We are rapidly approaching the holiday season and with that, the onslaught of online traffic! It’s time for the last push to ensure your website can handle the increased traffic, engage new visitors, and maximize your sales. Here are three quick tips to optimize your website for the festive season- making your website work harder for you so you can sit back and relax during the holiday rush.
1. Deck the Digital Halls
With a new season comes new visuals and promotions. Its time to do some last minute decorating to gear your site towards the holidays or end of year. This can be done through updating graphics, changing colors, or even adding a holiday styled logo to the site.
- Create a Festive Aesthetic:
Update your website’s visuals with holiday-themed graphics to make your website feel timely and up to date. This can range from something as simple as subtle seasonal color palettes to more eye catching holiday banners or iconography that doesn’t disrupt your regular branding.
- Highlight Holiday Promotions:
Have any holiday promotions coming down the line? Now is the time to start adding them to your site so your visitors know to come back during the season! Go ahead and highlight bestsellers or seasonal items to encourage purchases before the holiday rush.
2. Streamline UX for Holiday Shoppers
The holiday traffic jams as people rush to get last minute solutions or gifts is not just regulated to the streets. Its time for a last minute website streamlining to prepare for the influx of online shoppers.
- Navigation: Simple and Seasonal:
Take all of your like items that may be in more demand during this time and group them together in a banner or in dedicated guides, collections, or bundles. This will pull potential customers in to bundling their solutions in one place quickly and efficiently- reducing bounce rate. Clear and intentional navigation will be key as customers are trying to move through websites efficiently we may have less time to grab their attention.
- Mobile Optimization:
All internet traffic is constantly moving over to mobile so we always want to be assuring our sites are quick and responsive on mobile. However, holiday shoppers are often looking for convenience and a lagging mobile site will more quickly lead to lost sales during this season. This is especially true if you are offering a service they may need to access last minute or quickly.
3. Clear Information & Easy Support
With increased traffic comes increased questions, confusion, and issues. Is your website equipped to handle a larger onslaught of questions, emails, or inquiries? If not- its not to late to fix that!
- Highlight Policies and FAQ
Move all of your shipping and return policies to a more prominent location this season to remove friction when questions inevitably come up. Shoppers want to know that their gifts will arrive on time. They want to know how quickly or how much a service will cost- and they won’t waste time on websites that don’t show these clearly. Transparency increases credibility and trust in these sections.
- Enable Customer Service Options:
If you have been on the fence about incorporating AI chat bots or FAQ now is a perfect time to use the increased popularity to ease your workload this season. Support is essential during all seasons but more so during the end of the year as customers are attempting to squeeze more solutions into a smaller time frame they may not wait around for you to personally get back to them if you’re swamped.
By preparing your website for the holidays, you’re setting your business up to handle the increased seasonal rush which will delight your visitors. Festive touches, streamlined navigation, and clear support options will create memorable experiences and build credibility you can leverage to make repeat clients.
So, as the holiday season approaches, make sure your website is ready to work just as hard as you do, keeping customers engaged and driving business growth well beyond the new year.
