Holiday Season Keyword Research
Keyword research is crucial all the time, but it becomes much more critical during the busy selling season of your e-store. You might have done this earlier, but this is a good opportunity to revisit the same. There is always something to learn: industry drifts, change in buyer behavior, emerging trends worth chasing. For this reason, it’s best to start researching as early as possible, so you have ample time to create informative, quality content that reaches new audiences. It might be very tempting to use generative AI tools to write Black Friday SEO content for your eCommerce business, but it is better not to travel down that line of thought. While generative AI can surely help you in this effort, it falls short of capturing your insights and points of view like nobody else can.
Create Holiday Gift Pages
First, we need to identify which categories or specific landing pages will resonate for the upcoming holiday season. You might consider pages like ‘Top Gifts for Parents/Millennials/Teens’, ‘Latest Offers for Your 6/10/12-Year-Old’, and ‘Discounts for Best Friends/Grandparents/Coworkers’. Additionally, you could explore ideas such as ‘Top 10 Gifts for Outdoor/Skiing/Parasailing Lovers’ and ‘Best 3 Deals for Stay-at-Home Parents’.
Ensure that the titles and meta descriptions of these gift landing or category pages align with the upcoming holiday season. These pages can also be reused for occasions like Hanukkah or summer sales. Locate existing content that is relevant to the holidays, update the titles and meta descriptions to suit the current season, and chances are, you’ll find that minimal effort is needed to refresh them. Don’t forget to write appealing product descriptions and enhance the product images. For guidance, refer to our product-AlphaRank SEO for Shopify on crafting excellent product descriptions.
To improve the visibility of your gift pages in search rankings, enhance their internal linking structure. You can also connect previous seasonal pages from the year-round holiday catalog, such as specific Christmas landing pages (e.g., ‘Top 7/10/25 Gifts for Under the Christmas Tree’), to give them a boost when the time arrives. Ideally, this should happen about 45 days in advance, but extending it to 60 days is also acceptable. This will allow Google and other search engines ample time to follow your links and discover your specialized holiday season SEO landing pages featuring deals.
Promote via Social Media and Newsletters
Platforms like X and Pinterest—though the latter is primarily a visual search engine—can significantly influence the success of your online holiday sales. Take Pinterest as an example. How many of you or your partner have created a Pinterest wish list for Christmas? A lot of people do! If you make it onto those wish lists, it could have a beneficial effect on your sales.
Additionally, don’t overlook promoting your holiday gift pages on Facebook and Instagram. As mentioned earlier, top 10 lists continue to perform well on social media. Tools like AlphaRank SEO can assist you in optimizing your social media posts prior to sharing.
Email Marketing
Finally, don’t forget about email marketing! For many businesses, newsletters are a reliable source of revenue. Make sure to design a strong campaign for your newsletters.
Consider establishing holiday gift guides and sharing them with your audience. This allows you to present a comprehensive selection of gifts that many would love. Brands like ELLE and Target do this effectively, along with many others.
Launch New Products
The holiday season presents a fantastic opportunity to showcase new products. If you anticipate any potential bestsellers for the upcoming festivities, begin crafting content about these items now. Think of it like tech blogs covering upcoming iPhones and speculated features from Apple.
The more proactive you are in writing about new products in advance, the better your sales pages will rank when the time comes. Make sure to connect all the content you’ve created to the main page you’ll establish once the product is launched and available for purchase. Consider that page as your cornerstone content.
Incorporate Structured Data Into Your Product Pages
While updating your product pages for the holiday season, take the time to ensure that they’re optimized as well. For example, this could mean checking if you’ve added schema markup to your product pages. Rich snippets displaying ratings and pricing can help you outshine the competition. Our AlphaRank SEO plugin for Shopify can help you increase your visibility this holiday season!
Review Your Product Feeds
Be sure to optimize your product feeds for Black Friday SEO to boost visibility and sales during this peak online shopping season. Begin by verifying that all product details—titles, descriptions, prices, and availability—are accurate and current. Ensure that items have relevant Black Friday keywords to increase their discoverability. Utilize high-quality, clear images to effectively showcase your products.
Take advantage of the promotions feature in Google Merchant Center to highlight special deals and discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This will help make your offers more appealing to potential customers. Regularly update your feed to reflect real-time inventory changes and promptly address any errors to maintain product visibility.
Repurpose Existing Content
There’s no harm in revamping existing content for a fresh audience. If you created a Black Friday or Christmas gift guide for 2023, don’t be afraid to recycle it in 2024. Just change the year and update details such as popular brands and items. If your URL slug is /black-friday-guide-2023/, change that to /black-friday-guide-2024/ in around August next year and create a redirect from the old URL. There’s no need to create a new page – that would be a waste of on-page inbound links. To make life a bit easier, use an evergreen slug such as /black-friday-guide/ without the year.
You can also reshare popular posts from last year this coming holiday season on social media. Just make any necessary tweaks or updates. For example, Valentine’s Day content can be repurposed for a Secret Santa campaign, while Cyber Monday posts could highlight gifts for Ramadan. Quite often, these are very minor changes-perhaps only adding “this Ramadan” to the meta description or title will suffice.
Enhance Speed and Mobile Performance
It’s wise to evaluate and improve your website’s speed and mobile compatibility. You’ll definitely hear this advice from SEO blogs or consultants frequently, and for good reason! Optimizing for mobile, ensuring fast load times, and enhancing user experience are crucial for driving sales during this Black Friday. As you gear up your online store for the holiday shopping season, now is the perfect opportunity to assess your mobile site and loading speed, making any necessary updates or enhancements.
Prioritize Local SEO
For local businesses looking to draw in more customers during Black Friday and Christmas, investing in local SEO is crucial. Start by fine-tuning your Google Business Profile to ensure it features up-to-date information, including your address, phone number, operating hours, and any unique hours or promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Encourage happy customers to leave glowing reviews. Incorporate local keywords into your content, focusing on phrases your community is likely to search for, such as “Black Friday specials in [Your City].” Furthermore, actively engage with your community on social media by showcasing special offers to increase foot traffic to your store.
Develop a Measurement Strategy
Ready to go? Don’t forget to create a measurement strategy to evaluate your success. Document all your plans and consider how you’ll monitor your actions. This is essential for determining what to prioritize in the coming year.
What should you do after the holiday season ends?
How should you manage the product pages for holiday gift sets once the festivities are over? Even if a gift set or product performed exceptionally well and you intend to offer it again next year, it might take some time for the page to regain its relevance. What’s the best approach for handling these pages in the interim?
Our recommendation is keeping the pages active. However, you don’t necessarily want them to be easily accessible to visitors on your site. Consider keeping the pages live but unlinked. You can then reintegrate the links during the next holiday season. This strategy is more effective than deleting the pages and starting from scratch.
Conclusion on Black Friday SEO
In summary, it’s time to get focused and begin creating holiday gift pages and content for your new offerings. Don’t forget to strategize your social media promotions and track your analytics. There’s no such thing as starting too early, especially when your online business relies on the holiday rush. Prepare yourself by kicking off your SEO efforts now. Wishing you great success with your holiday sales!
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