As we approach the holiday season, you'll want to ensure that your online store is ready for increased traffic and holiday sales far ahead of time! Here are 10 easy steps to follow to get your share of the holiday market!
- Be sure your online store loads fast. Customers hate waiting for a slow home page to load. Need proof? Count how many seconds it takes for the Amazon Home Page to load. Optimize all of your slideshows, logo, and product photos to minimize the time it takes for your Home Page to render.
- Test your store on different devices. Make sure that the pages render properly on a laptop, tablet and smartphone. The majority of store traffic these days comes from smartphones and tablets.
- Test those coupons and discount codes! The most annoying thing for a shopper is adding all those great products to their shopping cart just to find out that the 20% Off discount code doesn't work. One lost sale...
- Apply a Header Announcement to your Home Page in order to put your Sale Events, Product Announcements, Discount Codes, and Free Shipping promos 'front and center' where your visitors will notice them as soon as they land on your website.
- 'Up Your Budgets' for your FaceBook, Twitter, and other Social Ads for the holiday season and ensure that the demographics and keywords have been fine tuned to yield good seasonal conversions. If you have a Toy Store for instance, do some research to determine what the popular toys are this year and include them in your keywords if you carry those items.
- Install a Holiday Theme on your online store. Since you do not have a brick and mortar store to get a Christmas Tree and lights, decorate your online store just as you would you physical one. There are a lot of Holiday Themes out there that are not difficult to install and they will add a seasonal look and feel to your website.
- Get those email blasts out ahead of time. Announce your products that are on sale, coupons etc. Don't wait until Dec 24th to send your holiday email blasts out.
- Stock up on items that you think will do well during the holiday season to be ready for increased sales.
- Engage a couple of Influencers in your market space and see if they can help to promote a couple of your holiday products.
- Use holiday wrapping paper, if possible, when you ship your products and include a holiday greeting card. Customers appreciate the little things and will  remember them when they need a product that you sell.
We hope that some of these ideas will benefit your business and help to increase your holiday sales.
Â