Oluwafemi Samuel Ojo

10 Hot Ways To Boost Your Web Sales Through The Holidays One of the first things you learn as a retailer is how vital good holiday sales are to the business's survival. Holiday e-commerce can make or break a business and provide retailers with a little cushion of security that will keep them afloat when times are lean again. So it makes sense to do everything you can to optimize your website to boost holiday sales, especially on days like Black Friday or the pre-Christmas rush. All the elements of marketing, sales, support, and user experience (UX) need to line up perfectly during the holiday season. It’s crucial to use every tool at your disposal to create a satisfying online experience for your customers. Think about all aspects of the online experience, not just your website or social media, to do your holiday e-commerce and marketing right. Let’s look at 10 of the most critical aspects of your website that you need to get right for the holidays. 1. Optimize for Mobile There’s nothing more critical to your success than being mobile-friendly. Ensure your site is loading correctly for all iOS and Android mobile devices. After all, we’re living in a mobile-first market, and your site must reflect that you know. Don’t be surprised if people discover you using their phones, check out your social media and specials on their phones, and follow the sales funnel to the end using one handheld device. ● Streamline the Checkout Process Sometimes you do everything right to entice a sale, and the customer moves neatly through the funnel — until right at the end, where the checkout process becomes clumsy, slow, and confusing. Before you know it, they’re gone. You’ll be amazed at how quickly enthusiasm drains away from buyers who can’t check out efficiently. The bottom line is that it’s worth spending a lot of time streamlining your checkout process to ensure a simple, pleasant experience for the user. ● Speed Up Your Site Not only is a fast, responsive website a far more rewarding online experience for buyers, but it’s also one of the site's attributes that Google rewards when figuring out page rankings. The quicker your page and all its various media open, the higher you will place on the search engine results page. Embedding your content, particularly video, into your website is critical, but ensure no cookies or third-party applications are slowing you down. ● Perfect Copy Is Nonnegotiable Don’t give visitors to your website any reasons to worry about your authenticity or reliability. You can’t afford to have them wondering if you are a legitimate seller. What that means is no spelling errors or grammatical mistakes in the copy. Make it clear, simple, and easy to read. Use a third-party service to optimize for SEO, work hard on your various headlines, and massage your copy until you get it right. ● Insist on High-Resolution Images and Videos Excellent copy is only half the battle on a web page. You also need your visual images to tell a story and show off the quality you claim you’re offering. Ensure you have the highest resolution work regarding images, logos, thumbnails, icons, and all the other visual elements that do an essential job in signposting your website and sending the right signals to consumers. ● Create Attractive Holiday Specials Let your customers know you care about their experience of the season, and be strategic with your e-commerce holiday marketing. How about a great offer to thank them for their loyalty? Or a compelling bundle of products and services at an excellent price for a limited time? Maybe a few big giveaways to get the community excited? When you try something different, you create attention and get people to focus on your brand at a critical time when they are psychologically poised to purchase. ● Work on Abandoned Cart Enticements There’s nothing more disheartening than losing a sale at the last hurdle. You’ve managed to lead a client through the entire sales funnel, but something makes them quit right before they complete the purchase. Find ways to follow up over the next few days to encourage them to finish what they started. At the very least, try and find out why the sale stumbled for them so you can avoid it happening to someone else. ● Be Relevant on All Your Social Channels and Emails Your goal during the holidays should be to stay top-of-mind with your customers. That means reaching out on social media and via email to inform them about your holiday offers and what’s in it for them. Plan a campaign with a theme to carry through all your communications. And preload your posts to run automatically over the holidays so that you don’t have to worry about keeping up while the holiday rush is in full swing. ● Review and Update the Ways You Ship Most people understand that the global supply chain has been disrupted dramatically since the pandemic began. The postal service is not operating as well as it once did, either. Your reputation takes a big hit when you can’t deliver on what you promise, so you must ensure every aspect of the chain is working correctly before the holidays begin. You probably won’t be able to make it right when you’re swamped and under pressure. ● Give Your Site a Festive Makeover Last but not least, have a little fun with the look and feel of your website during the holidays. Some bright colors, maybe a few “dad jokes,” and a little festive cheer go a long way to boosting holiday web sales. A holiday theme also gives buyers a signal that the offer they’re seeing is not going to last forever, which is an incentive to make the purchase now. Are You Ready for the Holidays? It almost goes without saying that during the holidays, your website is the most valuable tool you have at your disposal to make your web sale dreams come true. At Zionike, we’re passionate about optimizing every aspect of your site for robust sales, and we have the experience and dedication to get it right quickly and affordably. Reach out to a Zionike sales team member today, and let’s see how we can get you in tip-top shape for a season of plenty.