The holiday season is closer than you think! With less than three months until Christmas, it’s important to start getting your website ready for the holidays. Plus, with the big Cyber 5 shopping days (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Sunday, and Cyber Monday) fast approaching, that means you have just under two months to get your website ready!
The 2021 holiday shopping trends are likely to follow similarly with 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full force, online retailers will face increased demand from online consumers again. Thus, it’s essential to consider some of the biggest trends from the 2020 holiday season for this year! Here are some ways to prepare your website for holiday e-commerce:
- Get Your Website in the Holiday Spirit. Your website is likely the first thing customers will look to when searching for holiday gifts and ideas. Make sure that you get your website in the holiday spirit with holiday-themed banners, headings, and homepages. In addition, look at your most highly visited pages and focus your efforts there. Finally, create advertisements and update your keywords for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to help bring more traffic to your website.
- Social Media. Make sure you’re using social media! If people aren’t visiting your website, social media is likely the go-to place for customers to get holiday shopping ideas, advertisements, and promotions. If you don’t already have a social media presence, then you’ll want to start curating, building, and engaging an audience before the start of the holiday season. Consider implementing a social media marketing strategy to encourage followers to pay attention to your channels – think giveaways, promo codes, etc. And don’t be afraid to use your social media to show off your holiday offerings and upcoming discounts!
- Holiday Promotions. Speaking of promotions, make sure that you choose your holiday promotions carefully to bring great value to both you and your customers. For example, starter packs with a sampling of your products are an excellent way for businesses to make more money while enticing customers to buy more products in the future. You can also offer a discount on first-time purchases. Another great way to leverage holiday promotions is by offering a monthly subscription box of your products. Customers love subscription boxes for themselves and as gifts for their loved ones to surprise and bring joy throughout the year.
- Traffic. During the holiday season, you should expect increased traffic to your website. If your site can’t handle too many customers at once, they could experience a site outage, negatively impacting sales. Make sure your website is ready to go by testing its reliability and speed to avoid these issues. You should also ensure that your inventory is fully stocked to avoid sold-out products and prevent customers from going to a competitor.
- Checkout and Shipping. The holiday season is a great time to evaluate your checkout and shipping experience. Make sure that checkout is easy for users by simplifying it to just one page. The more steps buyers need to take to purchase, the less likely they will complete the purchase. You should also enable guest checkout so customers don’t need to create an account on your website and offer several payment and shipping options. Options should include express shipping so last-minute shoppers can feel secure that their gifts will arrive in time.
Merrimack Digital is here to help get your website ready for the holidays! We specialize in driving leads and growing revenue for our clients through web and SEO services, content creation, and digital marketing. We’ll help create a unique and personalized marketing strategy for your business to increase exposure, engagement, and revenue. Visit our website to learn more and get a FREE website audit today!
Sources:
https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/holiday-readiness/#steps-for-preparing-for-the-2021-holiday-season
https://rechargepayments.com/blog/your-guide-to-ecommerce-holiday-planning-for-the-2021-season/
