The week before Thanksgiving, when the turkey is defrosting in your refrigerator and you’re trying to figure out how to squeeze Auntie Lorraine in at the end of the dining table, the nation’s retailers begin to bombard us. On radio, television, and in newspapers across the country, it’s impossible to avoid the chatter about post-Thanksgiving sales.

Traditionally, there has been only one way to join in on these “Black Friday” festivities. You must awaken at 4:00 AM after eating the biggest meal of your life. You must slug 5 cups of coffee and drive erratically to the nearest big box store. Then, shivering all the while, stand in line with complete strangers in the pre-dawn darkness. As the clock strikes 5:00 AM, prepare to claw your way into the entrance and down the aisles to seize the digital camera or IPod you’ve been dreaming of. Enjoy!

Luckily, back in the early 1990s Al Gore invented the Internet, and the average consumer no longer has to put up with the overblown theatrics of Thanksgiving weekend sales. While some discounts are limited to in-store purchase, most retailers have realized the true value of leveraging their Website to drive holiday sales.

So how can you take advantage of your Website to get in on the action?

In the last month, we’ve written a lot about Website optimization, often referred to as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a truly effective way to rank higher in the search engines, and reach users who are interested in your products and services. However, there are no shortcuts to excellent SEO. To rank high, you need many pages of quality content, a sufficient number of inbound links, and a logical internal navigation structure. In essence, you need to be one of the best sites on the Internet for your particular mix of keywords. That doesn’t happen overnight.

So while you’re working on improving the optimization of your site, consider starting a pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign. PPC ads appear on the right hand side of major search engines like Google and Yahoo, and are a great way to drive traffic for keywords that are relevant to your business. To start, you select a list of keywords that represent the key components of your business. Then, write specialized ad copy that matches up with them, and select the amount you’re willing to pay for a user to click on your ad. It’s a “pay to play” system where you only pay if a prospect actually clicks. In this way, it’s a much more efficient and targeted advertising program than many forms of traditional media. You’re only showing ads to consumers who have a demonstrated interest in your product and you’re only paying when the user chooses to click over.

The best part about PPC advertising? You can set up a campaign and start running ads instantly. So if you’re sorely in need of holiday traffic, you can have a campaign up and running pronto. Major PPC advertisers like Google and Yahoo offer an array of tools to monitor and measure the results of your PPC campaign. This is important, because you want to keep the campaign on budget while making sure your click charges are justified by back end sales from the PPC effort.

PPC advertising can be a boon for consumers and retailers during the holidays. It’s an effective and efficient way to get your message out. And who knows, in the course of sifting through the wide world of Internet retail, maybe you’ll find a nice Christmas or Hanukkah gift for Auntie Lorraine. Word has it she has her eye on an IPod Nano.