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Optimize Your Ecommerce For The Holidays in 7 Days

As the days grow a bit shorter and our layers of clothing get a little thicker, we all tend to let our minds drift to one of the most popular times of the year: the holidays! While most of us are thinking of travel plans and shopping, the lucky ones among us are thinking business.

The holidays can spell opportunity for your e-business, and a few smart moves on your website can help you make the most of that opportunity. Here are a few web optimization tips that can help you increase your conversion rates and sales.

Day 1: Get your site into the spirit

Nothing says Christmas like those classic holiday colors. So spruce up your website with classic holiday red, green, gold, and silver. Throw in some holiday banners and Christmas imagery. Try not to overdo it, though. Save that holiday gaudiness for Dad’s Christmas sweater.

Day 2: Boost your conversions with a holiday themed landing page

Get your Black Friday, Super Saturday and Cyber Monday promotions jumping with an attractive, content specific landing page, especially if you’re going to have a PPC ad. Be sure to use key landing page elements like testimonials, call to action, return policies, etc. And don’t forget your mobile optimization.

Day 3: Shoot for those consecutive sales

Offer small ‘Thank-You’ gift to your customers once they complete a purchase. Customers will be much more likely to make a second purchase on your site if, for instance, your thank-you page offers 50% any purchase in the next 24 hours.

Day 4: Shake things up a bit

Do a little research to find your best sellers and top-rated products, and group them in exclusive showcase sections with limited-time offers. Be sure to highlight the time sensitivity of your offers with a page title like 24-Hour Deals. This is sure to produce some instant sales.

Day 5: Give your paid search campaigns some extra luvin’

Did you know that 50% of all holiday ecommerce sales are driven by paid advertising? Take advantage of this by designing specific campaigns with specific bid levels. Research your offerings to find which products will yield the highest returns.

You’ll also want to use some conversion tracking to research the success rates of your campaigns. This will help you understand how to vary your bids based on keyword performance, and target the best keywords for selling holiday products. Don’t forget the finishing touches by creating dedicated landing pages based on what your ads are offering.

Day 6: Give your customers a clear path

Holiday shopping tends to be competitive and fast, so you’ll want to make it easier for your customers to go from product interest to completed sale. Do so by streamlining your navigation.

Organize your website architecture to make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for easily, and to get to checkout faster. For instance, if you have a product that’s listed under only one subcategory, get rid of that subcategory and move the product to the top level category.

Day 7: Don’t forget your old bag-o-tricks

Email marketing is still one of the best tools for generating sales, so go ahead and start planning your exclusive email campaigns for that insane, post-Thanksgiving shopping weekend. Create some holiday themed newsletters with creative and catchy subject lines.

Your newsletters need to bring your customers to your site, so add some links to your content. If your newsletter is promoting products that appear on different pages within your site, add the proper links to those pages in your newsletter.

Lastly, be sure to plan appropriate days for sending out your campaigns. You’ll want to space them out so as not to annoy your customers.

Using these tips to tweak your website for the holidays can result in a super profitable season for you. Need more help? Let us help you with a professional touch.

–Eli Lucas, SEO Accounts Manager

Categorised in: Ecommerce, SEO

This post was written by downtownecommerce_admin