Short-Term Black Friday SEO
If you have started planning Black Friday late, it is difficult to build effective landing pages that rank well during this competitive period. However, there is still SEO value to be gained that can help optimise traffic in the short term.
1. Review last year's Black Friday trends and reuse relevant data
Make sure to look into last year's data, provided you also had a Black Friday focus then. This can include data on previous campaigns, products and specific product categories that achieved good or less good results.
Also pay attention to where demand was high, and examine which search terms customers previously used to find your website in terms of organic clicks.
Use this knowledge to optimise the content on your pages by implementing the search terms that performed well on your subpages last year. This can help increase the likelihood that they will perform even better this year.
2. Optimise your titles and meta descriptions
To increase the click-through rate on your most successful category pages, you can beneficially integrate Black Friday and selected discounts into your titles or meta descriptions to attract consumers' attention to your offers.
An example could be:
“Bloomingville lamps | 25% OFF BLACK FRIDAY | Free delivery”
Instead of:
“Bloomingville lamps | Danish design of high quality | Free delivery”
Be mindful to retain your primary keywords in the title, so you do not risk undermining your current ranking by excluding well-performing keywords.
Make adjustments to your titles and meta descriptions at least two weeks before Black Friday to give Google sufficient time to index and update them correctly. Also remember to revert to your original titles and meta descriptions after Black Friday to maintain the ongoing quality of your search results.
3. Consider affiliate marketing
Affiliate sites are incredibly prominent on Black Friday, so you should consider whether it would make sense to factor them into your marketing mix. These sites often have a strong presence among the most sought-after Black Friday searches, making it worth considering their influence in relation to your SEO strategy.
It is also a way to leverage the work that affiliate partners have carried out to improve your own visibility and traffic without having to perform SEO optimisation from scratch.
Below we have listed some pros and cons you should take into account when considering including affiliate marketing in your Black Friday marketing strategy:
Pros
- 100% commission-based: On smaller affiliate sites, earnings are based solely on commissions, which minimises financial risk as payment only occurs when a sale is generated.
- Leverage affiliates’ “SEO tailwind”: Through affiliate marketing, you can benefit from the SEO work they have invested over time.
- Rank for “niche searches”: Achieve a high ranking in search results for queries that are highly specific or related to a niche.
- Only traffic from transactional keywords: Visitors arrive at the affiliate site with an intent to make a purchase based on transactional search terms.
- Users are “ready to buy”: Visitors from affiliate marketing are often at the point of purchase, meaning their intent frequently leads to sales.
Cons
- “Pay to play” on major sites: Larger affiliate platforms may require significant fees and costs, which can limit earnings.
- Not a magic bullet: Although affiliate marketing can be effective, it is not a guarantee of success. To drive traffic and conversions, it still requires competitive prices and attractive offers.
- 0% brand loyalty towards the shop: Affiliate customers often have no loyal attachment to the shop or business they are buying from. It is primarily driven by deals and prices.
- Over-attribution: Affiliate networks can often be aggressive when it comes to attributing sales. It is unfortunate to pay commission if the sale actually occurs through Google Ads. This requires having your tracking in order to avoid this.
When an affiliate publisher directs traffic to your website, it opens up several opportunities. You can, among other things, include visitors in specific segments and collect contact details for later marketing activities across various channels such as email, Facebook or Google Ads. In this way, you have the opportunity to get the most out of the traffic on your website, which is also demonstrated in the image below:
Long-Term Black Friday SEO
Although the long-term strategy for Black Friday SEO initiatives may not be as relevant for this year's event right now, it can still be useful for next year, further strengthening your position.
1. Create a landing page (URL) early
Create your Black Friday landing page as early as possible. The sooner you get the page up, the better conditions you give Google to index the URL. A Black Friday landing page ensures that visitors are immediately aware of the special offers, discounts and campaigns you are providing.
2. Correct internal links
Feel free to start the linkbuilding process weeks before the event, and also make sure to have internal links pointing to your Black Friday landing page. For example, link to your Black Friday page from the homepage, navigation menu, footer, HTML sitemaps and other relevant places.
3. Reuse URLs
Avoid deleting your Black Friday URLs so that you have the option to reuse them every year. This way, your Black Friday page avoids having to be re-indexed and re-ranked in Google.
Therefore, use a URL structure that can be reused, such as /sale/black-friday rather than /sale/2024/black-friday. Reusing the same URL helps strengthen your page's authority over time, improving your chances of ranking higher in search results with each passing year.
4. Use relevant images of proper quality
A striking banner image is essential for attracting attention, which is why you should make good use of this in connection with Black Friday. Make sure the image is updated with the current year and date, along with relevant ALT tags for better visibility.
5. Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Implementing structured data, such as Product Markup, is ideal for Black Friday as it allows you to display before and after prices. This helps improve Google's understanding of your page's content and can lead to more informative search results with added information such as before and current price, reviews, and more.
6. Create a structured Black Friday page
Your Black Friday landing page should be easy to navigate. You can either have a single page covering the entire event, or divide it into multiple pages focusing on specific categories or products.
If you add category pages, it is essential to create specific URLs that are linked to via the Black Friday landing page.
7. Product placement
Ensure that all your offers and products are visible on the main page as well as on specific Black Friday subpages. This helps guide customers to what they are looking for and improves your conversion rate.
8. Collecting leads and newsletter subscribers
Consider using Black Friday as an opportunity to build your customer list. Collect email addresses by offering teasers about what will be on sale, when (possible pre-access), and how large the savings will be.
9. Keep your content updated
The Black Friday page should always have updated content in the lead-up to the event. Therefore, make sure to produce Black Friday content well in advance so the process of building the pages can happen as quickly as possible.
Produce relevant content that engages your target audience while drawing on your keyword analysis related to Black Week/Friday with relevance to your webshop. Also make discounts on products clearly visible and show before/after prices so people can see how much they can save.
As soon as the sale is over, the content should be updated. Example: “Thanks for this year — see you at Black Week 2025”. This feeds into Google’s “freshness” signals.
Get started with your SEO preparations for Black Friday
With increased competition and rising expectations surrounding this important event, it is crucial to act early to ensure your webshop stands out and reaches its full potential. But even if the event is just around the corner, there is still value to be gained.
By creating your Black Friday landing page well in advance, optimising your internal links, reusing URL structures and delivering relevant, engaging content, you can increase your chances of attracting attention, boosting conversions and improving your ranking in search results.
The earlier you start, the better prepared you will be to maximise your results during Black Friday and the entire Christmas shopping season.
SEO is not something that happens instantly. There is a growing trend of consumers searching earlier for what they want. An early start on SEO optimisation is therefore becoming increasingly critical to meeting their needs and remaining competitive in the market. That is why it is not only essential to be prepared for Black Friday, but also for Black Week and Black Month, which are experiencing growing popularity.
So get started with your SEO efforts for the year’s most important season and improve your chances of building a solid foundation for a successful Black Friday.
