The holiday season poses many challenges to business owners. Companies must ensure they’re doing everything right to maximize their sales. After all, even the smallest mistake can cost them their customers. That’s because people don’t waste a second buying from your competitors if you don’t live up to their expectations.
Add the thin deadlines and the overall holiday pressure to the mix, and it’s a recipe for disaster. So, optimizing your website is a must. It’ll help you keep up with the incoming traffic and maintain healthy sales and profits.
Remember, failing to optimize your site during the holidays can mean that you might lose a major chunk of your annual revenue. So, it’s best to optimize your website before any such thing happens. As a result, you can make the most of this Christmas. And the joy and cheer of the holiday season will spread to your business, too.
So, without much further ado, let us dive right into it.
Table of contents
Optimize for Mobile
Mobile shopping is in full swing nowadays.
The pandemic has made people realize that convenience and comfort are very important to them. And so they’ve resorted to shopping online through their smartphones.
Almost 40% of online orders come in from mobile users. Mcommerce is expected to reach $728.28 billion by 2025. This is a staggering amount. So it only makes more sense that you prepare your store for mobile shopping.
Your first step should be to ensure that your website is ready for this influx of mobile traffic. Start by testing whether your website is truly mobile-friendly. Google has an excellent testing tool you can use.
Make sure that your website is responsive. Choose different breakpoints, so your website layout doesn’t distort on different screen sizes. Enable mobile payments, so your customers have an easier time checking out.
Page Loading Speed
Adding on to convenience and comfort, another major factor to focus on is speed. Users want to get their holiday shopping over without wasting too much time. Hence, page loading speed is very important to them.
Most visitors expect a website to load within a single second. If a website takes three or more, it’ll start to lose visitors. After all, nobody likes to wait so long for a single page to load.
Focus on reducing the loading times of your landing page and product pages. Since it’s the holiday season, you’re probably going to redesign your page. New images and graphics are bound to be a part of it. These can take a significant part of your loading times.
Reduce the size of these images by compressing them. Use a tool that focuses on lossless compression so you don’t have to compromise on image quality. Lazy loading is also a great way to increase loading speeds.
Here’s a nice tool to measure the loading speed of your website.
Keep Website Layout the Same
Remember to opt for the same website layout. Your audience will never like your website if it is too busy or looks cluttered. So, go for a clean look. It makes things far easier to comprehend and saves your audience time and confusion.
It also highlights your web design’s responsiveness. The more user-friendly it is, the better. It just attracts more people to your site. As a result, increasing your traffic and sales.
It’s also necessary to know that your audience won’t waste a single minute leaving your website if it confuses them. This is just you giving your competitors more power. So avoid this at all costs.
Special offers and Discounts
The holiday season can never be complete without special offers and discounts. People are always attracted to brands that offer discounts. So, keep this in mind when optimizing your website for Christmas.
Adding a banner on the top of your website is beneficial. This way, all those visiting your site will immediately see what discounts you’re offering. The best part is that they won’t have to move around your site looking for affordable deals.
Don’t forget to run special holiday-themed campaigns on your website. You can even offer product bundles to make last-minute Christmas shopping easier for your customers.
Remember, people have to buy lots of presents for their loved ones. And, naturally, they’d opt for things that help them save as much as possible. So, offering holiday packages and discounts is a must in website optimization. Plus, it’s a great way to spread a little Christmas cheer.
Optimize Your Checkout
A major problem most ecommerce stores face is shopping cart abandonment. This is when shoppers load up their carts with your products but don’t go through with their purchase.
One of the biggest reasons behind this is the long and complex checkout process. Do you ask your customers to log in before they can proceed to pay? Do they see too many pop-up ads at checkout? Or are you asking them for too many details?
All of these can annoy your shopper, causing them to abandon their carts and go shopping somewhere else.
An ideal checkout process should be short and straightforward. Simplify the process to give your customers as much convenience as you can. Limit your checkout to a single page. Don’t clutter it with a long form.
It’s best to only ask for the required details, which your customers are comfortable providing. Adding a progress bar at the top will also ease the shopper’s mind. The simpler your checkout process, the lower your cart abandonment rate will be.Â
Wrapping Up Your Holiday Website!
As the holiday season approaches, don’t forget to revamp your website and optimize it for the occasion. Of course, there are many other things to consider. But we’ve covered some of the top ones guaranteed to ensure your website is a success during Christmas. We hope it helps. Good luck!
