That beautiful time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve is one of the busiest—and most profitable—for businesses across all industries, but especially for retail businesses and local service providers, such as house cleaners and caterers.
Make the most of the merriest time of year, by ensuring your website is ready for visitors. Follow this checklist. You still have time, but you will need to act fast.
Decorate your website
Think of your website as your storefront and add some seasonal designs or themes to invite people in.
Not only is it fun for visitors, but it shows that your website is active and regularly updated. You can typically change or add elements, such as graphic page headers, animated GIFs, holiday-themed images, personalized messages, and holiday graphics without needing to do a complete redesign. You can also typically shift the color scheme.
You might even consider creating a holiday version of your logo, for example, by simply changing the color scheme, dusting it with snow, or wrapping it in some flickering lights.
Just be sure to keep key components in the same place, so shoppers know where to find everything.
Develop some holiday content
If you have a blog, newsletter or social media following, start rolling out the holiday content as soon as possible. Shoppers will be actively looking for deals and gift ideas. Others will be searching for decorating ideas, recipes, cooking tips, stress release ideas, winterizing tips and more.
Create content that is relevant to both your business and this time of year, and share it often.
Create a holiday coupon
Offer a limited-time coupon that your customers can’t resist. If possible, go beyond the typical 10% or 15% off deals. Coupons that offer a free item with a purchase, “half off” or “buy one, get one free” are more likely to bring people in.
Make sure it is visible on the Home Page of your website, and share the offer often, starting with your blog or newsletter, and then through social media daily.
Make sure your website is company ready
Broken links, slow loads times—or worse, website downtime—can frustrate shoppers and drive them away. Take some time today to quickly audit your website, if you haven’t done so in a while. From your mobile phone, visit your website, click through the pages and links, and confirm that everything is working as it is supposed to and that all information is accurate.
Additionally, make sure your catalog is updated, and highlight any new inventory, product lines and special offers.
How Can We Help?
With some quick changes, you can ensure your website is ready for the holidays. We can help! Contact us today to discuss your needs.