How to Optimize E-commerce Sites for Black Friday

So our How E-commerce Sites Should Optimize for Back To School (Note to Editor – I can’t seem to find that post anywhere. Did you not get my email?) post did really well and thus we thought why not cover another great holiday all parents love – Black Friday.

Cyber Monday is okay but it missing some of the hands on engagement and rush that we get from camping outside of stores starting at 3AM and then hours later bursting through the door in hopes to get one of the two Door Buster TV deals. So for those E-Commerce sites that have an actual physical storefront, good luck! For those that don’t, here is your Golden Ticket towards making it rain sales on Black Friday! So without further ado, here is what every E-commerce Manager, Digital Marketing Manager and SEO Manager needs to know about Black Friday:

14 Things to Do (or Not) for Black Friday

1. 2018 is a new year so that means you need a new URL for your Black Friday Deals. Oh and don’t bother redirecting last years as that is so last year.
2. Did you redesign the site this year? Only go back 30 days and make sure you don’t transfer/redirect last year’s Black Friday page.
3. Black Friday STARTS on 11/23 so don’t worry about putting the URL live until then as no one goes online to compare deals.
4. Don’t tweet, share on Facebook or mention the sale in a blog post – you don’t want anyone shopping your site to find the sale and save money on something they were going to buy anyways do you?
5. Don’t link to or mention your Cyber Monday sale on your Black Friday page. We need to keep the sales and pages silo’d or you will never rank in Google.
6. Embargo the Black Friday sites from posting your flyers. You don’t want to have to pay affiliate commission on all those sales they drive.
7. Make sure your promotion budget is all tied up or spent so that you do no promoting of your Black Friday sale. Again, we don’t want people that would buy from you to save any money.
8. We need to start our Holiday SEO efforts on 12/1 because no one starts their Holiday shopping until after Thanksgiving.
9. Put all of the content in images. This will help stop the coupon forum sites from finding your deals and sharing them.
10. Keep the deals realistic and just knock off 5-20%. Or raise the prices and then say that the merchandise is on sale #youaresosmart
11. DO NOT mention Black Friday or that you have a page (you did create a page didn’t you?) with all sorts of sales and deals on your Home Page. Again, why help people shopping save money?
12. Don’t update your inventory in real time. Make products available in the store then wait until checkout to tell them it’s out of stock.
13. Shut down your website completely on Thanksgiving day to follow suit with other responsible retailers and win you some good PR!
14. What did we miss? Give us your best idea in the comments.

So there you have it, a ton of great ideas to make your Black Friday page Great Again. Should you need any ideas on content for your page do check out a few ways to make content great.

Image Credit: @nightmareent1