments, maximizing the likelihood of conversions.
Competitor Analysis: Staying Ahead of the Game
AI algorithms continuously monitor competitor activities, providing insights into bidding strategies and helping advertisers stay competitive during high-demand seasons. As a result, you can adapt your marketing strategies faster and gain a competitive edge.
Automated Budget Allocation: Seamless Resource Management
AI-driven systems can automatically allocate budgets based on predicted demand, ensuring that resources are optimized and underutilized or overspending is avoided. This leads to budgets getting allocated effectively across different seasons.
Ad Scheduling: Capturing Peak Engagement
AI optimizes ad scheduling based on historical data, ensuring that ads are displayed at the most impactful times during seasonal peaks. This data-driven approach maximizes the visibility and effectiveness of ad campaigns during periods of high demand.
Continuous Monitoring: Adapting for Dynamic Seasons
AI continuously monitors campaign performance, quickly adapting strategies based on real-time data to maximize ROI throughout changing seasonal dynamics. This enables you to stay ahead of the curve and maximize your return on investment throughout the year.
AI’s incredible capacity to analyze massive amounts of data, anticipate seasonal patterns and optimize advertising campaigns in real time gives advertisers the tools they need to confidently navigate the intricacies of seasonal marketing.
With AI’s extensive capabilities, you can effortlessly adjust their marketing strategies to meet the ever-evolving demands of each season, guaranteeing that their messages resonate with the appropriate audience at precisely the right moment. Embracing AI can help you unlock the potential of data-driven seasonal marketing, which not only boosts conversions but also propels your brand to unprecedented heights.
Conclusion
Make sure your ads are not only visible but also connect with potential customers by aligning your campaigns with the natural rhythm of consumer behavior. Stay flexible, adjust to evolving trends, and tap into the power of seasonal keywords to maximize the impact of your Google Ads campaigns.