7 tips to win Black Friday on search

Here are the news SEO best practices for Black Friday, or any major shopping event

Nov 18, 2024

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Hello, and welcome back. Shelby here, back from a lovely week off doing the bare minimum. A staycation filled with friendship, tactile activities, an average of 15,000 daily steps, delicious food and cuddles with my corgi? Yes, please!

This week: News SEO best practices for Black Friday! We’re updating — and expanding! — an earlier issue to help your teams prepare for the Big Event™. We cover the best ways to set up your affiliate vertical and how to make the most of Black Friday search interest.

This sweater isn’t blue. It’s not turquoise. It’s actually cerulean. Photo by Shoper on Unsplash

Let’s get it.

In this issue:

What is affiliate marketing SEO?
Why is it important for Black Friday?
The rise of Reddit in search and AI for affiliate marketing
7 tips for an effective Black Friday strategy

THE 101

What is affiliate marketing SEO?

Affiliate marketing SEO is the process of optimizing content that includes referrals to sell products or services, where the publisher makes a commission off the purchase. The goal, ultimately, is for readers to click an affiliate link in your articles and buy a product.

These pages typically include roundups of the best products in a category, a one-time deal or sales during an event (like Black Friday).

Affiliate SEO prioritizes commercial and transactional keywords over informational intent.

Commercial keywords reflect users researching brands or services, focusing on learning about products, comparing options or finding the best price. For example, keywords such as “best chromebooks” or “ipad vs ipad air.” Listicles, roundups or reviews are used to target these keywords.
Transactional keywords are more direct and have the strongest intent to take action. These queries often happen after someone has already made a decision on what they are going to purchase, and possibly from where. “Macbook black friday,” or “buy airpods pro” are examples of transactional intent. Targeting these keywords with deals or lists of best prices is best.

Affiliate SEO targets a different type of audience because of the search intent. This helps reach a wider net of consumers for your publication.

Why affiliate marketing SEO — especially during Black Friday — is essential for (some) publishers

Fifty-six percent of consumers use search when considering a product or search, according to Search Engine Land, with as much as half of these product searches starting on Amazon. Over 2.14 billion shoppers now purchase items online, representing 27 per cent of all people digital buyers, according to Tidio. On TikTok alone in 2023, 33.3 per cent of users made a purchase via the platform.

That’s a lot of people looking for the best price, product or resource to spend their money on — with Black Friday/Cyber Monday being the biggest shopping days of the year in the U.S.

Affiliate programs, then, are effective because they provide an alternative revenue stream for publishers, separate from subscription models or advertising. Black Friday is a huge traffic and revenue opportunity for publishers who have a smart, established affiliate strategy.

Affiliate SEO requires a heavy emphasis on E.E.A.T, specifically “experience.” Readers (and Google) want to know your publication has first-hand experience and expertise with these products and will provide a trustworthy review.

Ensure your affiliate program fits into your publication’s overall business and editorial goals, providing value to your readers and a good user experience.

Black Friday is not the time to start affiliate content if you don’t normally provide reviews — especially in the current volatile search landscape.

The rise of Reddit in search & AI for affiliate marketing

In 2024, affiliate marketing SEO looks different than it has in the past.

Google is taking aim at sites with affiliate arms in various algorithm updates and for “violating” its site reputation abuse spam policy. Adweek reported last week that the search visibility of the Forbes, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fortune and Time affiliate businesses has fallen so dramatically, its lost traffic is cumulatively worth at least USD $7.5 million, according to Sistrix.

Reddit is consistently ranking higher on SERPs, often in the top position or above affiliate content from news publishers. That means a lot of affiliate verticals are being deprioritized in search results.

In a search for "vessi reviews," a Reddit forum ranks in the top organic spot. Good Housekeeping has purchased an ad in search to take back the top spot.

In a search for "best beis alternative," Reddit ranks #2, behind House Beautiful, but above three other publications.

Additionally, AI Overviews can surface for some of these queries (around 10 per cent), summarizing many affiliate sites and showing links to directly purchase products from Google’s SERPs. This severely reduces the visibility and engagement for publishers.

Lily Ray spoke on the Affiliate BI’s podcast in August about the struggles over the last two years for affiliate sites, and the reduction of visibility for these publishers. She says to ensure your site offers real value, not just the basics or "SEO content."

She gave some feedback for sites looking to try to grow:

Affiliate sites should focus on more than great on-page SEO. They should focus on what makes for a great user experience, too;
Personal branding is a strong signal of authority (think TikTok recommendations). Encourage writers to have a solid online presence with robust bio pages that communicate their expertise;
YouTube for SEO is powerful for affiliate sites, but still somewhat untapped and under-resourced;
Social media is becoming a strong influence on how people search and discover brands (again, TikTok);
Go beyond what SEO tools say you should do, especially for content. Use your judgment.

🔗 Read more: We’ve written in-depth about what affiliate SEO is and how to set up a solid strategy if you are just starting out.

THE HOW TO

7 tips to help your Black Friday strategy

Ideally, prep for Black Friday should have started several weeks — if not months — ago. Tentpole events like Black Friday require a lot of preparation, but the week of the event is crucial.

Interest in Black Friday on search over the past 30 days has been climbing, and will no doubt be higher next week. As of publication, many companies like Amazon and Walmart have already started Black Friday-specific deals, with prices likely to fluctuate before November 29.

Search interest in the United States has gradually climbed and will continue to climb heading into November 29.

With Google’s increased emphasis on trust and the significance of expertise for E.E.A.T signals, especially for YMYL content, it’s crucial to offer comprehensive reviews and roundups. This content should encompass first-hand experience, cover both positive and negative aspects of the product/service and present an impartial recommendation. Ensure you can provide a thorough and unique perspective — not just third-party accounts. Provide something Reddit threads can’t.

Black Friday is no longer a single-day event; update your content in the days and weeks before November 29, as well as over the Black Friday weekend and into Cyber Monday. Ensure your Black Friday keyword strategy is solid and uses the most up-to-date search terms for this year’s event.

Pro tip: Create two buckets for your keyword research: non-Black Friday branded keywords and those that include Black Friday (e.g. “iphone 15 deals” versus “black friday deals”). This helps reach people looking up event-specific deals as well as product or brand-related sales. People will be intentional about comparing prices, so helping in as many ways as possible is beneficial.

Here’s are seven tips to make the most of your Black Friday SEO strategy:

Utilize your Black Friday topic tag page. You should already have a Black Friday topic tag page. Place the Black Friday tag on the homepage, either in the navigation or somewhere easily accessible for the duration of the event. This helps Google crawl your Black Friday content, and readers to easily scan your information.
1. Make it easy for readers (and Google) to find this content. Mashable, for example, has the tag in their navigation already, the Strategist has an early roundup prominently linked and Wirecutter has its top early deals placed in the left rail.
2. Ensure all content is linked to the Black Friday topic tag page and all content is accessible from the page. Link the Black Friday topic page in stories, as well.
3. Make the focus of your next few weeks finding ways to incorporate the affiliate content seamlessly into the rest of your coverage in a way that is helpful. Are you doing a story on Apple’s next big products? Add a link to your listicle on the best Apple deals.

Conduct regular hourly keyword research using Google Trends (and the Glimpse extension) in the week of the event. You can do daily keyword research prior to this. Set up a Google Trends view that includes “Black Friday” as the topic keyword over the past hour in your region. Refresh this tab regularly. Keep an eye on the rising related queries, updating relevant headlines with the popular keywords and write breakout stories as warranted.

Use Google’s autocomplete on its search bar to determine what major keywords will be a focus this year.

Increase the update cadence of your pages. Your pages should be updated daily up to two weeks prior to the event, if not multiple times per day. Include new product information or price changes, and any other pertinent information. Every substantial update to the copy should include a change to the image, headline and timestamp. Use your meta description/deck or the first few lines of the body copy to highlight the updates included.
1. On actual Black Friday, update these pages often, likely every hour or so. Update the image, keep product price and inventory updated and easily accessible and reflect top-referring keywords in headlines.
2. If you’re also running a live blog, ensure the headline is consistently updated and provides relevant information throughout the day. For multi-day coverage, start a new URL every day.

⚡ Pro tip: Google is currently rolling out the November core algorithm update, which is likely going to shuffle SERPs before Black Friday next week. Keep an eye on key pages and their ranking positioning. If there is fluctuation for important keywords, adjust this content first. Review what the results pages look like post-changes and optimize your headlines, internal linking and the subheadings of this content as needed.

Link all Black Friday content together. Readers should be able to navigate between related content easily. Make sure similar pages (e.g., “black friday apple deals,” “black friday dyson deals,” “apple iphone 15 black friday deals”) are linked together.
1. Create a “mega post” where every Black Friday page is linked from, and has a table of contents for easy scrollability.

Utilize a table of contents for big posts that include links to all of your Black Friday content. Mashable uses a table of contents on their "mega post" for all best early Black Friday deals.

Wirecutter has a list of links for you to easily jump to in their “best early Black Friday deals” story.

Be alert to product changes. Tell readers when prices change, and especially when a product goes out of stock. Being on top of this shows your expertise, and readers (and Google) will appreciate the transparency.
Promote Black Friday content on social media. Everyone is scouring for deals, so promote your publication’s findings on social media. This user-generated content can also show up in Perspectives carousels on SERPs, too.
1. Utilize Reddit subthreads by posting about Black Friday deals (be sure to follow the rules of each subreddit). Make use of short video content on TikTok or Instagram by updating followers on high-searched and viral products.
Utilize all other audience channels. If you have the resources, create a Black Friday-specific WhatsApp group, or offer a mini course newsletter that sends up-to-date deals or alerts regularly. Mashable utilizes a newsletter to give information about Black Friday to their readers, while Wirecutter has an in-line link for a daily deals newsletter.

The bottom line: Black Friday is a massive day in the e-commerce/affiliate marketing calendar for publishers in North America. Ensure your strategy is set and you’re utilizing every channel at your disposal, on search and elsewhere across your site.

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