The seasons affect pretty much everything, so it’ll be no surprise that the search environment gets shaken up when temperatures fall and rise, or the days lengthen or draw in. Taking notice of this is useful, it allows us to make assumptions and to plan- you’d be surprised how many people don’t factor that a scorching summer tends to mean a decline in searching.

There are some blatant trends that show just how extreme things can be; not many people look for hats and coats in the middle of summer:

source: Google Insights for Search

It is an obvious example, but it serves to show that we shouldn’t make assumptions- just because we might think these two items are closely linked, their search interest isn’t. That example is a bit primary school, intentionally, but it should prompt you to think about how this great weather might impact on your visitor stats.

Regardless of what you are providing, fewer people search during the summer months. Even if your portfolio (product, service, or information) contains no obviously seasonal items you are going to see a dip as the sun climbs high. We are creatures of habit and we do make hay while the sun shines, which leaves less time for tootling about on the internet.

Seemingly there is little we can do about this, if people aren’t online you can’t attract them, right? Wrong, a big fat wrong!

What you can do is plan for the summer lull, and make the most of the visits that you do get. And by planning I mean the 3-6 months in advance type of planning. One technique is to increase PPC while organic traffic slackens, another is to optimise your site to present seasonal variations all year round. With SEO you can’t chop and change the strategy month by month, so it needs to present as many options as possible throughout the year. That way when people start wanting scarves instead of speedos they can find your site.

There is no hard and fast rule for seasonal optimisation, and that’s because of the timescales. SEO is a slow-burn authority building process, and a season lasts just 3 months. If your online business is fundamentally season dependant SEO may not give you what you need… but then again if you’re attuned to that you’ll already know what can work, and where else you can be expending your effort.