The holiday season can represent almost 30 percent of annual sales for retailers, making it the perfect time to get a big boost in revenue. But consumers these days can shop around more and can do so right from their mobile phones, which makes capturing their attention more crucial than ever before.
Not only do you have to drive consumers to your site but once they’re there you’ve got to make those visitors happy and get them in the mood for holiday shopping. The website you use year-round won’t do the trick; if your website isn’t optimized for this festive time of year, you’ll lose out on a ton of shoppers who will pass you by in favor of another company with a little more holiday cheer.
Accept this gift of increased traffic and higher sales from us to you, unwrap these five ways to get your website ready for the holiday season.
1. Speed up your site.
Your website is going to be bombarded with traffic during the holiday season, and a lot of that traffic will come from consumers on mobile devices who are in a hurry, especially on Black Friday for example. If your website is slow, people won’t have the patience to stick around, they’ll leave and move on to another website that’s faster. In fact, a one second delay means a 7 percent reduction in conversions. So you need to make sure your website is working at top-speed for all of your holiday visitors.
You can quickly check out how your site scores on loading time by plugging your URL into Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Not only does this tool tell you how fast or slow your website is, but it also gives you tips on how you can improve your load time. Another tip for sites running on WordPress is to download the ShortPixel Image Optimizer plugin. eCommerce sites can be especially image heavy which can really slow down your page loading time. But with this plugin you can compress and optimize all of your images with the touch of a button to drastically increase your site’s speediness.
2. Add a holiday-themed exit-intent.
Many of the visitors to your website will leave and never return again. Instead of losing those precious leads, stop visitors in their tracks before they leave your site without purchasing – or at least subscribing to your email list – with a holiday-themed exit-intent. Exit-intent popups can track when a user is about to leave your site and send them a targeted offer at exactly the right moment. You can offer them a discount on their order if they check out now, or offer something special to convince them to join your email list.
You can easily create an eye-catching exit-intent popup. A good exit-intent offer can reduce your number of abandoning visitors and skyrocket your conversions this festive season.
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3. Add a retargeting pixel on your site.
If a user does leave your site without taking your desired action, you may never know if they’ll return to you. But with retargeting, you actually have the opportunity to ‘follow’ users around the web and send them targeted messages that can convince them to return to your website. A retargeting pixel is a small, unobtrusive piece of code that you add to your site that can track a user to Facebook or Google and display advertisements that will keep your brand top of mind.
Retargeting works so well because you already know that the user is interested in your business, so they’re more likely to be tempted by your offers. This form of online advertising is perfect for keeping your brand in front of consumers during this busy season and turning bounced traffic into conversions.
4. Schedule holiday-themed content.
Crafting quality content is key for driving traffic to your site, so create holiday-themed content that will bring in waves of new visitors searching for ideas and advice to get them through the holidays. Creating holiday-themed content that can help solve the problems of consumers during this stressful time will build brand trust and even if readers just came for advice, you can still convert them into customers by promoting your online shop and products naturally within your content.
Holiday themed content. https://www.marthastewart.com/1502352/thanksgiving
Don’t forget to sprinkle holiday-based keywords as well as buyer keywords throughout your blog posts in order for your content to be easily discovered on the web and by users who are ready to buy. Plan your holiday content months ahead of time so that you’re not scrambling to come up with ideas at the last minute and use a tool like CoSchedule to organize and schedule your content with ease.
5. Decorate your homepage for the holidays.
Your regular homepage isn’t going to inspire holiday shoppers. Make a great first impression on new visitors and get consumers in the holiday spirit as soon as they lay their eyes on your website by decorating your homepage for the holidays. Update your homepage with festive colors and fonts, and add some holiday cheer to your images to let shoppers know you’ve got great holiday deals.
Remember to put a spotlight on your holiday products and sales by creating clear calls-to-action for your visitors and eliminate unnecessary links that will distract people from your holiday promotions. Adding some holiday cheer to your website will put shoppers in the mood to buy from you this season.
Now that you have some great tips to get your website ready for the holiday season, you’ll be able to attract a ton of new shoppers to your online store and dazzle them with your holiday deals and your festive spirit. Be prepared to have to most successful season yet with your updated, holiday-ready website.