Black Friday SEO works best when you start in February. If you are reading this in late October, you are late, but not too late to do useful work. I run Distribb, and I watched a two-hour panel where three working SEOs, Gagan Ghotra, Harpreet Singh and David Quaid, went through what still moves the needle a month out. Here are their steps, in order, with what to do this week.
Step 1: Decide which pages you actually need
David Quaid has ranked a site for Black Friday terms for about seven years. His point is simple: "SEO is a displacement sport." A page published a week before the sale has to push out pages that have been sitting there for months, and it may not even be indexed in time.
So the first decision is not what to write. It is how many pages to make. The panel saw the same mistake again and again: a brand creates "Black Friday deals", then "Black Friday deals for men", "for women" and "for children", and all of them compete for the short query. Google ends up showing a mix and none of them wins.
Use this rule:
- One main Black Friday page for the store.
- A category page only when the category has its own searches, for example "Black Friday running shoes deals".
- If you already have a deals or sale page for a category, optimize that page for Black Friday terms instead of creating a twin. Harpreet Singh's example was a windbreaker deals page: it can rank for the Black Friday version without a new URL.
To check whether you went too far, take the main keyword of each Black Friday page and look at where it ranks. If a page sits around position 45 to 55, or rankings drop as you add pages, you have split the topic too thin. Merge back.
You can run the same check on competitors. Search the query followed by site:theirdomain.com. If a related page shows up instead of their Black Friday page, they are competing with themselves, and that is a gap for you.
Milestone: a short list of pages, each with one main keyword that no other page on your site targets.
Step 2: Target Black Friday + category + deals searches
Gagan Ghotra gave the most reusable idea of the episode. The keyword pattern is "Black Friday" plus a product category plus "deals". His example was "Black Friday activewear deals for women".
He also said the results for these searches have changed. Before Google's helpful content update, publisher affiliate pages filled them. Now he sees brand pages showing up more often, even for small niche stores, as long as the page is bottom of the funnel: the products, the discounts, nothing else in the way.
How to build the list:
- Write down your categories as shoppers name them, not as your menu names them.
- Put each one into the pattern and search it in Google. Note what ranks: news gift guides, retailers, brands.
- Keep the ones where brands or stores appear on page one. Drop the ones fully owned by big publishers.
Harpreet added a warning about timing. From about the Monday before Black Friday, news articles and gift guides start ranking for these terms, and in some markets they take the Top Stories box. A category page will not rank above them that week. Step 7 covers how to get inside those articles instead.
Milestone: one target keyword per page from step 1, each checked in a real search.
Step 3: Put every offer on the page as text
A Black Friday page is a sales page. Tell people the offer the moment they land. They should not have to scroll to find it.
Then make the offers readable by Google and by AI answers:
- Use more discount codes, at different levels. Gagan prefers 8 to 10 codes at 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and up, instead of three or four. If someone asks ChatGPT for a 40% Black Friday discount on what you sell and you have no 40% code, you are unlikely to show up.
- Write payment terms in words. If you offer buy now, pay later, or interest-free payments on furniture, say it in the text. A payment logo inside a product image tells an algorithm nothing.
- Collect emails with the code. David's tip for first-time visitors: offer the code in exchange for an email, so an anonymous visitor becomes someone you can follow up with.
Milestone: every deal, code and payment option on the page exists as plain text.
Step 4: Own the searches for your own deals and codes
People search "[your brand] Black Friday deals" and "[your brand] discount code". If you do not have a page for that, coupon sites answer for you. Some of them scrape codes automatically and list fake ones. If you run an affiliate program, every one of those searches that lands on an affiliate costs you a commission on a sale you would have made anyway.
Create one page on your own site that answers the brand query directly: this year's deals, the valid codes, the dates.
This also works without a sale. Harpreet pointed out that Ahrefs runs no Black Friday deal, yet a help page of theirs ranks for the query, says there is no seasonal discount and points to the annual plan. If you sell software and skip Black Friday, a short honest page still catches people in buying mode.
Milestone: searching your brand name plus "Black Friday" or "discount code" shows a page you control.
Step 5: Write product details an AI can compare
This Black Friday more people will compare products inside AI chats before they buy. Harpreet's advice is to describe every product by its attributes: material, whether it breathes or stretches, how waterproof it is and to what depth, exact dimensions. If you resell, do not paste the manufacturer's description. You compete with the brand's own site and with department stores selling the same item, and the page with the most complete details has the best chance of being picked.
Gagan shared a test from April. A running shoe page said nothing about wearing the shoe in the rain, which was the main question people had, and the shoe never came up for those prompts. He added that information and saw shoppers arriving from ChatGPT and buying, while admitting he cannot prove the revenue link.
Two more ideas from the panel:
- Say what a cheaper alternative will not do for the buyer. Facts about limits help a person and an AI make the comparison.
- Put comparison facts on pages you already have rather than creating "us vs them" pages at scale. Gagan's client added a table showing the main competitor's card does not work at 23 stores and 10 airports, and ChatGPT started repeating it.
If you want the full method, our guide to product description SEO and writing descriptions that rank and sell covers it step by step.
Milestone: your five best sellers each list the five things a buyer checks before adding to cart.
Step 6: Publish buying guides for the research phase
Most Black Friday buyers decide what they want before the sale and only look for the best price on the day. That research happens earlier, in Google and in AI chats, and it runs on guides.
Harpreet's example was Samsung. It compares its own OLED, QLED and Neo QLED TVs on its blog, without naming other brands, and that page gets cited when people research TVs in AI. David's example was "best TVs for apartments", which is far easier to rank for than "best TV Black Friday" and attracts a buyer with a specific need.
Think about who buys from you and what they need to settle before the sale. Each answer is a guide: which type to choose, which size fits, what works with what they already own. Link each guide to the product and category pages it discusses.
Gagan was honest about the return. These pages rarely show a direct ROI you can put in a report. Their value is that they shape what people and AI tools recommend when someone is not ready to buy yet.
Milestone: three buying guides live, each linking to the products it covers.
Automate it with Distribb
Steps 2 to 6 are where most stores give up. Each category needs a researched keyword, each guide needs to be written against what you actually sell, and all of it has to go live months before the sale to count. That is the work I built Distribb to take off a store owner's desk.
On Shopify it works like this:
- It reads your catalog. When you connect the store, Distribb syncs your products, prices and collections, so the writing starts from what you sell, in your currency.
- It finds the searches buyers make before they purchase. Comparisons, "best X for Y" guides, "which one should I choose" questions: the research phase from step 6.
- It writes product-led articles that mention your real products and link to your product and collection pages, with every link checked before publishing.
- It checks each new article against what you already published, by meaning, so two posts never fight for the same query. That is the step 1 problem handled for you.
- It publishes to your Shopify blog on your content calendar, so your guides are live in February, not the week before.
- It builds real backlinks from real businesses through Distribb's backlink exchange, which is the authority your category pages need by November, and it tracks where AI engines cite your store.
Pro is $97 a month for 30 articles. Accelerator is $495 a month for 90 articles, plus done-for-you videos, Instagram carousels and Medium syndication, which puts your products on other sites too. You connect the store and it runs. See how it works on the Distribb Shopify SEO page.
Step 7: Get mentioned where your site cannot rank
When news articles own the results in the last week, you get in by being in them.
- Press releases. David's rule is to lead with the deal, not the brand name. Your brand goes in the first paragraph. Send several versions rather than one, and test with a small budget (he suggested about $2,000 to $4,000) before any big spend. During the show, Harpreet found a Mattress Firm press release titled around "best Black Friday mattress deals" ranking on page one.
- Paid placements on publishers. If you pay a publisher for a Black Friday piece, ask for a normal news URL. Gagan sees AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Claude citing pages in a publisher's affiliate subfolder less often.
- Creators. Get people reviewing your products on video. Micro creators are cheap, their posts rank, and many will add your keyword to the description if you ask.
- Your own social posts. Gagan sees Instagram carousels with a deal keyword in the caption appear in Google's "What people are saying" results. Post one for each deals page. And link from your product pages to your social profiles so they get indexed.
On Reddit, the panel was cautious. David said Reddit is removing brand accounts aggressively right now, including accounts that had posted nothing, and a removed account does not come back. Gagan's minimum: register the subreddit with your exact brand name so nobody else can, and answer negative Reddit threads on your own site, because moderators often delete brand replies.
On links, Harpreet's view: had you started in February, you would build links to category pages through the summer. This late, partnerships and affiliates are the way in.
Milestone: one press release out and three creator or social posts pointing at your deals page.
Step 8: Keep the page, the feed and the schema in sync
Gagan was precise here. Product schema and your Merchant Center feed do not lift rankings. They feed the shopping carousels and product blocks, which now also appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- Match the feed to the page. If the page says 20% off and the feed says 30%, Google rejects the item. The same goes for stock levels. If your store, feed and warehouse system are connected, check that all three agree.
- Batch your changes. A big feed change makes Google recrawl many pages to confirm it. Gagan updates in batches every few days instead of all at once.
- Validate schema before it goes live. An AI assistant can write product schema from your page content, but run it through Google's Rich Results Test first. Search Console alerts arrive a day or two late.
- Watch the Merchant Center notifications. Last year, about two and a half weeks before Black Friday, Google sent notices saying searches for certain products were rising.
- Add the offers to your Google Business Profile products and posts if you have a physical store.
Milestone: a spot check of ten products shows the same price, discount and stock on the page and in the feed.
Step 9: Refresh pages that already rank
This is the step that still works at the last minute. The People Also Ask questions change during the season as search behavior shifts. David's method: search your main terms, read the new PAA questions, and add answers to pages that already rank. You use existing authority instead of waiting for a new page to be found.
Milestone: your three best ranking pages each answer two new questions from People Also Ask.
Step 10: Set up URLs you keep every year
The panel spent a while on how Amazon handles it: one page at /black-friday and a separate /shop/black-friday-sale page for this year. The rule David drew from it is to put the year in the title, never in the slug, so the URL keeps its history from one season to the next.
Harpreet's clients use a clean version: the current year always lives at /black-friday, and when the sale ends, the content moves to an archive URL like /black-friday-2025.
For internal links:
- Keep all Black Friday pages in one folder and give the main page its own navigation to the top deals and categories.
- On your best performing collection and product pages, add an embedded block pointing to the deals. Gagan avoids pop-ups for this. Our guide to Shopify collection page SEO best practices shows how to structure those pages.
Milestone: /black-friday exists, has no year in the slug, and is linked from your top five collection pages.
Step 11: Measure, then keep selling after Cyber Monday
Most purchases will still be credited to Google in your analytics, even when the research happened in an AI chat. Gagan's estimate is that well under 1% of Black Friday purchases will happen inside an AI interface. So check the basics:
- If your developers edit Shopify pages with AI coding tools, confirm your tracking scripts still fire. Gagan sees them broken often.
- Use the last 12 months of Search Console and Google Trends to decide which products deserve the discount. Harpreet's example: Stanley cups were last year's trend and are not this year's.
- Remember what decides the sale. David's view is that delivery time, delivery cost and trust matter more than having the lowest price.
After Cyber Monday, do not switch everything off. Gagan keeps a smaller offer running by email for two or three weeks, for example 20% where the sale was 40%.
Even if all you do this year is publish late, publish. David's argument is that keyword tools are built on ads data, so your own pages and your own Search Console are the only real data you will have for next year.
Milestone: a note with what ranked, what sold and what to publish in February.
Watch the episode
The full conversation runs just under two hours on Edward Sturm's channel and is episode 1,206 of his daily show.
FAQ
When should I publish my Black Friday page?
Publish it in February and keep it live all year. A page needs months to push older pages out of the results, and one published a week before the sale may not be indexed in time. If you are already late, publish now anyway, because the data you collect this year decides what you do next year.
Should I put the year in my Black Friday URL?
No. Put the year in the title and keep the URL as /black-friday, so it keeps its history from one season to the next. When the sale ends, move that year's content to an archive URL such as /black-friday-2025 and refresh the main page for the next season.
How many Black Friday pages should a store have?
One main page, plus a category page only when that category has its own searches. Separate pages for men, women and children that all target "Black Friday deals" compete with each other. If you already have a deals page for a category, optimize it for Black Friday terms instead of creating a second one.
Does product schema help Black Friday rankings?
Not directly. Product schema and a Merchant Center feed help your products appear in shopping carousels and product blocks, including in AI Overviews, but they do not lift organic rankings. Make sure the price and discount in the feed match the page, or Google can reject the item.
Can I still rank for Black Friday if I start in October?
Yes, on narrower terms. Add new People Also Ask answers to pages that already rank, optimize existing deals pages, own your brand plus "Black Friday" query, and get into the news articles that dominate the last week through press releases and partnerships. Head terms like "Black Friday deals" are out of reach this late.
Start with one category page
Pick your best selling category, build its "Black Friday + category + deals" page with every code in text, and link it from that category's top pages this week. Then put next February in your calendar. If you would rather have the guides, the product-led articles and the backlinks running without you, connect your store on Distribb for Shopify and start the free trial. For the bigger picture, here is how to build an ecommerce SEO strategy that carries you past the holidays.