Now that Christmas 2009 is behind us, it’s time to start thinking about your SEO program and the Christmas and holiday season of 2010. OK, go ahead and groan. But you know it’s time. Well, if you own an ecommerce or retail website and if you depend on Christmas and holiday visitors to make or break your annual sales numbers, now is the time to plan your search engine optimization efforts for the Christmas and holiday season of 2010. Years ago, people didn’t start thinking about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. The day after Turkey Day was the largest shopping day of the year (and still is). But in recent years I’ve noticed that marketers have started marketing for Christmas earlier and earlier. It now begins a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. No sooner than you’ve gobbled up your yam and they’re hitting you with green and red. Festive, festive, festive!

Traditional offline marketers and businesses have always planned in advance for the Christmas and holiday season, but for SEO it is a different ball game. Search engine optimization takes a good 9+ months to really take hold. I’m not talking about indexing your website in the major search engines. I’m talking about performing a real targeted search engine optimziation campaign. The competition is so stiff in most industries now that you need at least a full year of solid SEO just to compete for the best keywords. So when I say it’s time to start thinking about Christmas 2010, I don’t mean selling. I mean planning and forming your SEO Christmas list!

If you have NOT optimized your website yet here is a SEO Christmas list for 2010:
1. Decide if you will wage the war on your own or hire a search engine optimziation firm for the new year.
2. Understand your online competition in the search engines.
3. Take the time to understand the types of keywords you want to target…do your research!
4. Make sure you have solid SEO plan in place, this includes getting accurate analytics working on your website.

If you HAVE a well performing SEO program, here is your SEO Christmas list for 2010:
1. Make sure you re-access all keywords that generated conversions throughout the year.
2. Look at any new competitors that might have arrived within your marketplace.
3. Continue to build highly relevant links to your website and continue to build your authority online.
4. Make sure your social media marketing program is up and running.

I hope my little SEO Christmas lists help you a bit for 2010. Are you ready to make 2010 a great year? I know I am!