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Market and Sector Type:: Media & Marketing
Article Type:: Analysis

Getting your website ready for Christmas

Article Date: Oct 15 2007

When you’re gearing up for the biggest sales opportunity of the year, being well-prepared is everything – and online is no different. Mario Thomas, MD of Leeds-based digital agency Chapter Eight, offers his tips for getting your website ready for the rush.

1. Start early
There's no use thinking about Christmas in late November. If you want to make a splash this year then it's time to get your website in order and ready for the festive season. Make sure your point-of-sale, advertising, PR and marketing all link back to your website and work to drive as much traffic as possible to you.

2. Have a spring clean
You need to get the basics right. Spelling, grammar and missing images – they all count in the battle for eyeballs. If your website looks amateur, expect amateur performance at this crucial time of the year.

3. Make sure it works
Hot on the heels of bad spelling and missing images come websites that simply don't work. If a button says 'Buy Me' make sure it actually allows that product to be bought. There's nothing worse for visitors than getting a 'page not found' error – a surefire way to dampen their Christmas cheer.

4. Market It
Getting visitors to your website is your key goal, so a well structured search engine friendly website is a must. Make sure that if you decide to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising that the keywords you select make sense and are related to what you sell. Make sure your meta-tags are up to date and don't use any techniques which will get you banned from the search engines altogether.

5. Entice them
Everybody likes a good deal – make extensive use of discounts, coupons codes, offers and other promotions around the website. Give your customers a reason to make a purchase. Use email marketing to send out an offer and watch the traffic beat a path to your website.

6. Convert them
With a heavily laden basket, the last thing you want is for a customer to go skipping off to a competitor's website. Make sure it's easy for them to see a way to your checkout – big clear text or obvious 'basket' buttons are the order of the day.

7. Get them on the way out
Remember standing in the checkout queue with your parents? All those nice sweets waiting to be upsold. Well, the same can be achieved in your online checkout – offer products linked to those in the basket and sell even more to your visitors.

8. Make your website sticky
After you've made the sale, customers will only come back if they've had a quick and easy time of buying your wares. Make sure you make it simple for them to review their order and don't forget to send them a receipt. Contact after an order is the primary reason people come back.

9. Keep in touch
When customers leave your online store you need to make sure you do everything to get them back. A regular newsletter and offers and promotions based on previous purchases are great ways of getting that all important repeat visit. And in the run-up to your last posting date before Christmas, send another newsletter inviting customers to buy that last-minute item from you.

10. Run a post-mortem
After the dust has settled, it's time to see how effective your campaign was. You need to know what each visitor cost you and made you, how many people visited but didn't buy, and what your most popular products were.

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