We are only five months away from Christmas. From October to December it is the greatest shopping time of the year. People are prepared to spend money and throw caution to the wind so that they can find the best holiday gifts for family and friends. Majority of us are thinking how we can take benefits of the holidays and earn a little money for ourselves to support us for the holidays.
ACTION NOW! It is absolutely not too early to start developing your online store ready for Christmas shopping and at the same time you really don’t have much time to waste. I’ve included a month-by month cheat-sheet to make certain you get the HIGHEST possible sales for this Christmas.
August: There are companies promoting ecommerce software to guide you act quick and spend your time wisely so that you can look for a way to take advantage of the holiday spending. Test out suitable ecommerce solutions if exploring to potentially change solutions. Now’s the perfect time to make such changes since you won’t have much time to make sure changes going forward. If not happy with present shopping cart, you can either explore for a proper one or consider a few major carts such as InstanteStore, Yahoo Store, Volusion, 3D Cart, CommerceSpace, NetSolutions and Early Impact Product Cart. Just remember, equipped yourself with best value ecommerce software.
September: This month is the appropriate time to start sensible on SEO work. Conduct keyword research engaging tools like Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) or WordTracker.com that offers free trial. Since time is restricted, you may target “buying keywords” first and then “research/browsing keywords” later on. You may ask “What’s the difference”? Purchasing keywords are more certain for example “Ipod Nano 8GB best price” or “Apple Ipod Nano 8GB” whereas browsing keywords are more common “apple ipod nano”. Begin writing articles, press releases and syndicating content to establish links to your store’s webpages using the keywords you’ve determined.
October: Do build your in-house e-mail list. Keep in mind you contribute something alluring or value to your visitors in exchange for their e-mail address and name. You may want to put yourself in your customer’s shoe while doing this. Then make sure you distribute your interesting list and good promotions at least once a week. You must have them get used to obtaining and reading your e-mail offers. This will in directly get the early Christmas shoppers start buying now.
November: Technically, Christmas shopping spree gets going! Do A/B and/or multi variate split testing to boost your results. Make sure to test out your offers, headlines, layouts and even prices to see which combination works the best. Can use Google’s free Analytics + Multi-Variate testing (http://www.google.com/analytics) to do this for free. You’ll definitely see small changes can sometimes bring you A FANTASTIC difference in results. Optimize all these and make sure you don’t leave any money on the table. Do bear in mind put up CLEAR notices telling your customers when’s the LATEST date to order to ensure they have it before Christmas. Definitely a good time to hit your e-mail list with Christmas several offers.
December: Do continue hitting list with Christmas offers and continue making tweaks to create visitor-to-customer conversion. It is essential that you Do NOT make any major changes. Split testing is fine. Ride the wave and make sure your supplier and fulfillment house can manage all your orders.
With all of these information at your fingertips and with such a little time left, you will find out that with your time directed in the right way and the aid you need you can build a victorious Internet business.
