Black Friday: How Has the Game Changed?

For both local and national searches, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are big deals. These two days alone comprise a majority of online shopping that overshadows a vast majority of other days of the year. In fact, half of all of the country’s most popular days are within the same week, which is that post-Thanksgiving spread of days when the deals seem to come fast, and the spending become furious. The question then becomes, has anything changed with Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing in light of Google’s Pigeon algorithm update?

National Focus for Local Results

Some local businesses can more readily take advantage of national search engine coverage than others. For example, Best Buy is able to perform local Black Friday promotional marketing for its individual stores while maintaining a place on the national platform. That means that as a company, they can compete in both arenas with the power to have a significant standing in either.

For smaller businesses that may still want to jump in on the Black Friday frenzy, however, there are a few considerations to be made:

• Local directories are a plus, and depending on the market involved, they can easily help to push Black Friday searches your way. This is particularly true when you combine a presence on local business directories with…
• A strong social media presence. You need this to easily get the word out about fast, new deals that you may be posting at a moment’s notice. Your social media presence may be subdued throughout the year, but online shoppers are becoming increasingly interested in links to share with friends and family on the latest deals, whether they are strictly online commerce or through local business. Now is the time to build a stronger social media presence, which can also mean…
• More local feedback. It goes hand in hand with local SEO and social media now that Pigeon has dropped, but Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t just one-off opportunities to get your name and business out there. They’re a very strong way to establish a more positive brand and reputation online, especially when you’ll most likely be seeing a vast amount of traffic during that time coming from mobile devices of shoppers on the hunt.

For consumers, Black Friday and its associated holidays are a possible source of fast, inexpensive presents and deals they’ve been waiting for. For companies and marketers, they can be something akin to a “brand bomb” that puts your name, or the name of a client, out there in big, bold letters. Handle it properly and take advantage of the resources that are out there, and even very small businesses can see some incredible results.