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Black Friday

I woke up today and noticed that Google Trends lists “Black Friday Deals 2009” as the fifth hottest trend in terms of search traffic.

As I reviewed my other keyword tools, it looks to me like more than two million people will search the keyword “Black Friday” this month.

Here are some examples of the number of searches involving “Black Friday” in the most recent month available (September):

  • Black Friday Ads: 246,000
  • Black Friday Deals: 110,000l
  • Black Friday Sales: 90,500
  • Walmart Black Friday: 22,200
  • Black Friday Specials: 9,900
  • Black Friday Coupons: 5,400
  • Black Friday Flyers: 1,300

What is “Black Friday”?

Black Friday is primarily an American event referring to the popular shopping day of the Friday following Thanksgiving each year.

Many retailers provide deals on Black Friday to attract the numerous people who take that Friday as a vacation day.

The news media hypes up Black Friday as the busiest shopping day of the year in the U.S. — this has been true twice this decade (according to Black Friday Wikipedia).

The Black Friday history dates back to January 1966 when the Philadelphia Police department described the day after Thanksgiving as “Black” because the excessive shopping that day brought traffic jams.

Technically, the Saturday before Christmas is typically the largest sales day (but I’m not going to blog about that because there’s no nickname for that day (and only 36 people searched for “Saturday before Christmas” on Google last month (I checked!)

When is Black Friday?

Since Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November, Black Friday occurs between November 23rd and 29th each year).

This year (2009), Black Friday falls on November 27th.

How Businesses Can Leverage Black Friday on the Internet

One way for you to leverage the Black Friday trend is through search engine marketing — buying keywords (such as through Google AdWords) or search engine optimization (making sure that you have good content on your Web sites that represent what people are searching on).

I recommend you use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to review what people are searching on.

For example, if you are in the consumer electronics vertical, here are some of the top Black Friday-related keywords searched last month:

  • Black Friday Laptop: 2,400
  • Black Friday Electronics: 1,900
  • Black Friday TV Deals: 1,600
  • xBox 360 Black Friday: 1,000
  • Fry’s Electronics Black Friday: 590
  • Microcenter Black Friday: 590
  • K mart Black Friday: 210

The day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” should not be confused with the Black Friday 1929 which refers to one of the days following the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

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