If you had some products that you thought would sell out this Christmas but just didn’t fly off the shelves as planned, keep reading! Did you advertise these products online? If you answered no, chances are your customers didn’t know these great products existed. One way to advertise your Christmas products online is using search engine optimization (SEO). Want your business to show up when a potential customer searches for wrapping paper in Google, Yahoo! or Bing? Then you need to start thinking about optimizing for those keywords months in advance. Here are some steps to take so you can use SEO to advertise your Christmas products for next year.

• Figure out which products you want to highlight and choose your keywords accordingly. If you want to show up in the search results for Christmas ornaments, choose keywords like ornaments, Christmas ornaments, holiday ornaments, Christmas tree ornaments, etc.
• Start weaving these keywords into your website content. If you sell your products online, sprinkle these keywords through the content on the product page. When search engines see new content, it’s more likely to boost your ranking.
• If you’re a local business, freshen up the content on your Google Places page. Weave these keywords into your content and also add them to your Keywords section.
• Run some pay-per-click ads using Google Adwords. Use one keyword per ad and customize the ad to reach your target audience. If you aren’t sure how to use Google Adwords, hire a professional to help you.

Remember, SEO takes time. If you want to use SEO as a technique to help you advertise your Christmas products you need to begin your efforts months in advance. Start thinking about optimizing for your products in September or October so your marketing campaign will be in full force by November and December.