Get Found
What’s important to remember is that people may be looking for these things in the off-season and not having a solid presence then means that you’ll miss out on their business in the on-season. Being found year-round when people are doing a local search is important because local residents and regular visitors to the area are likely to remember your name and look you up again when the items they’re looking for in season. Someone planning on making jam during the summer may do research online in the winter or spring to see where he/she can pick berries for this new endeavor. Similarly, someone looking for gourmet pies for Christmas may discover your website see that you sell pies in the fall so next year they’ll look you up when their family comes to visit for Thanksgiving.
Build Traffic
Remember, your goal is to rank highly for your produce and baked goods, so anything that helps your rankings will help your business thrive. Being able to bring in traffic consistently allows you to build a presence over time, which is better for your rankings. Sites with steady traffic are deemed to be more reputable and are considered to have more authority by the search engines. Authoritative sites rank better and are less vulnerable to disruptions by algorithm updates. This is a win-win because it means your site will do better in the long-run and its success will be more predictable.
Shift Your Workload
Working on SEO in the off-season also provides the benefit of allowing you to shift your workload. During your busy season you’ll be, well, busy! How much time are you going to have to sit down and work on your SEO when you're coordinating the schedules of people to pick your fruits and veggies and deliver them to local farmers' markets? It’s easy when your business is in full swing to forget about the SEO work that you were planning on doing. Chipping away at this throughout the year will help you to get a handle on your SEO so that the burden doesn’t fall completely on when you’ll be busy running your business.
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!