It’s that time of year where everyone is excited to shop, eat, travel, and experience life. As a business owner, this is one of the busiest seasons of the year for you. Last year, my digital products from ICB Consults brought in thousands of dollars between November and December. I’m getting my business ready to triple sales numbers from last year. That means optimizing my website for the holiday season.
Mobile Friendly Design
Earlier this year, Google made it a priority, for websites to be mobile responsive. If your site is not mobile responsive, you are penalized with how your website shows up in the search engine. If you are using sites such as WordPress, Squarespace, or Bigcommerce, this comes standard. Most WordPress websites are sold with a responsive design. On Squarespace and Bigcommerce you enable it via your dashboard.
Cut Loading Time
The sizing of your images throughout your website factors into your website time. It’s super important to not host your videos on your website. This makes your website load slower when traffic lands on your website. You can host your videos on websites such as YouTube or Vimeo. Tools such as Pingdom, allow you to actually test your website’s performance.
Optimize Visuals
Make sure all photos are the same size for product photos. Most business owners just post photos on their website and call it a day. Make sure they are all the same standardize size across the board. Every image is named and has ALT images (something we have talked about in, Simple SEO Strategy For WordPress Websites and Creating SEO Friendly Photos For Your Website).
One Step Check Out
If you are utilizing PayPal as your only payment gateway for your shopping cart, I highly suggest looking into Stripe as another payment option. One thing most small businesses that use the shopping cart don’t realize is that, Shopify redirects their customers away from their site with PayPal. This one, increases your bounce rate, and two, allows your customers to leave your site. Stripe integration allows them to checkout on one page; inserting mailing, billing, card information, and coupons. Use this time to get familiar with 26 eCommerce Terms You Need To Know for your business, too.
Split Testing Opt-In
Right now is the perfect time to test which pop-up opt-in form is bringing you the most new website subscribers. In, How To Set Up A Free Opt-In To Grow Your Subscribers, there is a complete outline of how to set one up. Email marketing is super important this holiday season. You are going to want to create a plan solely for this.
Call To Action Banners
If your current call to action banners are not directing people to purchase, it’s time to change them up now. Just like A/B testing your subscriber opt-in, you need to do the same for your call to action banners. These banners should cause your consumer to have an immediate reaction when they see them. Here are some examples of Awesome Call To Action Banners and how you can create Free Call To Action Banners.
These 6 tips can help you optimize your website for the holiday season, while at the same time, help you increase sales. Preparation is always key; doing the work now versus waiting until the holiday season kicks in.
