Every year publishers and writers gear with huge Black Friday SEO plans, complicated spreadsheets, and elaborate strategies. And every year the same truth hits: the prep matters, but your ability to react in real time matters more.

After running Black Friday teams for more than a decade, across multiple sites, markets and traffic sources, I’ve learned that the most valuable thing you can do during Black Friday isn’t to publish more, or to chase every keyword. It’s to step back, look at what’s actually happening, and redirect your energy into the things that are genuinely working.

What worked in 2024 won’t necessarily work in 2025. The SERP changes, consumer behaviour changes, retailer tactics change and Google definitely changes. So here are the things that consistently make the difference.

1. Real time data is crucial

Real time data makes a massive difference during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday frenzy. A proper analytics tool like Pares.ly, Chartbeat or Marfeel gives you much better visibility, but even GA Realtime is (just about) good enough.

There are two things you want to watch at the same time:

1. Which pages are getting traffic
This shows you where the audience is going, which posts have momentum and which ones might need a push.

2. Which products are converting
Make sure your affiliate links are tagged so you can see real time click events. This gives you an immediate sense of what people are clicking through on, not just what they are reading.

When you see a product converting well, give it more exposure. That might mean writing a quick second post once the first tails off, moving it higher on your site, or, if you have a network of sites, making sure it appears across all of them.

The teams that do well on Black Friday are the ones who keep an eye on what is working in the moment and move quickly to amplify it.

2. Sold-Out Products Aren’t Dead Pages

If a deal expires or a product sells out but the page is still doing good numbers, update it. Tell users that the deal got snapped up and give them strong alternatives for the same product or close competitors. Readers appreciate honesty and you will save yourself from wasting valuable traffic.

3. Long deals pages can work but do not be afraid to bin them

This one is always tricky. On the one hand, a large structured deals page with proper sections and headings can rank very well. On the other hand, the Black Friday SERP from Thursday to Monday is stacked against organic search. You get sponsored ads, chunky Top Stories boxes, forum threads, discussions and everything else pushing you down the page.

Sometimes the huge effort that goes into maintaining these big pages is better spent publishing more individual deal posts that react to what is actually happening.

If your long deals pages are working for you, here are a few tips to make them convert better.

• Use jump links with clear section headers so people can get to what they want.
• You will need some editorial at the top to rank better, but do not overdo it. Make sure you have a list or boxout of the very best or best converting deals close to the top.
• Check mobile. These pages often look lovely on desktop and then turn into a slog on a phone.

4. Not Everything Needs to Be Amazon

Amazon is the biggest online retailer but it’s definitely not the only one and some great deals can be found on competitors looking to muscle in on Bezos’ giganto baby. Check forums, competitors and UGC deal sites for deals gathering traction and jump on them quickly. Just make sure you check you have an affiliate relationship with the retailer.

5. Is a Deal Really a Deal? Do the Legwork for the User

This is one of the things that grinds my gears more than anything else publishers do during Black Friday and that’s just taking retailers at face value and pushing crappy deals for sub-standard products because there’s a 80% discount. There isn’t and people are wise to the fact that retailers push prices up prior to BF to shout about massive discounts during it.

Be on the side of the reader and check previous pricing and whether reviews are genuine, particularly if it’s a product or brand you don’t know a lot about. 

6. Expertise and Authority Matters

Lean into your authors’ expertise and your site authority. If you run a blog about cycling then don’t try and cover a laptop deal no matter how hot it is. If your expert writers immediately know a deal is hot then listen and get them to cover it. 

7. Headlines Can Make or Break You (Especially on Discover)

If you’ve got a strong Google Discover presence then you need to really think about the headline.

If you don’t have Discover it’s simple, use the product name especially if it’s a popular product and then the deal price then use the saving, ideally as a £/$ value rather than a percentage saving e.g.:

"iPad Air 13-inch 2025 now $999, save $300 in rare Apple discount”

What if a product is less well known, or in a category people are not as savvy about? Then go back to step and lean into your author expertise. Headlines like these can work wonders on Discover:

“I’ve been reviewing X for 11 years and this is the best X deal I’ve seen this Black Friday” or “... and this is the X deal I bought this Black Friday”

8. It's Not All About Google, But it Mostly is

Google is not the reliable click driver it once was, but it’s still vital. You should make sure you’re using all other channels you have available to you as well.

This can help you perform better on Google SERP and Discover too.

Make sure you post your best deals on social media as soon after publication as possible. Be selective about what you post on Facebook but I would post everything on Twitter/BlueSky/Threads unless you have a particularly engaged audience there.

If you have a large email database make sure your send deals that are valid and likely to still be around in quite a few hours so you don't send out expired deals, also make sure you link to a latest deals hub whether programmatically managed or editorial.

Push notifications are another great way to get some traction on a page early and get Google to notice it. Again like Facebook, be selective, you don’t want to lose subscribers you’ve put all the effort into getting. 

9. The Weekend Matters More Than You Think

On Black Friday every publisher and site with any affiliate potential spams out huge volumes of content and then… Saturday and Sunday goes quiet, but the audience is still there looking for deals.

This is great opportunity for those who have been stomped by the big news sites on Friday to get into Top Stories boxes and gain traction and I’ve often found Saturday to drive more revenue than Friday for a lot of sites. 

10. Live Blogs: Great for Top Stories, Terrible for Conversion

Over the past few years I’ve seen live blogs dominate Top Stories boxes for key Black Friday terms. If you have liveblog schema enabled it’s worth trying it. Here are some top tips to get it to work for you:

• The intro section is crucial. Keep this updated with all the top deals all the time. This not only keeps the page fresh it is also the only likely affiliate conversion you’re going to get on this page..
• Post regularly and use images and links to your other deals posts in the update posts.
• Keep an eye on performance. In my experience live blogs tend to begin to tail off after 24 hours. If a headline and intro update doesn’t bring it back then look to create a new live blog e.g. “Black Friday Live: Day 2 Deals”.

Want tailored advice for your sites or brands?

If you want help analysing your setup, crafting a strategy, or improving your Black Friday performance across Search, Discover, social and affiliate, feel free to get in touch.