Is Google UK serving the best results for Black Friday searches?

With Black Friday just over two weeks away, it seems that shoppers are buying into it, even if some retailers have been reluctant.

With Black Friday just over two weeks away, it seems that shoppers are buying into it, even if some retailers have been reluctant.

Trends data shows that searches on Google UK for Black Friday now rival those of other major shopping events, even Christmas.

Indeed, in 2014 Black Friday related queries were searched more than Christmas queries.

However, searchers from the UK looking for Black Friday deals are often more likely to see US sites than the UK retailers they may be expecting.

So is Google showing the ‘wrong’ results, or have UK ecommerce sites missed a trick and failed to optimise effectively?

I’ve been looking at some data put together by PI Datametrics.

Search volume

The growth in search volume is remarkable, and the stats underline just how much it took off last year.

Searches for Black Friday rose from around 1.5m in 2013 to 5.5m searches last year.

 

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Black Friday search trends

Google Trends data shows that search behaviour is changing, with November now the primary month for deal related searches.

Product searches are changing as a result of the growing adoption of Black Friday in this country.

‘Product + deals” search terms have seen a 102.2% rise year on year as customers become accustomed to looking for deals in November.

I would also suggest that, as well as the growing popularity of Black Friday, the increased tendency post-recession for retailers to have pre-Christmas sales has helped to drive this behaviour.

Indeed, a report from the British Retail Consortium has found that October’s sales were down year on year as shoppers hold on for Black Friday deal.

Top Black Friday product searches

However, the UK’s retailers haven’t yet perfected their SEO strategies for Black Friday.

This means that even those retailers who actively ‘take part’ in Black Friday aren’t as visible as they might be.

Note that exact match domains can still work too..

Top sites in Google UK for Black Friday

It’s no surprise that Amazon is the most visible site for the term, while some news sites,

The Telegraph for one, are actively targeting the term with lots of content, providing more competition for retailers.

Telegraph Black Friday SEO

US sites dominate Black Friday on Google UK

The UK’s retailers face some strong competition in Google UK from US sites.

The chart below shows nine US sites which are ranking for the term ‘Black Friday’.

US sites Black Friday

For example, Target.com dominates many related search terms.

However, though it does deliver internationally, it isn’t actively targeting UK customers (it doesn’t even show prices in GBP for example).

Its search ‘success’ in the UK is a side effect of its optimisation for US searchers.

Target search performace

There are three factors here:

  • US retailers have had years and years to optimise for search terms related to Black Friday. This gives them an advantage.
  • By contrast, UK retailers have been slow to optimise for the term. One simple tactic is to maintain a Black Friday landing page all year round. Curry’s has done this and therefore has the best rankings of any UK retailer.
  • Google isn’t as good as it should be at serving the most relevant results for the location. It’s nothing new – look at Google UK SERPs for recipe searches for example. I would bet that the vast majority of searchers would prefer to see results from UK retailers.

In summary

The search stats suggest Black Friday is here to stay which means that, however much some retailers may not want to buy into it, they are going to have to.

Many need to improve their SEO strategies around this event, starting now for next year if they haven’t already.

As for the Google question. I can see why Google is showing US sites that are well optimised for the term, but it isn’t necessarily showing the best results for the search location.

Yes, some US retailers, like JC Penney and Target, do ship to the UK, but it’s not cheap, and I suspect searchers looking for Black Friday bargains would be deterred by the costs.

Others, like kmart, don’t serve UK customers so their presence in the UK SERPs doesn’t help users.

Cynics may suggest that Google is looking to push UK sites towards PPC, but I think it’s more likely that it hasn’t found an effective balance between showing locally relevant sites and those relevant to the search term.

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