Editor’s note: This blog was originally published in 2021. It has been updated for accuracy and to reflect modern practices.

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To help your eCommerce store prep for the upcoming holiday shopping season, we’re publishing a multi-part blog series full of digital marketing tips you need to implement today.

With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday sales season just a few months away, now is the time to start prepping your site’s SEO strategy.

Based on our work with dozens of eCommerce sites, we’ve gathered 10 tips to make sure your Cyber Monday and Black Friday SEO is in fighting shape.

Check out the full guide below, or use this list to jump to your favorite:

1. Confirm staff and contractor availability.
2. Plan site migrations and major updates accordingly.
3. Identify and refresh any existing holiday website content.
4. Create new Cyber Monday and Black Friday pages.
5. Create new sales and discounts content.
6. Prepare any on-site interstitials.
7. Ensure your local business listings are accurate.
8. Create a plan for out-of-stock products.
9. Create a FAQ/Q&A page.
10. Confirm your platform can handle traffic increases.

Want assistance creating your SEO holiday strategy? Contact our team anytime for a personalized proposal.

10 Holiday SEO Strategies for Your eCommerce Site

In many ways, your search engine optimization strategy for the holiday season should be no different from your long-term SEO strategy. Your content should be fresh and well-optimized, your site should present a great user experience, and your technical SEO should be in tip-top shape.

However, there are also some holiday-specific strategies to consider. Shoppers behave differently during the gift-giving season (which stretches longer and longer each year), and your site should be tailored to their needs and wants.

Here are 10 holiday SEO tips we recommend from our years of experience working with online retailers just like you:

1. Confirm staff and contractor availability.

Before you can create a holiday-specific SEO plan, you need to know when your team will be available to help you out.

Whether you’re working with in-house SEO staff or contracting your work through an eCommerce digital marketing agency, get on the same page about timelines and projects way before the fall — or else risk your optimizations never seeing the light of day.

We also recommend specifically reaching out to your website development team. If you want to implement or test certain site changes before the holiday season, you’ll need their assistance.

Your developer may be stacked with holiday projects over the next few months; get on their “to-do” list early to ensure your site updates are complete long before the first frost.

2. Plan site migrations and other major updates accordingly.

On the same note, if you do have plans to migrate your site or perform other intensive site updates, now’s the time to make it happen — but only if you can get it completely launched before the holidays. If you launch your changes later in the fall, you’ll not only have less “fix it” time, but you’ll also have fewer opportunities to test your site on shoppers. 

The last thing you want is to implement changes that negatively affect conversion rates before the busiest shopping period of the year. If you can’t get it done in time, we recommend pushing it off until after Christmas to avoid unnecessary stress (and potential disaster).

3. Identify and refresh any existing holiday website content.

When it comes to holiday SEO content, start with the path of least resistance.

Does your site have existing holiday content that you can spruce up for this season? While it may not have been applicable as it was pre-COVID, you can certainly take the time to update it for this year’s customers.

Update your old holiday gift guides with new and popular products, rewrite your seasonal messaging with your brand’s social media team, and look for refreshed images to add to your site.

Of course, don’t forget your keyword research/optimization or backlinks review, either.

4. Create new Cyber Monday and Black Friday pages.

Don’t have any existing holiday content from which to mine?

Gather your copywriting team and get to work now, so that your optimized pages have time to rank in the organic search results before the shopping begins.

There are plenty of opportunities for generating holiday sales through SEO content like:

• Holiday gift guides and online catalogs
• “Best of” products or sales lists (ex: “Best Black Friday Deals 2022”)
• Holiday contests and sweepstakes (also great for email list growth)
• Product comparisons and reviews
• Holiday gift landing pages (like Nordstrom’s, below)

While your long-term content marketing strategy should always help customers find and learn more about your products, it’s even more important during the holiday season. Remember: Many shoppers are buying based on others’ gift requests, not their own interest in the product.

Short on holiday content ideas? Use SEO tools like Semrush and Google Trends to research holiday keyword possibilities, or start brainstorming with our eCommerce content strategy guide.

5. Create new discounts and sales content.

Similarly, you can also create temporary content for any Cyber Monday/Black Friday sales your business plans to run. The first priority with this strategy is generating holiday revenue; SEO may be secondary, especially if you plan on removing those Black Friday deals from the site later.

For a compromise between the two approaches, consider creating an evergreen “Discounts and Sales” page on your website. That way, you can update it year-round with your current promotions, incorporate it into your link-building strategy, and optimize it for those customers specifically searching for site promo codes.

6. Prepare any on-site interstitials.

If you plan on advertising holiday discounts and sales on your website, you’ll want to prepare and test any plugins, pop-ups, slide-ins, and other interstitials ahead of time.

Make sure they work far enough in advance, and don’t forget to push them live at the right time — or you’ll risk losing out on some big revenue. 

Consider SEO factors like page speed, Core Web Vitals, and other ranking factors to prevent any negative effects on your organic traffic. We recommend working with your website developer to create a plan that minimizes impacts on your SEO strategy and maximizes visitor purchases.

7. Ensure your local business listings are accurate.

If you have a brick-and-mortar location, make sure your Google My Business listings properly display your address and hours of operation.

If your store will be open at different hours during the holiday season, make sure that is communicated, too. Otherwise, you risk frustrating customers who show up to a locked door with no notice.

Local SEO is important for online businesses, too. Make sure you’ve claimed your Google My Business listing; this will give you control over your listed contact information in the SERPs. Your GMB listing also allows for Google reviews, which can be a boon to your brand awareness.

8. Create a plan for out-of-stock products.

COVID-19 caused a long-term disruption in the supply chain for many online businesses. While we can hope those issues will be resolved prior to this year’s holiday season, you need to plan for the possibility that they won’t be.

Communicate with your suppliers and manufacturers now to get a lay of the land. Then, decide what steps your team will take to avoid customers turning to your competitors if the product they want is unavailable.

We recommend:

• Enabling pre-orders on product pages
• Enabling email notifications when products are back in stock
• Internal linking to related products
• And more, as detailed in our “out of stock products” guide

Pro tip: Keep our Out-of-Stock SEO Flowchart handy in the months to come.

9. Create a FAQ/Q&A page.

An increased number of customers to your website will also mean an increased response from your customer service. Head off some of the repetitive questions with a FAQ or Q&A page that’s easily accessible from your homepage, if you don’t already have one.

Use this page to address some of your customers’ biggest (and most searched) concerns about your brand, including:

• Shipping and return policies
• Product how-tos/details
• Phone orders
• Order statuses
• Use of personal information

10. Confirm your platform can handle traffic increases.

Finally, ensure that your eCommerce site can handle increased traffic during the busiest time of the year. 

While there are plenty of predictions for how this year’s online shopping season will go based on last year’s Black Friday performance, no one actually knows how (or how much) shoppers will spend. Be prepared for the best-case scenario — that browsers will flood your site — and make sure that your eCommerce platform can handle it.

Speak with your website developers or your platform representatives to discover which preemptive steps you can take to prevent a dreaded site crash.

Kick Off Your Holiday SEO Marketing Campaigns Now

Your SEO strategy will take time to implement and start working, and Google’s algorithm won’t work twice as hard just because it’s the holiday season. So, if you want your site to attract and retain holiday shoppers, now is the time to evaluate your SEO strategy and start making optimizations.

Work with your digital marketing team or agency to identify your biggest priorities before the holiday season, and use our tips above as guidance when determining your strategy. 

Want a helping hand (or just an extra set of expert eyes)? Request a free proposal from our eCommerce SEO marketers anytime.

In the meantime, review our other digital marketing holiday guides at the links below:

• eCommerce Holiday Marketing Strategies
• PPC Holiday Strategies
• CRO Holiday Strategies
• Best Practices for Holiday Email Marketing
• Social Media Holiday Ads Tips
• Pre-Holiday Code Freeze Best Practices

Editor’s note: This blog was originally published in 2021. It has been updated for accuracy and to reflect modern practices.

Just in case SEOs aren’t busy enough, Google is keeping us all on our toes with more core algorithm updates than ever.

Just as we recovered from 2021’s long-awaited Core Web Vitals update and double summer updates, 2022 came in with a bang, giving us the March Product Reviews update and the May core update. At the same time, you can bet Google’s continuously tinkering behind the scenes between each and every update — leaving us digital marketers to play catchup.

But, while you may feel at the mercy of Google’s algorithm changes, your SEO strategy doesn’t have to be.

Today, we’re sharing our approach to post-update SEO for eCommerce websites. In this guide, you’ll learn:

• Why we’re not too worried about it (no, really)
• Which tools we use to evaluate post-update site performance
• Which contributing performance factors we watch for
• And what we recommend for eCommerce websites

A Brief History of Recent Updates

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s recap the last few search ranking updates we’ve seen, starting with the unprecedented year that was 2021.

In a rare move, Google split its summer 2021 broad core algorithm update (known as the “Page Experience Update”) into two parts released over two months. At the same time, Google finalized its user-experience-focused Core Web Vitals update last June, confusing many marketers who attempted to attribute organic traffic changes to one update or another.

Google’s final 2021 update rolled out in November, giving us more than six months of breathing room before the next one would rear its head.

In May, Google returned to form with a one-part summer update, which rolled out over the course of a few weeks. That means, as of this guide’s updated publish date, any effects from this most recent Google update should already be seen in your site’s performance — for better or for worse.

For a comprehensive look at Google’s core algorithm update history, check out this compilation from Search Engine Land.

The Hard Truth: The Damage is Already Done

Whether your eCommerce site is recovering from algorithm updates in 2022, 2021, or even earlier, take comfort in knowing that no quick fixes could have saved you from harm.

Google’s webmasters are notoriously vague about which ranking signals are tweaked when each core update is released, meaning you can’t make last-minute changes to your site to avoid a hit to your organic traffic. 

As we all know, SEO is a long game. The only way you can “take advantage of” a core update is to already be implementing a solid eCommerce search engine optimization strategy of quality content across your site.

However, in some cases — like last year’s Core Web Vitals update — Google will provide helpful tools for analyzing your site’s current performance ahead of time, giving you benchmarks to work toward. (If you haven’t already, use the Page Speed Insights tool to check your site, and then learn how to improve your Core Web Vitals scores accordingly.)

That’s why we highly recommend working with an expert SEO professional who stays up to date on any latest news, so they can prep your site as needed.

eCom Business? No Need to Worry

We’ve been shepherding dozens of eCommerce brands through Google updates over the years, and the vast majority have avoided any volatility in performance due to updates. In fact, most of their sites keep moving along like nothing has happened, even after this year’s product reviews update. (While the update wasn’t expected to impact eCommerce sites as an industry, we still closely monitored our metrics — just in case.)

Save any upcoming eCommerce-specific updates, we anticipate the same for the future.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t care. Even if a core update doesn’t affect your site, it’s still a good indicator of how Google’s algorithm is evolving and good education for your ongoing SEO strategy. 

We recommend paying close attention to what digital marketing leaders are reporting, so you can adjust your long-term approach to what is (and isn’t) performing well for the SEO community.

How to Evaluate a Google Core Update’s Effects on Your Site

Admittedly, there’s a lot of mystery wrapped around Google’s ranking algorithm updates, but you don’t have to be in the dark about its effects on your site.

For this summer’s updates and future ones to come, identify any clear changes to your organic performance by following our approach:

Step 1: Monitor site performance during the rollout period.

Google will frequently announce upcoming core updates ahead of time, so you’ll know exactly when to start looking for traffic changes. Most updates take a few weeks to roll out completely; when evaluating site traffic, look at a time span of about a month for the most accurate picture.

If your site has felt an impact from the update, it will be easy to see.

Here are some examples of surges I’m seeing. Some of the sites seeing increases have been waiting a long time (and have worked very hard to improve). I hope this sticks for them. Remember, the July update could reverse some this… Time will tell. pic.twitter.com/PeG9DjZQSM— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) June 6, 2021

We initially use Google Analytics to evaluate any core update effects on our client’s sites. Our strategists typically check traffic reports every day (or every few days, depending on the size of the update) for a few weeks following the confirmed update. As mentioned, most of our eCommerce clients’ sites haven’t historically been impacted by recent updates — but, if they were, we’d see it in Google Analytics right away.

Step 2: Look for seasonality.

If a Google core update is rolled out during your business’s slow or busy season, you’ll need to rule out seasonality as a contributing effect. 

Let’s say your online store sells school supplies. If you see a jump in traffic and revenue after this summer’s update, it may not be an effect of the update at all — just a normal increase in parents getting ready for the back-to-school season. 

If your site sees a change in traffic after a Google core update, look at week-over-week, month-over-month, and year-over-year trends. Compare the results; if this traffic change is new to this summer, it could be an indication that the Google update has affected your site.

Another example: One of our former eCommerce clients (a seller of cigars and cigar products) was concerned about a drop in organic traffic following a Google update in the winter of 2017. But, when we compared their January 2018 performance with that from a year before, we saw the same drop in traffic: 

Don’t have accurate YOY data to mine? You can also compare your site with Google’s overall trends.

Here, we see a steep drop in “cigar shop” interest around January, indicating our client’s drop in traffic was indeed due to seasonality, not that winter’s Google update.

Of course, remember that YOY comparisons may not be 100% accurate, depending on COVID-19’s effect on your industry in 2020 and onward. We recommend comparing multiple years, just in case. (Here at Inflow, we’ve been using 2019 as a “baseline” for most of our clients.)

You can also look at competitors’ performance to confirm a seasonality drop.

Using these processes, we were able to eliminate the update as a contributing factor, understanding that this change was just a normal drop-off in cigar interest around the new year, perhaps due to New Year’s resolutions.

Step 3: Consider searcher intent.

Even if you see a drop in traffic to your site after a Google update, it may not necessarily be harmful. Google often uses core updates to clean up keyword search results, reducing the number of irrelevant web pages for search queries.

If your site was inadvertently ranking for an unrelated keyword or topic, the core update may have fixed that mistake — or, in the case of our own site, introduced the mistake!

While unrelated to a core update, an unconfirmed change in Google’s algorithm caused Inflow’s organic clicks to spike on March 25, 2021. Just a few days later, they dropped back down to normal levels.

Upon further investigation, we found out that our guide to Majestic SEO had suddenly started ranking in the Google search results for the phrase “explain the majestic benefits” — likely searched by students trying to avoid doing their homework for an unrelated topic. When it became clear that our guide was an irrelevant result, Google’s algorithm made the adjustment to the SERPs.

Ranking for irrelevant keywords isn’t an uncommon issue, especially in eCommerce sites with thousands of blog, product, and category pages. If you see similar fluctuations in sessions or keyword rankings over the next month, make sure to look at your revenue. If conversions and revenues are holding steady (or increasing!), there’s likely no reason to worry.

Irrelevant keywords may have been the source of the traffic change, not a negative hit from the core update.

What to Do if Your Organic Performance Drops

If your website traffic takes a hit after a Google update, and it can’t be explained by seasonality, keyword cleanup, or another obvious reason, try to confirm the algorithm’s effects through additional tools, and then reevaluate your overall SEO strategy.

Step 1: Connect the free Panguin tool to Google Analytics.

The Panguin tool (not to be confused with the Penguin update!) is one of our favorites for evaluating the timelines of Google’s updates as they compare to our site’s performance. It’s easy; authorize Panguin to view your Google Analytics data, and the tool will overlay Google’s updates on your performance data.

You can use the Panguin tool to look at older Google core updates and their effects, too.

Step 2: Check for patterns with Google Search Console.

If your site sees an unexplainable drop or increase in traffic, identify exactly where those changes are coming from with Google Search Console.

We use Google Search Console to see if a pattern of page types or keyword buckets has dropped or increased in search traffic.

See our example below:

Within a space of two months, one client saw a steep drop in clicks to a certain group of keywords. While this particular example was unrelated to a Google core update, if there had been an update around this time, this pattern would indicate we needed to look into the site performance a little closer.

By comparing this data with core update reporting from SEO experts, we can then determine whether those patterns are in line with the suspected algorithm changes. (Although Google typically doesn’t give details for which types of pages and industries are affected by a core update, digital marketers can often deduce what they are based on with a little detective work.)

If we see a similar pattern in page or keyword type, we automatically know what to focus on as we reevaluate our SEO strategy for that site.

Often, the pages that take a hit are those we’re already aware of — those with thin content, overly long content, or other low-quality SEO approaches — and give our clients even more motivation to tackle those issues.

Step 3: Reevaluate your SEO efforts.

Not all Google algorithm updates are obvious. Usually, it’s difficult to identify exactly which technical and content SEO strategies are being rewarded with core updates. We just see the final result in which kinds of industries and websites are most affected.

However, a core update can be the motivation your brand needs to reevaluate your current SEO strategies. If you’ve got thin website content, now’s the time to beef up your SEO copywriting techniques; if your tech SEO setup leaves something to be desired, get a developer on the phone.

Some of the biggest SEO offenses we see from eCommerce sites?

• Lack of content on product and category pages
• Poorly optimized content on product and category pages
• Extensive blog-like content on product and category pages
• Technical site speed and performance issues (especially in regards to mobile search)

While solving these issues won’t help before this summer’s update, it will put your site in better shape for the Google core updates of the future.

Start identifying these common issues with our DIY guides:

• eCommerce Content Audit Toolkit
• How to Conduct a Technical SEO Site Audit for eCommerce
• Content Consolidation & Pruning: Complete Guide

The Best Core Update Defense: A Good SEO Offense

When it comes to Google’s core updates, the best use of your time isn’t trying to “game the system” with backlinks and other quick fixes; it’s creating a long-term, well-rounded SEO strategy that builds high-quality content based on proven strategies. 

Need some help figuring those out? Our SEO strategists are always happy to help. (Contact us anytime for a free proposal.)

We also recommend digital marketers and eCommerce brands stay up to date on Google’s algorithm changes as they continue to roll out. For the best real-time coverage of ongoing updates, check out reporting from:

• SearchMetrics
• Marie Haynes
• Glenn Gabe
• Search Engine Land
• Barry Schwartz