7 SEO tips for getting Black Friday ready

Every year, Black Friday weekend seems to get longer and longer, with many retailers offering sales throughout November 2023 rather than keeping them contained to the Cyber Weekend.  

With many consumers taking advantage of the season to get a head start on Christmas shopping, getting your SEO strategy Black Friday ready with plenty of notice is absolutely crucial. 

So, although we’re still two months away, our SEO team are already ticking off checklists getting clients ready for the busiest ecommerce season. 

1. Keep a consistent Black Friday landing page URL 

It’s really common to see yearly Black Friday landing pages on ecommerce sites, but this actually isn’t the best practice for your SEO. It’s best to create a specific landing page that is live all year round, but is removed from navigation out of season, that is updated every year rather than creating an entirely new one. 

You will need to update the Meta Data, Page Content and Deals every year to ensure the information is up to date and correct (and you don’t need to add the year into the URL). 

This is beneficial for maintaining authority, backlinks and growing visibility around core terms instead of trying to start from scratch each year.   

2. Produce supportive content / update old content 

It’s a good idea to get ahead of the trends where you can with Black Friday, so a few months before you start promoting your deals, take the time to look into the existing content on your site that’s relevant to the products you plan on promoting and make sure that the information is up to date.  

This is also a great opportunity to identify areas where you could produce more supportive content. Are there any specific trends around your product type? Do you have how-to content created? Do you have graphics and informational videos?  

You should also keep an eye out for any Black Friday specific trends related to product set alongside generic seasonal trends. 

3. Update your internal linking 

Perhaps the most important step in any Black Friday prep, remember to update all of your internal links to point towards your Black Friday page specifically. 

It can be a good idea to add a banner and link to your homepage, and also add something to your navigation to ensure a smooth user journey. We have found that banners are much more effective than popups as users tend to get frustrated with popups even if they have been delayed and are targeted, so stick to the banners. 

4. Implement schema for discounts 

You should be updating your schema to include the discounts you are running for Black Friday. This will ensure that the discounts appear within the search results as well as on the page, but is an easy step for people to overlook.  

5. A countdown can be a great way to get email sign ups 

Black Friday is a great opportunity to build out your mailing list as people start looking for deals earlier and earlier every year. If you add a countdown to your Black Friday sale and include an email sign up, then your consumers will know exactly when to head to your site and start shopping. 

6. Consider the size of your site / audience 

Flash sales have started to become more popular in recent years, and these can be great for large ecommerce sites that regularly drive high volumes of traffic, but if you’re a smaller site then there likely isn’t any point in having a flash one hour sale at 12-1pm unless people know it’s happening. 

7. Check your site speed 

Throughout November you can likely expect increased traffic, but that’s doubly certain for the whole Cyber weekend so make sure that your site is ready for the increased flow. The last thing you want is your website being unable to deal with the traffic and taking too long to load pages or, even worse, crashing on customers as they try to check out.  

So, you want to check the health of your site in advance to make sure you have time to make improvements if they’re necessary. 

If you need support or advice on getting your site prepped for the busiest ecommerce day of the year, then make sure to get in contact today.