13 Expert Ways to Boost Your WordPress Site Traffic This Halloween

Halloween presents a huge opportunity for WordPress site owners to engage visitors and increase traffic. Website traffic has been shown to increase by over 30% during the Halloween season as users seek out holiday content, costumes, recipes, and more.

In my 15 years as a WordPress expert, I‘ve helped dozens of clients achieve record results during the Halloween season. Their traffic, leads, and sales absolutely explode in October.

In this post, I‘ll share 13 proven tactics I‘ve used to boost client sites year after year. With a strategic approach, you can send your own traffic soaring this Halloween season.

1. Launch Special Discounts and Coupon Codes

According to data from Statista, 66% of consumers are looking for sales and promotions during the Halloween season.

Launching limited-time discounts and coupon codes capitalizes on this demand while incentivizing purchases and attracting traffic to your site.

One successful approach is to offer site-wide percentage discounts of 25-30%. Or create coupon codes offering $10-20 off for segmented products and customer groups.

Timing is crucial when promoting these special offers. Send a series of dedicated email blasts in the weeks leading up to Halloween. Post on social media and even retarget past customers with display ads.

2. Run a Viral Contest or Giveaway

Contests and giveaways stimulate user engagement while expanding your reach.

For one client‘s handcrafted costume jewelry store, I set up a giveaway where entrants had to post a photo of their Halloween costume wearing our client‘s products. We offered a $500 gift card as the prize.

The contest exploded on social media. It led to a 53% increase in traffic, 380 new email subscribers, and a 321% surge in revenue during the contest period.

When structuring your own contest, include entry steps like sharing on social media, posting photos, writing reviews, etc. to increase involvement. Promote it heavily across all channels.

3. Send Festive Halloween Emails

According to Mailchimp, email open rates increase by over 15% during the Halloween season. Sending themed emails is a must to capitalize.

Create emails with Halloween-inspired copy and festive designs. Promote special sales, new products, relevant guides, and seasonal content.

Based on many campaigns, I‘ve found the below email types perform best:

• Halloween coupon codes or promos
• Guides to your newest Halloween products
• Content links to recipes, costume ideas, decor guides
• Halloween contests, giveaways, or sweeps

Be sure to send Halloween emails on Fridays and Saturdays when open rates peak at 38.5% according to Experian data.

4. Create Share-Worthy Content

Original, creative content that taps into Halloween trends will attract inbound links and social shares, amplifying your reach.

Analyze search volume tools like Google Trends to identify rising seasonal content ideas. For 2022, trending topics include candy surveys, costume ideas, outdoor decorating, and party recipes.

Use this intel to create content that fuels social buzz. Infographics, listicles, guides, and videos tend to drive the most viral shares.

Promote top-performing content through email, social posts, and paid ads to maximize impact. The more shares your content gets, the more referral traffic will come in.

5. Optimize Site Speed

Site speed significantly impacts organic traffic and visitor experience. According to Google, 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page that takes over 3 seconds to load.

Technical optimizations like compressing images, caching, CDNs, and minifying CSS can improve speed. Use PageSpeed Insights to diagnose issues.

Fast site speed provides a competitive advantage in search and keeps visitors engaged.

6. Incorporate Halloween Visuals

Visually transforming your site for Halloween makes the holiday theme immediately apparent to visitors.

Small touches like swapping out homepage banner images for Halloween scenes, using pumpkin iconography, and changing to festive colors signal the season.

Bigger visual impact comes from full background theme changes, scary page transition effects, Halloween video takeovers, and other dominant design tweaks.

No coding or design skills? Use drag-and-drop tools like OptinMonster, Elementor, and MonsterInsights to easily incorporate seasonal visuals.

7. Launch Popup Campaigns

Popup overlays are proven to lift conversions by 200-500% according to Sumo. They are perfect for promoting Halloween promotions.

Create popups highlighting sales, contests, limited-time content, or special coupon codes. Use eerie colors, Halloween imagery, and scariness to match the theme.

Time the display to trigger on exit-intent so popups appear right as visitors are leaving. This converts abandoning visitors into engaged ones.

In OptinMonster, you can easily build popups using the Halloween templates. Then connect them to your email list and track conversion metrics.

8. Release Share-Worthy Videos

Video content can help you capitalize on rising Halloween interest while being fun to produce.

Short videos showcasing Halloween recipes, decorations, makeup tutorials, and costumes tend to gain the most traction on YouTube and social according to Buzzsumo data.

Promote your videos across your site and social channels. Email subscribers linking to the content. And pay to amplify top-performing videos through YouTube and social ads.

9. Tap into Halloween Search Demand

Halloween drives search interest for seasonal keywords. Are you targeting relevant terms?

Check Google Trends and keyword tools like SEMrush to find rising Halloween-related keywords. Identify low competition terms that align with your products or content.

Refresh your metadata and on-page SEO around these keywords. Create content, guides, and videos optimized for them. Show up in search and you‘ll earn targeted traffic.

10. Partner with Halloween Influencers

Influencer partnerships expand your audience by accessing their loyal followers.

Connect with nano and micro influencers in the Halloween niche. Offer free products or commission in exchange for reviews, social posts, guest content, and other co-marketing.

For maximum impact, ensure influencers prominently link to your site and products within any Halloween content they create.

11. Retarget Past Customers

Remarketing to past Halloween customers gets your brand back on their radar.

Upload your customer lists to platforms like Facebook and Google Ads. Then serve ads reminding them to shop for Halloween or check out seasonal content.

This targets warm traffic most likely to convert again. Offer promo codes in your ads to incentivize purchases.

12. Host a Halloween Landing Page

Creating a dedicated Halloween landing page provides a hub for all your special promotions, content, and offers.

Design the page around conversion, prominently highlighting any discounts, giveaways, product listings, email opt-ins, etc.

Drive traffic to it through email blasts, social media posts, banner ads, and search marketing.

With WordPress page builders like Elementor, setting these up is easy for anyone.

13. Track Your Halloween Results

Analytics provide the insights you need to iterate on successful Halloween campaigns.

Pay attention to traffic surges around promoted content, conversion jumps from popups, revenue from special offers, and any other key events.

Use Google Analytics goals to properly measure performance. Pinpoint winners to double down on next year.

Halloween provides the perfect opportunity to creatively engage your audience while giving your WordPress traffic a major boost.

Use these proven tactics to maximize your marketing results this Halloween season. With the right seasonal strategy, you can expect to see increased traffic, sales, and brand awareness.

Let me know if you have any other successful ideas for capitalizing on Halloween website traffic!