There are lots of things online businesses need to take care of before Black Friday and Cyber Monday come around. We already spoke about the importance of getting your website intact, putting together email marketing campaigns, and polishing your social media posts. But there’s one more thing you simply can’t afford to overlook, and that’s optimizing your website for search engines.

Every online business wants more organic traffic. And to get it, they need to rank for certain keywords. Now, and this is crucial, you won’t go far without knowing which keywords you want to drive traffic from. And even worse, if you’re driving traffic to your store with irrelevant keywords, you won’t make any sales, you’ll only waste your time and money. And who wants that?

I know what you’re thinking. SEO is tricky. And I won’t lie – it can get tricky, especially if you’re new to it. But don’t let tricky cost you sales this holiday season. Instead, use the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping craze as an opportunity to draw more attention to your brand and products.

Read on to find out what are the most valuable Black Friday – Cyber Monday keywords (there are more than 800). More importantly, learn how to use them to generate more valuable traffic and boost sales during this holiday season.

Black Friday – Cyber Monday search patterns

Whether customers are planning on hitting brick-and-mortar stores, or prefer shopping in the comfort of their own home, 75% still agree they research the product or the deal online before making a purchase.

Source: Statista

Another useful thing to know is that online shoppers start researching generic, non-branded deals for Black Friday – Cyber Monday in early November. And about two weeks before the Thanksgiving weekend, they start looking for branded Black Friday – Cyber Monday offers.

This once again proves that gaining an online presence, especially on search engines, is important if you want to be successful during this merry season of shopping. And the sooner you start working on optimizing your store for valuable keywords, the better.

SEO keyword research

You probably heard it before – the very first step to content optimization is keyword research. And while it may sound daunting at first, it’s really not that difficult. What can get in your way, however, is the price of SEO tools you need to use to get the job done. And let’s be real, the majority of them come at a price most small business aren’t ready to pay.

But that’s where this guide comes in.

To help you figure out which keywords you should be focusing on, we did the research for you. Even better, we grouped these keywords together in 5 distinctive categories:

• Black Friday keywords
• Cyber Monday keywords
• Printful product keywords
• Electronics keywords
• Buzz keywords

Each keyword includes useful metrics that can help you evaluate their potential value and competitiveness:

• Search volume is a rough estimate of the number of searches for a keyword per month. the higher the search volume, the more people search for it. We used search volume data suggested by Google Ads Keyword Planner (Global),  and search volume data from Ahrefs Keyword Explorer (US).
• Difficulty score, on a scale from 0 to 100, shows how difficult it is to compete with already-ranking (organic) results. The lower the value, the easier it is to rank for the keyword.
• PPC competition score, on a scale of 0 to 1, indicates how many advertisers are bidding a certain amount to have their ads appear on the keyword. Even though this refers to paid advertising, it can also be used as an indicator of how competitive the SEO arena might be.
• SERP features are other types of info blocks/features provided by Google that appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) next to organic links, all of which may draw traffic away from your organic links. Data refers to Google in the USA.

Example of SERP features

Pro tip. Focus your efforts on keywords that strike a good balance of high search volume and small competition.

But enough rambling, let’s get onto the keywords!

High-value Black Friday keywords

This year Black Friday falls on November 23rd, which means you’ve still got just under two months to get the attention of holiday shoppers.

You might think that it’s still miles away. But every year online retailers start promoting their Black Friday deals earlier, so you should do the same. It’s a strategic move that lets shoppers get informed about deals and plan their purchases once the big shopping day comes around.

These are 20 most popular keywords. Take a look at the full list of high-value Black Friday keywords.

Ultimate Cyber Monday keywords

After the Friday shopping craze follows Cyber Monday. Last year this day made the mark in ecommerce history by generating a record-breaking $6.6 billion in sales. Cyber Monday is expected to reach even greater heights this year by generating $7.25 billion worth of sales.

If you don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to skyrocket your sales this holiday season, you must mark November 26th on your marketing calendar and start optimizing your website for valuable Cyber Monday keywords.

Full list of ultimate Cyber Monday keywords.

Fun fact. Did you know that people visit online stores on Mondays more than any other day of the week?

Popular Printful product-related keywords

Year in, year out, apparel and accessories take the cake as a top selling product category during Cyber Week. And if your store offers any of these categories, you need to make your products search-friendly.

Here are the most important keywords your products should be ranking for this holiday season:

Full list of popular Printful product-related keywords.

Top electronics keywords

Another best-selling product category during Cyber Week is electronics. Last year, around 30% of shoppers got their hands on discounted TVs, laptops, mobile phones, game consoles, and other smart devices. And according to Black Friday – Cyber Monday sale predictions, people are likely to spend on electronics even more this year.

If you offer electronic devices on your store, keep an eye on these keywords:

Full list of top electronics keywords.

The most searched buzz phrases

Marketers often forget that they need to optimize their content not only for search engines, but also for people. You see, the way people search for products online is quite different than how Google crawls the content. And while you want Google to favor your website content, at the end of the day, it’s humans who will buy your products.

This set of keywords will give you an idea of which buzzwords or phrases (even if they sound a little cheesy) you should focus on to get the most human attention to your store.

Full list of the most searched buzz phrases.

How to use Black Friday – Cyber Monday keywords

So you know you need to optimize the content for search engines, and you have the most important keywords at hand. What next?

Start with the basics – SEO 101

Everyone knows that if you get the basics right, you are off to a winning start. And when it comes to optimizing your page for Black Friday – Cyber Monday keywords, you need to make sure you’ve covered the basics.

Page titles (title tags)

Website page titles appear as links in search engine results pages (SERPs), tabs of web browsers, and thumbnails of social media posts.

When writing your page titles, make sure to include valuable keywords (ideally at the beginning of the title) to help you rank higher. Also, try to stay within 60 characters to avoid your page title being cut off in the preview.

Every page title on your website should be unique and on point. Don’t stuff it with keywords as it may make your page seem less trustworthy and discourage users to click on it altogether.

Pro top: Use tools like Google SERP Simulator to see how your page titles will look in search results once published.

Main headings

The main heading appears in the body text of your website. In most cases, main headings are automatically used as page titles, but they can be different if you want to make your page more catchy, for example, by adding couple extra buzzwords or a keyword synonym.

Example of a main heading

Just like page titles, you want your main headings to be unique. It should also be optimized for the most valuable keyword related to what that page is about. If you want your page to rank for Black Friday – Cyber Monday keywords, adjusting the main heading is essential.

Alt image tags (+ file names)

It’s not a secret that visual content is becoming more popular, and Google understands that too. Therefore, it places a relatively high value on text alternatives for images, also known as alt tags.

Since Google bots can’t see the images, they use alt image tags and file names to understand what it’s about. Both of them should describe what’s on the image or how it relates to the rest of the content on the page.

Adding keywords to your alt image tags and file names can boost your overall rankings in search, so don’t forget to optimize your images in preparation for Cyber Week.

There should be an option to add alt text tags to your images in the image editor of the hosting platform you use. For example, here’s how you can do it in WordPress:

Pro tip: It’s better to use synonyms and variations of your main keyword than repeating the same keyword for all the images on the same page.

URLs

Google suggests keeping URLs short, simple, and to the point. And just like with everything else, your web addresses should contain a focus keyword or phrase as it helps search engines recognize what the page is about.

It’s probably not the best idea to change the URL of your main page just for Black Friday, as it can negatively affect your referral traffic. But if you’re planning to create a new landing page to promote your Black Friday – Cyber Monday deals, choosing a URL that contains a valuable keyword is a must.

Anchor texts

Google uses links to understand the relevance and value of pages on your site. Think of each link (internal or external) as a vote – the more you have, the better. And while the link (or vote) itself is important, anchor texts is what helps Google figure out what is the vote for.

Source: MOZ

To use anchor texts to your advantage this holiday season, add product blocks on your homepage as sneak peaks of your amazing Black Friday deals. Then use keyword-optimized anchor text to direct customers to your Black Friday – Cyber Monday page where all of your best offers live.

Pro tip: Google values footer and sidebar links way less than in-content links. And the homepage is usually the best-ranking page on a website.

Long tail keywords

Some markets are more competitive than others. And if you happened to be competing with companies that have a large marketing budget and dominate search results already, ranking for generic keywords like t-shirt or sports bra might be difficult.

In this case, your best bet is optimizing your pages for long tail keywords that also contain some of the more popular generic phrases. And since long tail keywords are more specific, they get less search traffic but usually have a higher conversion rate.

So, let’s say you’re selling yoga leggings. Instead of targeting the yoga leggings keyword, try leopard print yoga leggings, for example.

Start optimizing your content today

If you don’t want your amazing products to stay on the digital shelves of your store this holiday season, you should strategically plan how to overtake the competition and get in front of your audience. One of the best ways to do so is to increase your brand and product visibility on Google.

Optimizing your content for higher rankings in search results is important all year round, but it’s crucial during busy shopping seasons like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So use this guide to identify the most valuable keywords and start optimizing your website with them in mind today.