Seasonal Pages Reused Every Year

A new page every spring

Every April someone builds the summer page from scratch: a new page, a new address with the year in it, new photos and new dates. Last year's page is deleted, or left where it was.

It feels tidy. In search it means starting over every year.

Last year's page had earned things the new one does not have: a place in Google's results, links from other websites, bookmarks, and shares on Facebook. None of that moves to a new address by itself.

So each season opens with the old page gone or out of date, and the new one unknown.

What a seasonal page collects

• Links from community calendars, school newsletters and local blogs.
• A place in search for the season's searches.
• Bookmarks saved by people who come back every year.
• Shares on Facebook and in email.
• A printed address on flyers and posters still on the wall.

The first is the one that hurts most to lose. A community calendar or a parents' blog links to your page once and rarely updates the link, so next year its readers arrive at last year's address.

One address, updated every year

The fix is a permanent address without a year in it: /summer-camp rather than /summer-camp-2016.

Each season, update the page itself: new dates, new prices, new photos, and the year in the title and main heading. The address stays the same, so everything pointing at it keeps working.

Google sees one page with years of history being refreshed, and visitors from last year's links land on this year's details.

The year still belongs in the title, which is what people see in search results. A title reading Summer camp 2016 tells them at a glance that the page is current.

Old pages with a year in the address

If you already have a page for each year, move the current content to a permanent address and send every old yearly address there with a permanent (301) redirect.

Links to the 2014 page, the 2015 page and any other year then lead to the current one, and their value comes with them.

Do not leave old yearly pages live with their old dates. They compete with the current page in search, and anyone arriving on one may plan around dates that have passed.

Useful out of season

The awkward part is the off-season. A Christmas menu page in March, or a summer camp page in November, can look abandoned.

Change it when each season ends rather than leaving it as it was. Say that this year's season is over, when the next one starts, and when bookings or registration will open.

Add something a visitor can do now: a sign-up for a reminder when registration opens, a gift certificate, or a link to what you offer this season.

Keep a short description of the program or offer, with a few photos from last season, which is what early searchers want to see.

A worked example

A firewood business on a rural property outside a Fraser Valley town splits and seasons alder, fir and maple, and delivers by the cord from September to March.

For four years, someone built a new order page each August with the year in its address, and deleted the old one when the new one went up.

A wood stove dealer in town and a rural community association's newsletter both kept linking to old addresses, so people who clicked found nothing.

Searches for firewood delivery in the area turned up a blog post with prices from two winters before, because it was the only page about orders that had lasted. Callers kept asking for those prices.

The business now has one order page at a permanent address, with the old yearly addresses redirected to it.

It is updated each August with the season's prices. From April it explains why wood is cut and split a year ahead, says when orders open and offers a reminder.

Offers in businesses open all year

The same applies to offers that come round every year in businesses that work all year: a spring tune-up special, a holiday gift guide, a back-to-school package, a Mother's Day brunch.

Each deserves one address, updated every year. A furnace company's fall maintenance page or a restaurant's Christmas party page is searched every year by people who never saw last year's.

While its season runs, link to it from the home page; all year, link to it from the related service page.

Update early

Searches for seasonal things start well before the season. Parents look for summer camps in winter, and offices start planning Christmas parties in the autumn.

Put the new dates on the page as soon as they are confirmed, even if bookings are not open yet. A page that gives next summer's dates in January answers the earliest searches.

Google also needs time to notice the change. A page refreshed a month or two ahead gives it that time; one refreshed the week before does not.

Archives, if you want them

Some businesses like keeping a record of past seasons: last year's menu, the winners, the photos.

That can sit lower down the same page, or on a separate archive page linking to the current one, as long as it never replaces the main page or competes with it in search.

The counter-case

An event that happens once, like an anniversary party or a single concert, needs its own page and no reuse; afterwards it can stay as a record or be redirected.

A seasonal offer that changes completely from one year to the next, in name and substance, may be better as a new page, with the old one redirected to it.

Small businesses with few links may also find the difference modest at first. It grows with each year the page survives.

For anything that comes back every year under the same name, though, one permanent address updated each season is the better habit.

Before the next season

1. List your seasonal pages and offers.
2. Pick one address for each, without a year.
3. Redirect old yearly addresses to it.
4. Put the year in the title, not the address.
5. Write an off-season version of each page.
6. Add a reminder sign-up for next season.
7. Schedule each update a month ahead.

Step three is the one that recovers what has already been lost. Every old yearly address that other sites still link to can be pointed at the current page in minutes, and those links start counting again.

Pages customers come back to long after their first visit work the same way, as covered in aftercare instructions customers can find later.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.