Thanksgiving is upon us, here in the United States. That means turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pies, and more. Additionally, the calling of a good deal is looming, as well! Black Friday is an annual shopping event that happens every year on a Friday that follows Thanksgiving Thursday. It features a wide range of excellent deals and shopping opportunities, often with steep discounts, bonus items, special gifts, and more. For some families, it is a tradition to go out in the wee hours of the morning on Friday to get in line for the earlier openings in order to grab that perfect Christmas gift or personal shopping desire.
For businesses, too, this is a very special time. With so many customers rushing in, there is a lot of money to be made. Due to this, the digital marketing surrounding Black Friday events are usually rather intensive, showcasing tons of different deals, offers, and special events that can even stretch back further than the day of Black Friday, offering tons of different specials earlier in the week, as well.
Unfortunately, if you have not already hopped on the Black Friday advertising train, you may have missed the boat, so to speak. The peak of Black Friday advertisement has passed and many businesses have missed out. This does not mean your campaign will not be successful, just that the peak passed. Let’s take a deeper look at this phenomenon and see if we can make sense of what advertising can be done now and why the peak was long before the event ever began.
The Start of the Holiday Season
While Black Friday is the unofficially official kick-off of the holiday shopping season, this year things are a lot different. With Black Friday deals starting as early as October in some places normally, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed things back even further, with advertisements ranging from full-on deal offers back in September and August to lead-up digital deals to discourage in-person shopping.
Before the COVID pandemic, people bought more than 18 Million toys and 13 Million fashion items during Black Friday and Cyber Monday on Amazon. This year, the numbers will likely be much higher due to the increased influx of online shoppers during this time, especially since Amazon has begun some sales even sooner than last year.
Of course, the pandemic is not the only reason. In September, traditionally, you are too late to get in contact with most SEO companies. This is because the businesses who are really on the ball with digital marketing and want to get ahead will have already made their contacts with the first choice companies and begun pushing their own campaigns forward. Each company can only take so many different clients at a time, leading to many people being forced to go with secondary choices that do not have access to the same tools and level of skill that higher tier SEO companies do.
Even if you cannot get an SEO company to back you during this time, there are still a lot of things that can be done to help ensure you have a fighting chance this holiday season. Let’s explore some of the options you can do yourself if all of the leading SEO companies are filled up.
The DIY Helpers
While there are a lot of companies that can offer help even if the top tier ones are filled up, sometimes it is best to wait and attempt to catch your preferred company when they are not booked. If this is your plan, these methods that are detailed below can help you formulate a plan and get some SEO done to boost your company’s signal on your own.
1. Retain Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday Pages
So, when a link is used often and visited regularly, it builds up a lot of link equity, assisting it in ranking higher organically. While many companies delete their Black Friday and Cyber Monday pages each year after the sale has ended for the sake of keeping their site organized and looking nice; this is actually a massive disservice to your overall Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns in the future.
Think about it: you build a ton of equity in the link and have a lot of clicks. It is naturally going to be more fitting for Google and other search engines to feature it since it already has generated a lot of traffic. Each year, this equity compounds as more and more people come in and use the link to access your website sale pages. Therefore you should be in the habit of reusing the link where you can and working to utilize that existing traffic to further your success.
If you have already deleted some pages, try to back audit them to redirect them to your current page so you can still make use of that equity. If you have not, update them for the next year’s sale as soon as you can, even if you do not yet have the details planned. Just a header with the upcoming year can help you get a jumpstart on the industry competition and ensure you have access to a maximized level of interest in your own website and sales data.
Some companies even utilize headers like, “Black Friday Deals Coming (date)” with links to shop other special sales in the meantime. These often prove effective, especially if it is linking to popular items.
If you take a look at brands like Wal-Mart and Target, you will notice that they utilize these techniques. Their pages remain up even after the sale is over, allowing those clicks to weigh in and hold their ranking in the Google algorithm until the next year’s sales come around again.
2. Play the Mobile Game
With people glued to their phones more and more each day, it makes sense that playing into mobile ads and mobile content. If people are going to be on their phones anyway, catering to their needs makes absolute sense in the grand scheme of things and can score you some major SEO points.
Utilizing keywords like “stores near me”, “shops near me”, and “stores near me that sell (blank)” can help you a lot and will show people that you exist and offer what they want, even if you only sell online. These keywords will boost your standing and showcase localized content as well as online order opportunities, making it a great choice. Think about it: if you type in, “store near me that sells shoes”, you are probably going to get listings for local shops, big-name stores like Wal-Mart, and online retailers. Why not throw yourself into the mix, too, with terms that apply to you?
3. Market Through the Season
Though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the starting features of the holiday shopping season, there are other things you can do even after they have passed to increase your sales during this time of year. The easiest way to do this is through gift guides and other specialized content that will play into frequently searched keywords well in order to draw in readers who are looking for niche items or recommendations.
For example, if someone is looking up the best flat-screen TV of 2020, chances are they want a comparison piece. Why not use a blog on your site to cater to this and offer information on the top televisions of 2020 and utilize keywords to bring them in? Not only does this drive up your site traffic count, but also increases your credibility and works to create a situation where you can plug your own product offerings if the topic at hand allows for it in a sensical way.
There are a lot of different things out there that can be turned into an article, from general “Best Gifts for Men of 2020” to niche topics like “Best Kitchen Towels of 2020” or “Best Gaming Chairs of 2020”. Play around and find niches that need more content. Soon, you will be on your way to finding exactly what your clients need, drawing in bigger and bigger crowds in search of assistance from your content.
This is the place where a content writer or other professional can assist you, especially one that has a background in SEO work, as they can help direct the content and create it in a way that is interesting and informative for your clients and customers if you do not already have someone on your team to fill that specific niche.
4. Last-Minute SEO Savers
Even if you do not have the time or resources, there are some things you can do to help turn around your SEO in time for the holiday season. Things like expanding your keyword reach and connecting with a larger base of clients and customers by utilizing new related keywords to your current topics can also really help you out and make things dramatically easier if you want to rank higher within the Google algorithm and within other search engines.
Use Google Analytics and any other tools at your disposal to see how well you are doing within the rankings. Let this data help you make decisions concerning bettering your site and expanding your reach within the industry. Google Analytics is available to all sites and offers incredibly valuable insight that often goes untapped. Take advantage of this information and use it to your favor to better your chances of ranking well and you’re on your way to SEO success.
Consider purchasing access to SEO tools that showcase viable keywords and other data. You can sometimes get access to these professional-level tools through SEO service sites for lower rates, depending on the site and its specific terms, though some do require a membership to their SEO services. These give you an idea of the better keywords out there and any other additional information that can benefit your SEO campaign.
Writing for other websites can help, too. Offering to write blog content for other websites and linking to your own can drive up traffic, especially if the other website is of comparable size or larger than your own. Their traffic can be directed to yours through source linking and general linking, allowing them to come back to your content and seek out further information on the topics at hand. This drives up your organic ranking, allowing you to rank higher over time and spread your information, and reach more and more. Plus, sometimes you can even get repeat content writing features on other sites, allowing you to plug even more often with your own links.
The SEO Expert Advantage:
Sometimes, though, even with all of the other options, the expert touch is just needed and necessary. SEO experts work to improve your standing with search engine algorithms and rank higher within them. This higher ranking allows you to be clicked more often since people are actually the most likely to click within the first few entries they see for information or products they need. While frustrating if you know you have quality products or content, it is simply a fact: they will most trust what they see first, especially within search engines like Google, where the algorithm carefully weighs different pieces of content against one another in order to figure out which best suits the needs of the searcher.
The professional team at SEO Vendor is always here to help you in finding the best course of SEO campaign work in order to ensure your success. They understand the importance of extending your site’s reach and are here to make sure you are able to get your content and products out there to benefit those around you. In the competitive world of SEO work, you can count on SEO Vendor to always have your best interest at heart. They are here to provide you with an entire team of experts that work together to create the most successful SEO campaign possible. With SEO Vendor, you can rest easy knowing your site is in good hands.
