Every merchant looks forward to the holiday season since it offers the chance to make a huge amount of sales in a short period of time. Yet, every year, some stores are left behind. To make sure you’re not one of the ones who miss the boat, make sure you use these e-commerce tricks to bring the buyers to your site:
Ramp Up Your SEO Efforts Now
The best products on Earth won’t sell if nobody knows they’re there. Since Google sometimes responds to SEO rather slowly, you should start your ranking efforts far in advance. Make sure to keep your SEO efforts going during the season, too, so you don’t get overtaken in the middle of it.
Advertise…Carefully
Advertising is essential for all businesses. However, you’ll need to be very careful with PPC ads, such as AdWords, around the holiday season. Many people seem to lose all sense when it comes to advertising at this time of year, and bid prices will go through the stratosphere. It will very likely be best to avoid all bid-based ad markets at this time of year.
Get Your Site Into the Spirit
Redo your home page design to include holiday motifs, and get a holiday-themed logo to use on every page. This truly does get people into the buying mood. Make sure to keep these changes simple, and preferably, restricted to the graphics. You don’t want to disrupt the site’s actual operation.
Check Your Site for the Necessities
Make sure that simple things won’t derail your sales. Be sure that your SSL certificate is valid, won’t expire before the season ends, and that your security seals are displayed. These things are essential for gaining buyers’ trust – and their orders.
Run a Sale
Sales are sure bets. However, at this time of year, it’s easy to get caught up on a price war with your competition and end up giving away all of your profits. Always do the math before hitting the button to activate a discount. If you can’t meet a competitor’s price without losing money, go ahead and let them sell themselves right into the ground.
Try Add-On Giveaways
Shoppers love deals where they buy something at full price and get something else “free” to go with it. Of course, the key is to make sure you only do this with products that have enough of a margin to allow you to make a profit despite adding in the extra item. As for the extra? Make it something that you haven’t been able to get rid of all year. Then write it off your taxes as a marketing expense.
Feature All of Your Seasonal Products
Make sure all of your seasonal items are front and center. This is your one chance to sell them at full price this year, so don’t be shy! Ribbons, artificial trees, and items related to other holidays of the season should all be right out there. Also feature anything that tends to be used more during the holidays. These things range from cleaning supplies all the way to new curtains.
Be Ready to Grab Post-Christmas Shoppers
Most stores roll up their seasons either on Christmas or the day after. However, many people get gift certificates or cash on Christmas and then use the next week to spend it all in a big bonanza. Keep your sales and advertising up and running all the way until the middle of January to get these people to your site! Just change your ads to refer to “winter” instead of “holidays” so that people know that they aren’t expired.
These are some of the most impactful things you can do to increase your holiday sales. Put them into effect at the appropriate times to get the full effect.
