Who performs best in SEO for ‘Christmas Toys’ and when should you publish a Christmas page?
Those working in the retail sector started thinking about Christmas a few months ago, most likely spending the August bank holiday deciding on the colours of snow globes and finishing touches to frosty looking designs. And now it’s October, consumers are starting to search for Christmas gifts and present ideas.
When should you publish a Christmas related web page?
When is the best time to publish a page for Christmas? November is too late, August is too early for most customers, surely?
According to our data, Google likes a bit of longevity when it comes to event based pages. The companies that have had their Christmas related pages up for a long time correlates with high positions in Google.
But who is already performing best and what patterns can we learn from previous years when it comes to search?
Using our tracked data from last year in our intelligence SEO platform Pi Datametrics we can find out which websites perform best on Google UK and when the page first started performing.
So we take a look at the example search term of “Christmas Toys” for the period of 1st October last year through to September this year.
1. Amazon
Chart 1.1) Position explorer chart, search term: “Christmas Toys” Site: amazon.co.uk, Google UK
The chart below shows Amazon’s positions on Google UK from 01/10/2013 – 08/10/2014 for the search term ‘Christmas toys’.
As you can see from the chart above Amazon only have one returning URL for the search term ‘Christmas toys’ and was positioned between numbers 1 and 8.
The screen below shows the Amazon Christmas landing / hub page that appeared in Google UK for the search term Christmas toys. On the right hand side you can see that it was published in 2012.
Its longevity is pretty much all it has going for it. The Amazon page (like so many Amazon pages), has very little content, zero backlinks and zero social shares. It is in fact quite a poor page and not something most SEOs would advise to create, but its number 1 position in Google for over 18 months tells us it is down to more than just content and links. (see below)
The Returning Amazon Page:
2. Argos
Chart 2.1) Position explorer chart, search term: “Christmas Toys” Site: argos.co.uk, Google UK
The chart below shows Argo’s positions on Google UK from 01/10/2013 – 08/10/2014 for the search term ‘Christmas Toys’
As you can see from the chart above Argos appeared on Google UK for the search term ‘Christmas toys’ from 04/11/2014. Just after Christmas 2013 Argos appeared on position one for the search term, since then Argos have had a steady position positioning from 1-5 with a slight flux to 21.
Google like’s Argos’s longevity for this search.
Google returned three URLs from 01/10/2013 – 08/10/2014 URL A appeared for the majority of the time with only URL B and C appearing once.
3. Boots
Chart 3.1) Position explorer chart, search term: “Christmas Toys” Site: boots.co.uk, Google UK
Surprisingly Boots is one of the top performers on Google UK for the search term ‘Christmas toys’ the chart below shows Boots positions from 01/02/2013 – 30/09/2014.
From 1/10/2013 – 30/09/2014 Boots positioned on Google UK from position 1 – 40 and only had 2 returning URLs A-B. When URL B appeared the position dropped slightly lower than the top spot.
With Argos, Amazon and Boots all positioning at number 1 at some point between 01/02/2013 – 30/09/2014 they are all competing for the top spot.
Charts 4.1) Position explorer chart, search term: “Christmas toys” Sites: toysrus.co.uk, Google UK
The chart below shows Toys R Us positions on Google UK from 01/02/2013 – 08/10/2014
The chart above shows that Toys R us had 10 different URLs (A-R) with 24 URL changes. The highest position was 4th and the lowest was 100+.
There is no stability from the Toy manufacturer, and therefore no long termism in terms of positions. Each time the site take down their Christmas page or indeed publish a new one, they face a set back in terms of positions.
Charts 5.1) Position explorer chart, search term: “Christmas toys” Sites: johnlewis.com, Google UK
The chart below shows John Lewis positions on Google UK from 01/02/2013 – 08/10/2014
Amazon, Argos and Boots all had one – two returning URLs from 01/02/2013 – 08/10/2014 and all positioned within the top 10 on Google UK. This allowed us to find out that the best players are those who are in the top 10 all year round and have fewer returning URLs and stick with the same page for the long term.
When should you publish a page? Should you unpublish a Christmas page?
For any major event, be it Christmas, Halloween, The World Cup, The Grand National – we would recommend that you keep the page live even in the off season. Obviously you don’t need to have home page links to it, but it’s worth keeping the relevant content on that page and openly stating that the next event is coming soon. Redirecting pages or starting again every year is not advised.