If you want to rank for keyword groups around garden furniture or Christmas gifts, you need to take account of seasonal influences.
But when should you plan to do your seo?
Lets look at Google trends data for the keyword “garden center”. If you spotted the deliberate mistake, give yourself a donut. I will explain the mistake later.
I have used data over a few years to highlight any patterns. As we can clearly see from my elegantly drawn arrows, searches peak in April. Most seo practitioners know that it takes many months for a properly implemented seo plan to work. I would want to implement any changes by at least October, which means you have to be thinking about the plan in September.
You may even want your seo in place by February as this is when the up trend begins.
But look at the question marks highlighting a bump in November each year. Anyone who has gone to a garden centre in November knows they are packed with Christmas stuff. This is a Christmas shopping bump and is an important trading time for the business, therefore the seo for this season should not be ignored.
So the mistake. My link to the Dobbies.co.uk used the anchor text “garden centre”, which is the UK spelling. “Garden center” is the US. I used the US version of the trends simply because the sample size was bigger and was similar to the UK.
Garden centre is probably easier to rank for than garden center, because of the size of the US market. Although, some Brits are going to use “center”, mostly by the kind of people who enjoy watching Britains got Talent 😉
Not all niches have a seasonal element, but when it does it makes sense to factor it into the plan.