Small retailers should make like their larger counterparts and refine their search engine optimization strategies to make the best of the holidays, the busiest sales period of the year. Here are five suggestions from Searchmetrics chief SEO consultant Marcus Pentzek.

Start early: Inflation is spurring early holiday shopping, which means your product and category pages need to be up to date to ensure better ranking by major search engines.

Focus on research: Work your SEO chops as hard as you can to identify trending seasonal keywords and search phrases early and deploy them to match your product offerings.

Let Google Shopping help: Consumers increasingly rely on online marketplaces like Google Shopping to compare products, features and prices and to identify the best deals both online and in nearby stores. List your products on Google Shopping and optimize product detail pages on your own site to help them stand out. Set your prices after analyzing the competitive landscape.

Don’t forget social media: Even Google knows it’s got competition. Jungle Scout’s Consumer Trends Report, Q2 2022 shows that 11% of product searches now start on TikTok and 15% on Instagram, thanks mostly to younger shoppers.

Save your paid search spend for last-minute opportunities: This holiday shopping season will be more volatile than most, so monitor shopper behavior and be ready to spend later to get better late-season results. Keep some of your paid search budget — for Google Ads, for example — in reserve to help drive traffic to your pages. Consider keywords like "delivery before Christmas" and "same-day delivery." Locally targeted search ads, a powerful tool for smaller retailers, get better results with phrases like "pick up any time before Christmas."

For greater detail, see Pentzek’s commentary in Total Retail.