Now is the time to begin your Christmas and holiday preparations to your website. You only have 21 weeks left! I know, you think that’s a lot of time. But, do you recall the last time you did a website update? Think of all the back and forth on copy approval, price adjustments, marketing coordination, 404-Page not Found messages, and broken links. The weeks flew by and before you knew it, you’d surpassed your deadline. Don’t let that happen to you again. Start your website updates for Christmas now and ensure the stability of your website for your busy shopping season.
As a small business owner it is likely that the majority of your revenues come during the holiday rush. It is important to maintain your brand, your presence, your forward movement and your success. Follow these 5 points to have a great Christmas and holiday season for your business:
- Make sure your website is mobile friendly
- Update content on website (prices, descriptions, promotions)
- Streamline navigation for simple online shopping
- Enhance security of website
- Review your website SEO.
I will dive into each point below.
Mobile Friendly
In a previous post, I go over the statistics and reasons why your site must be mobile compatible in general. Six months from now, the demand for online, mobile browsing and purchasing will increase even more. If you are planning on using an email campaign with links to your website, the probability of needing a mobile friendly website jumps again. In summary, your mobile site must be adaptive, easily navigated, load quickly and accurately, and display your content wisely.
Update Content
Take the time now to rewrite your page content, from your company profile to product descriptions. Make sure your existing pages are up to date and make plans to add any additional pages if necessary to accommodate an expanded product line. Work with your Marketer to determine the holiday promotion you will offer and where it will be displayed. And topmost, confirm that your online prices are accurate and that any promotional discounts are applied correctly.
Streamlined Navigation
If they can find it, they can buy it. Keep this as your mantra and eliminate extra layers of menus, improve categorization and read our post on clear website navigation.
Enhance Website Security
Do you have a shopping cart? Can customers log in and view orders or change account settings? If so, be sure you’re using SSL. Otherwise, you’re jeopardizing the security of your user’s data.
Also, do you know how user passwords are stored? Are they encrypted or stored in plain text? Hopefully the former. Seeing your business in the headlines is great, but not if it’s due to a security breach of all of your customers!
SEO Review
Sorry, SEO is not a set it and forget it task. Ideally you should address SEO multiple times throughout the year (or continuously) but, if time is not in your favor for that level of commitment, you should, at a minimum, review it for your biggest online shopping time of the year. So what does an SEO Review entail? Let me start by saying that SEO is not keyword stuffing for your industry terms. SEO is the meaningful process you take to enhance your position in organic searches.
You’ll want to review your content to ensure it offers value and for which people will want to link to. Confirm your page titles are descriptive and accurate to the content on the page. Improve inbound links to your website by completing social profiles, submitting product reviews on external sites or commenting on other blogs. Keep consistent with the addition of new content throughout the year. These items are not all inclusive to SEO as each search engine has their own weighted algorithms.
Conclusion
When the weather is hot, you may not be thinking of your Christmas, holiday and Q4 revenues. However, you should take the time now to make updates to your website to capture those sales when it is time. Stability of your website during high-traffic seasons is important. If you plan now, you’ll avoid disorienting customers, missing pages and incorrect information. Review your site’s mobile compatibility, update page content and add pages if necessary, streamline your site’s navigation, enhance your website’s security, and keep on top of SEO.
For clients with ecommerce websites, Caffeine prefers to schedule development in a way that complements the peak buying seasons. This approach is safer for the stability of the site, avoidance of disorienting customers who are already familiar with your website design, and gives the Marketing team healthy access to Technology support when they need it most. Caffeine has a successful history of website design, building and maintenance. We offer free 30 minute consultations if you are considering updating your website to meet the demands of holiday shoppers. Contact us today!