Black Friday is coming around again and your SEO in the run-up and on the day is crucial for sales.
This year, Black Friday falls on November 25 with Cyber Monday on November 28.
In 2022, UK Black Friday sales are expected to drop by £850m, down 18 per cent from 2021, with spend per person expected to drop by £85 (31 per cent) to £189.59. However, the rise in British people shopping the sales has risen to 39 per cent, a six per cent increase from 2021, according to Finder. That’s why this year your SEO is all-important.
The most popular items are expected to be small kitchen appliances, with 22 per cent of shoppers planning to purchase something in this category. This is closely followed by gaming consoles and devices (20 per cent) and home decorations (20 per cent). The least popular items are predicted to be floorcare appliances such as vacuum cleaners, with only nine per cent of shoppers buying.
Improve your Black Friday SEO
The team over at The Audit Lab have shared five tips to improve your Black Friday SEO.
Always have a Black Friday page live
Have a live Black Friday page that is linked from somewhere on the site that users can access year-round. This can be updated each Black Friday to let your customers know when sales and promotions start. It should be live all year round to gain search engine authority and relevance for the right keywords.
Use Black Friday SEO keywords
Speaking of which, ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday’ are great starting points for keywords, but they’ll be very competitive. It’ll help to have the page live all through the year to help with optimisation.
Try targeting these keywords too:
- Black Friday deals
- Black Friday sale
- Black Friday sales
- Cyber Monday deals
- Cyber Monday sales
Follow these keywords with the current year, such as Black Friday deals 2022, for extra traffic.
Utilise long-tail keywords
Include long-tail keywords on your main Black Friday page as, once again, they’ll help you rank for relevant keywords. These keywords are longer and more specific than short-tail keywords. Terms such as ‘when is Black Friday [current year]’ tend to work well.
Produce Black Friday SEO-optimised content
Written content, video and infographics around Black Friday will encourage people to engage with your website and social media. Make it easy to share on social media and blogs to maximise reach.
Write content early (get started now!) so that it can get picked up by search engines in the run-up to Black Friday. Large evergreen guides that can be updated yearly will perform better over time, with specific yearly guides peppered in there to get acute searches and trends.
Create Black Friday buying guides
It is as it sounds – create guides for people buying gifts for certain occasions or certain people in their lives. Think easy-to-read ‘Black Friday wishlist’ or ‘Top 10’ listicles.
Don’t go into a lot of detail as you want to make sure that the images do most of the talking and that users will click through to your products.
Try getting in touch with influencers and websites which do relevant Black Friday gift guides to see if you can be featured.
Have a separate page for Cyber Monday
Though they’re very closely linked, Cyber Monday is exclusively online so it warrants a webpage of its own. Long-tail keywords around Cyber Monday get a lot of search volume so it’s worth doing.
The same principles apply as your Black Friday page. Have a page with long-tail keyword questions running the whole year round. At the beginning of November, add banners which say ‘coming soon’ or similar. Repeat the process after that year’s sales are done.
Be prepared
Get started with your Black Friday content in early November. This gives you time for your search authority to build up and for keen shoppers to get in the know. Acquire links from other retailers, websites and brands to elevate your search above the competition, such as in an aforementioned Black Friday gift guide.
On the day, keep those long-tail keyword questions at the bottom of your Black Friday page as they will already have authority and will drive more traffic to your website.
>See also: How to prepare your website for Black Friday traffic
Black Friday SEO examples 2022
For 2022, ASOS has a Black Friday ‘warm-up’ page with option to get an additional 20 per cent off if you download the app. There’s also a page displaying deals of up to 60 per cent off.
Meanwhile, the top of John Lewis’ homepage is made up of Black Friday deals, leading through to a dedicated page of deals.
Argos has really got in on the action by doing a pre-Black Friday deals page with a promise that prices won’t go down during Black Friday to encourage shoppers to buy now.
Gymshark has a great example of a Black Friday FAQ page, including both questions that are specific to Black Friday 2022 as well as evergreen headings such as ‘Black Friday discounts’. This serves to both answer customer questions and build SEO authority.
On top of that, the slug of ‘gymshark-black-friday-all-you-need-to-know’ means that the article can be updated year after without losing its ranking power.
After Black Friday
For most of the year, your Black Friday page should only have your long-tail questions and answers. Include calls to action such as signing up to a newsletter so that customers can be the first to hear about next year’s Black Friday offers and when the sale starts. Offering a discount on your products on sign-up will sweeten the deal.
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