Creating and optimising deal pages in preparation for major e-commerce events such as Black Friday can help you to engage shoppers and make the most of your website when there is a massive increase in interest. Aside from your usual SEO best practices, there are a few additional things you need to know to properly optimise your deal pages!
Have A Dedicated Page For Each Sale Event
One of the most important things to know when creating and optimising deal pages is to have a dedicated page for each sale event. If you simply have one general ‘Sale’ page that you use for every sale event, it is hard to properly optimise the page and to build enough authority to rank well for every event.
For example, say you create the ‘Sale’ page and optimise it for the Black Friday sale. If you then remove all the products and re-optimise it ready for Christmas, you will lose a lot of the authority you had built for the Black Friday sale. Constantly using the same page and re-optimising it will not only be very time consuming, but it will also be very ineffective.
So, it is important that you have a dedicated page for each sale event. These do not necessarily have to appear in your mega-menu all the time, but can simply exist on the back end of the website. This way, you only have to optimise each page once and you will not lose any authority that you have built to the page. During each sale period, you can then link from the Homepage to the Sale page and the page will always appear on SERP’s (search engine results pages).
Each sale period, you can then simply upload your sale products and you’re good to go! Create a separate page for each sale that is applicable to your business, perhaps January Sales, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Black Friday, Christmas and so on.
Reuse URL
Relating to the last point, it is also very important that you keep the same URL for each of the sale pages you have created. If you delete your page and create a new one each year, or you change the URL of the page for whatever reason, your website will become susceptible to 404 errors and broken links, which Google seriously disdains. It also will result in you losing all of your SEO work on that particular page, as any authority is associated with that particular URL.
So, just make sure you keep the same URL to avoid any serious issues!
Find A Relevant Keyword To Optimise The Page
Next up, you should complete keyword research to find a relevant keyword to optimise each of your sale pages. If you simply optimise a page with the keyword ‘Black Friday Sale’, not only will it be near impossible to rank well, but if somehow you do manage to rank in the top 10, people who do land on your website are unlikely to make a purchase as it is such a generic term and they probably aren’t looking for what you have to offer. During the month of November, the keyword ‘Black Friday Sale’ receives 368,000 searches on average, so understandably this is not going to be an effective target.
Instead, choose a slightly more niche keyword that is closely related to your business, so that you have a chance of ranking and also bringing qualified users to the website. For example, the keyword ‘Black Friday Headphone Sale’ gets an average of 590 searches in November, a much more realistic goal that could result in a decent amount of sales for a business selling headphones.
Create Page and Optimise Months In Advance
Another way to get ahead of the competition is to create and optimise your sales pages months before the sale begins. This will give you a chance to build authority to the page and to hopefully get it ranking ready for when the sale begins.
So, around 3-6 months before the sale (depending on the authority of your website and how competitive it is to rank for the keyword you are targeting), you should create and optimise the page. Doing it as early as possible is of course advised, but making sure that you have a decent window to build the authority is the most important thing. You will also have time to build high-quality links to boost those rankings.
After you have optimised the page for the first time, you probably won’t have to do it again for a long time, unless the user intent around the keyword you have chosen changes dramatically over time. Each year, quickly check the keyword to make sure it is still relevant. You can keep the same URL and then just add the relevant products for that year!
Include A High-Quality Image
Last but not least, you need to include a relevant and high-quality image on the page, ideally as the banner image. Having an image showing an array of your sale products will help people arriving on your website to gain a general understanding of what you are offering. Google generally discourages having text in a banner image, although for deal pages, it can be advantageous for context.
Make sure that you add an alt tag to the image, as this is best practice to assist visually impaired users, as well as offering another opportunity to add an additional keyword to the page.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it! Being prepared and optimising your deal pages properly in advance is a fantastic way to position you above the competition when sale periods come around. For assistance with this, get in touch with a digital agency Manchester-based for some of the best talent in the country. Taking the time to do this properly or seeking help from an SEO company is worth it, as you can reap the benefits for years to come!