According to BBC News, Britain is set for its busiest online shopping day of the year, with an estimated £320 million to be spent online today.

Despite being in the midst of a credit crunch, UK shoppers will be venturing online to buy a record number of items online in the run up to christmas, the IMRG (internet trade body) estimating the UK’s Christmas online retail sales could reach £13.6bn. This also coincides with a huge increase in christmas related search engine optimisation, as advertisers attempt to cash in on the frantic shopping months of november and december.

A search for “christmas present ideas” shows how little the big advertisers are prepared for this time of year however. You would expect at least some search engine optimised landing pages perhaps?! The big dogs are having to do with PPC ads to attract visitors at this time of year. Many of the listings found for such searches are pureley affiliate or adsense sites which link through to the bigger distributors.

Considering how lucrative this time of year is, i would have expected to see the like of Play, Amazon and similar sites to rank highly for such search terms and to cash in on the christmas boom! So, if your listening Play, your new years resolution is SEO in time for xmas 2009!